Mark Braden was working his way through the painful process of clearing out his father’s house after he passed away when he stumbled into something that connected him to his mother Alice Marie Braden … boxes full of Christmas village scenes that she hand painted decades earlier in their Milwaukee home.
“Oh my God!,” Braden said to himself when he found the boxes. “She was extremely talented and made all kinds of things. She wanted to sell all of her work, to get it out there to people, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m taking her work to the market.”
Braden made his first appearance at the Georgetown Flea Market on Dec. 4, where Orion’s Attic spotted him. We were down there doing some buying and recruiting more vendors for the Flower Avenue Holiday Market. We saw his chest-high display of intricately detailed Christmas villages and knew we had to bring it to Silver Spring on Dec. 10.
The broadcast engineer will also offer all kinds of other Christmas items — from holly-painted glasses to silver flatware.
While his day job keeps him busy, it means the world to Braden that he is able to share his mother’s work with other people.
“That’s what she wanted,” he said.
The work of Alice Marie Braden will add cheer to any home this holiday season.
