Susan Topp Weber

Susan Topp Weber has always enjoyed Christmas. She was the second child of a large family that grew to include ten children, so there were always excited little ones at Christmas. Since her father was in the Army, Susan moved often, including Japan, and Germany, where she graduated from high school. The next move was to New Mexico, where she attended the University of New Mexico, learned to love the Land of Enchantment, and moved to Santa Fe. A chance discovery of her talent in making Christmas ornaments in 1969 led to brisk sales of her creations to an enthusiastic public at juried craft fairs. This led to her starting Susan's Christmas Shop in historic downtown Santa Fe in 1978. This shop as become such a destination that Susan was asked by Gibbs Smith of Gibbs Smith, Publisher to write a book about Christmas in Santa Fe. The first edition was published in the summer of 2010, and quickly sold out. Many customers bought one copy, and then returned to buy a stack of them. The revised and expanded second edition of Christmas in Santa Fe is even better than the first, as it will has eight more pages and nine new photographs of breathtaking quality. The first printing of the revised and expanded edition sold out in four weeks. It was printed again and sold out again. The revised and expanded second edition was printed for the third time and continues to sell well at Susan's Christmas Shop.

Now Susan is writing more books and she has also produced a DVD based on a lecture she gave at the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe. The DVD is titled Southwest Nativities by Pueblo and Navajo People From the 1950's to the Present. It is available in English, German and Italian. One of Susan's customers likes it so much that she watches it once a week and says she has it memorized. Susan sold the DVD at the International Congress of Nativitiy Collectors in Innsbruck, Austria and she will sell it again when the International Congress meets in Bergamo, Italy in October of 2016.

Susan's second book is Nativities of the World. It launched at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market in the summer of 2013. It is a hard cover book of 160 pages with dust jacket. It includes color photographs of 96 nativities from all over the world, most of which have never been in a book before. One tiny carved nativity is stuck on the end of a wooden kitchen match. The appendix lists where exhibits of nativities can be seen in Europe and the United States. It is being sold at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., the Art Institute in Chicago, the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, and at Susan's Christmas Shop in Santa Fe.

Susan's third book is Nativities of the Southwest, summer 2015. It is also a hard cover book of 160 pages with a dust jacket. It includes color photographs of a hundred southwest nativities from the Pueblo, Navajo, Spanish and Anglo cultures of the Southwest. The appendix has a map of the pueblos of New Mexico as well as driving directions to the pueblos that make nativities. The index lists the artists by their ethnic identity and by the material they use. This book is also sold in many museum gift shops.

Susan's fourth book is about the shop she started in 1978. The title will be Susan's Christmas Shop. It is a hard cover book of 160 pages with a dust jacket. It has color photographs of a hundred handmade products that Susan selected to sell since she opened her doors. Many of these items are no longer being made, so it is like a scrapbook for customers who have been coming to Susan's Christmas Shop for decades. Susan loves to autograph her books and personalize them if the customer requests it.

Susan loves to write, so more books will appear in the future.