Falmouth Artist Salley Mavor's Holiday Tree Debuts At The Cahoon Museum

Press release from the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce:

11/13/2025

The Cahoon Museum of American Art presents Falmouth artist and author Salley Mavor’s Pocketful of Posies Holiday Tree, on view through December 21st.

The tree features 13 handmade ornaments in her Mavor’s signature style. Each ornament is a delightful vignette inspired by the fabric relief illustrations Mavor created for her children’s book, Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes. The tree is also embellished with a garland of wooden spools and beads, whimsical hand-stitched felt purses, and yellow painted wooden stars.

On December 20th, at 11:00 am, Mavor will present a Storytime and read selections from two of her children’s books, My Bed and Pocketful of Posies. After the reading, Salley will be available to greet children and visitors, sign books, and answer questions. Admission is free, space is limited, and registration is required at cahoonmuseum.org.

The program is part of the Museum’s Winter Open House, which runs from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on December 20th. Admission is free and includes craft activities, refreshments, and admission to all the exhibition galleries.
Pocketful of Posies won the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Picture Book and the Golden Kite Award for picture book illustration from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Salley Mavor grew up in the seaside village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in a family that connected with their community through art, music, and dance. At home, there were always art supplies close at hand and a sense that time was available for creative pursuit. Drawing with crayons was never enough for Salley. She remembers feeling that her pictures were not finished until something real was glued, stapled, or sewn to it. At a young age, she held an open-minded view of what constitutes art, writing in a 1964 school essay at age 9, “Art is everything… records, clocks, blackboards, people, snowflakes, and everything. That is why I like art.”

This press release was produced by the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author’s own.