Beverly Chavez Floyd, a designer and decorator known for her holiday decorating at La Posta, has admired them for years, and finally found one to call her own. She purchased the tree, rough and rusted in a historic way, in Juarez and brought it home to turn it into something beautiful.
“I was raised around art,” Beverly says. “My dad was an artist, and a lot of my family in this area are artists.”
Beverly revived the metal tree with branches made of rebar by using high grade acrylic turquoise, brown, yellow and green paints, an antique gold finisher called Rub ‘n Buff, sponges and her fingers to get the desired look on the apples, birds, leaves and candleholders.
“I wanted to take advantage of the rust behind the colors,” Beverly says. “I wanted to make it natural.”
The Tree of Life is a symbolism and function blend of European and Indigenous Mexican culture. Trees historically serve as symbols of fertility and rebirth. Traditionally, the trees refer to the story of Creation, the Nativity or the Resurrection, but artists throughout the years have created different trees for various meanings.
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