My selection of new works from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection takes us from the Season of Advent to Epiphany Sunday with illustrations of the Christmas Story. The five pieces were made by folk artists of the Americas in a wide variety of mediums. We see Mary, Joseph, and a welcoming Baby Jesus in a painted wood carving of the Bethlehem manger from the El Pinabete workshop in El Salvador in a style made famous by the folk art center of La Palma. The ass is missing from a charming reversed applique stitched Nativity scene by an unknown textile artist from the Kuna people of the San Blas Archipelago off the northeastern coast of Panama, but joining the expected ox in the stable are a lamb, a cat, a rooster, and a dove. Mexican Folk Artist Cristino Flores Medina turns the birth of Christ into a joyous village festival (left) in a pen-and-ink drawing on amate tree bark paper, once the "papyrus" of the Aztec Empire. Two Kings (and one on the way) follow the star to the Bethlehem stable in a hammered metal sculpture from an oil barrel by an unknown Haitian artisan. The Magi celebrate an Andean Highland Christmas in an elaborately embroidered arpillera cloth panel by Peruvian Textile Artist Maria Ramos Sanchez. Images of this unusual assortment of craft pieces can be found in The Coming of Christ gallery in The Life of Christ section. (John Kohan)