Bridgewater couple's Nativity scene featured in worldwide showcase

Using toothpicks and sewing needles, Karen Loccisano sculps tiny figurines into a beaming Baby Jesus, his mother, Mary, and her husband, Joseph.

Michael Palan meanwhile creates detailed shelters where the Christmas story can be shown.

Each holiday season, Palan and Loccisano bring one of their Nativity scenes to the Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, where more than four dozen such scenes from artists around the world are now on display.

The Glencairn Museum on Cathedral Road off Huntingdon Pike is a nonprofit focusing on religious art and history dating back to ancient times. It was built as the castle-style home of the late Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn and was given to the Academy of the New Church schools in Bryn Athyn upon her passing in 1979.

The Glencairn's annual World Nativities Exhibition is one that Palan and Loccisano wouldn't miss. This year's show runs through Jan. 28. Glencairn is also celebrating the completion of an 18-month infrastructure replacement project

The couple, who are married and live in Bridgewater, started doing Christmas artwork a few years ago after Palan awoke early one Sunday morning thinking of a set for a Nativity scene. He asked his wife if she would make the figurines.

"I had a cardboard mockup by the end of the day," he said.

They are commercial artists but make the scenes to showcase "the best work we could do." In thanks for their talent, they try to "bring glory to God. We do it with the Nativity."

They made another Nativity scene for the Vatican to represent America with Route 66 in the background, but the one they created for the Glencairn exhibit focuses on a Flemish village.

It's based on the painting, "Census at Bethlehem," by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In it, an angel with the face of a smiling child with Down syndrome pays tribute to an unknown Flemish artist who first painted such a child. And Palan researched thatched roofs to make his realistic stable.

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Doylestown firm also has exhibit at Glencairn

Navidad Nativities in Doylestown also displays at the show. The company makes creches for a variety of customers.

Co-owner AJ DiAntonio is exhibiting his personal collection. He started with a small Nativity set but as he found more unusual figurines, it grew. He now has 178 pieces.

Nativity scenes appeal to him because "basically, it's the only part of Christmas that's Christmas," he said.

Other displays point to the cultural background of their artist and country of origin. Those from Guatemala and Nicaragua are painted in bright colors while one from Norway includes snow and Mary and Jesus with strawberry blonde hair.

A Nativity scene from Venezuela was made out of woven banana leaves. And a large Neapolitan Presepio set from Italy is alive with the Magi, shepherds and their animals who came to see the newborn Christ Child, as well as people staying at the nearby inn, too crowded to take in Joseph and Mary. It pictures Bethlehem as a small town filled with visitors that first Christmas.

This year is the 800th anniversary of the first Nativity scene, a live one created by St. Francis of Assisi using the real animals whom he tended in Greccio, Italy, said Leah Smith, Glencairn Museum educator.

A busy home turned into Glencairn Museum

The Glencairn Museum was once the 18-bedroom castle-like home where Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn raised their nine children. Later, 50 grandchildren would join them for Christmas celebrations. A grand drawing room where many Nativity scenes are displayed held a dining room table that could seat 60 but still wasn't big enough for the Pitcairn clan, Smith said.

A museum tour includes an elevator ride to the tower where you can see for miles, including the skyline of Center City Philadelphia.

The Nativities show fits nicely with the museum's mission and with a Pitcairn tradition. The family had a large, three-part display case with curtains that hid Nativity scenes until Christmas morning, when they were opened for the children to see. The display case is in the current exhibition.

As she passed an ancient Egyptian libation bowl and rooms that house Roman and Greek antiquities, Islamic and medieval art, Smith pointed to the museum's beautiful stained glass windows based on those in European churches.

"This is our busiest time of year," she said.

Exhibition dates and times

The museum is located on Cathedral Road off Huntingdon Pike. The World Nativity Exhibition is open noon to 4:30 p.m. daily until Jan. 28 except for Dec. 11, 12, 24 and 25 and Jan. 1. Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for students and seniors. Children 4 and under are admitted free.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bryn Athyn's Glencairn Museum puts Nativity art on display