Artist Started Career With A Nickel
“When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to get out of McDonald County. I thought, ‘If I ever get out of these hills, I’m never coming back.’ Now it’s all I live for, spending time in McDonald County. In fact, I’ve moved my studio to the banks of Big Sugar Creek and spend most of my time here.” Linda Lindquist Baldwin Belsnickles Artist
Linda Lindquist Baldwin of Joplin is a McDonald County native who makes sought-after collectibles. Her sculptures have been in museums, galleries and private collections around the world, and it all started with a nickel.
Baldwin grew up in McDonald County. When she graduated from high school, her family did not have running water or electricity because her father got angry at the electric company for cutting a certain tree he did not want cut down.
“I carried water from a spring, heated it on a wood stove and took a bath in a galvanized tub behind the wood stove,” she said. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to get out of McDonald County. I thought, ‘If I ever get out of these hills, I’m never coming back.’ Now it’s all I live for, spending time in McDonald County. In fact, I’ve moved my studio to the banks of Big Sugar Creek and spend most of my time here.”
In 1986 she was a single mom working two jobs and going to college at night. She went to a garage sale and bought a book for a nickel. It was about antique papiermache Santas called Belsnickles. Intrigued by these Old World style Santas, she mixed up a batch of papier-mache and made her own.
“I had never had an art class. I had no artistic ability that I knew of,” she said.
Her first batch was not very good, she said, but she took them to a craft sale and people bought them. It just happened that a scout from Better Homes and Gardens was there and said no one else they knew of in the U.S. was doing this and that she was renewing this old, lost art form of papier-mache.
Better Homes and Gardens referred her to the Smithsonian and the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City, and they displayed her sculptures. She was featured on CNN and NBC Nightly News.
“All of the sudden everybody knew about my Santas and I started getting calls from all over the world,” she said. “There was no way I could keep up with the demand.”
She was approached by Schmid, a company from Boston that was a very prestigious art company and a leader in the industry, she said. They started reproducing her pieces. They wanted to do something special in the bottom of each piece, and she suggested a nickel. The product line’s logo is “From a nickel to the Belsnickle.”
The line grew from Belsnickles to include snowmen, Snowsnickles; patriotic figures, Samsnickles; Halloween figures, Broomsnickles; Easter pieces, Haresnickles; and others.
She was with Schmid for four years. Then Enesco approached her. It was the largest gifts and collectibles company in the world and offered her a contract in 1996, she said.
With both companies she traveled a lot, doing inspirational speaking, television shows across the country, signings, etc. She even had some brushes with fame. She met Richard Paul Evans, an author whose books have been made into Hallmark movies, and gave him one of her Santas.
One of her pieces, “Santa with Yule Log and Girl,” won a first-place Collector’s Choice Award.
She was at an artists’ breakfast once and she found out she was the only artist there who did her own sculpting. The others sent a sketch or a drawing to the company that would reproduce it, and a sculptor there sculpted it. Sometimes they had to go back and forth a few times before the company was able to capture the artist’s vision, she said.
In 2002 she quit traveling so much and terminated her contract with Enesco.
“Since 2003, I have done my own,” she said. “A lot of original work and exclusive edition.”
She did continue selling to retail stores through 2008 but stopped after that because of escalating manufacturing prices. Now pieces are only available from her.
To order online, go to Belsnickles by Linda Lindquist Baldwin on Facebook or call 417-499-6604. For more information, go to lindalindquistbaldwin.com.