Joanne Hobbs, Bardstown, KY

Goosefeather Christmas Trees

Joanne Hobbs began her career making goose feather Christmas trees in 1980. She had always wanted to have a goose feather tree and couldn’t afford one. Finally, after looking at many pictures of goose feather trees under a magnifying glass, and through trial and error, Joanne taught herself how to make these traditional German Christmas trees.

The process Joanne uses is very labor intensive, from cutting the feathers off the quill to washing, dyeing, drying and attaching them to wire and then the branches of the constructed tree. A typical 19” goose feather tree uses the wing and tail feathers of six geese, which the birds annually shed.

Joanne’s trees have been featured in productions of the Santa Fe Opera, are in the collection of the Owensboro Museum of Fine Arts, the Moravian Museum in PA, at Whitehall Mansion in Richmond, KY, and many historic homes all over the country. Her trees have been sold through Bloomingdales, were featured in Early American Life magazine, and have even been shipped to Germany, their country of origin!

Joanne’s work can also be found at the Promenade Gallery, Berea, KY; The Log House Gallery, Berea, KY; True Kentucky, Glendale, KY; the Kentucky Museum of Arts & Craft, Louisville, KY; My Old Kentucky Home gift shop, Bardstown, KY; The Homestead, Bardstown, KY; and at the Kentucky Artisan Center in Berea, KY.