- The traditions of Christmas have long been a favorite subject for the artist.

For centuries, painters and sculptures have sought to bring new light to this tale of birth and hope so, it is with Indianapolis artist Lee Dunnington Jones from her studio near the Canal in Broad Ripple, she works to create amazing pieces of sculpture and design, but unlike many other artists, Lee's work is always found with a strong length to the past.

- So I graduated in painting and a couple of years ago I started making, making figures.

And it started from my mother.

She wanted a, she wanted a head for a figure that she was making.

She wanted to make Santa figures about this tall for, for people for Christmas.

And I had been working with paper that summer doing some stuff with the Children's Museum.

We were making a mural out of handmade paper and teaching the kids about recycling.

So we were recycling our own paper.

And, and then I was just beginning to look into casting and making molds and using paper.

'cause paper just all of a sudden seemed to me wonderful stuff.

It's, it's really lightweight.

It can be really strong.

You can make anything out of it, provided you have a mold or imagination, I guess.

I don't know.

Anyway, mom called me and said, I want, I need a doll head.

So that was when I started.

That one was just kind of a crafty thing.

It was an exercise.

And then I built a, a larger one, about 36 inches tall.

And he was, I was, I wanted him to be a father Christmas, who, who saw the world as it is and was, was a little bit sad, but believed anyway, that there was still magic.

I made him out of old stuff, all old stuff, army blanket, the fox collar from my high school coat, old leather coats and bits and pieces here and there.

And I guess I wanted him to be sort of a statement of, of learning to see something in what a lot of people would think was a pile of nothing.

All scraps and coats that you might give to goodwill or something.

So I think that was what I was, what I was after.

I mean, after I did the little ones for my mother and I, and I knew I could do it, then I took off in a direction of trying to, trying to make a statement, trying to make him be something.

- That's something has led to a wide array of artistic creations.

All made from discarded or recycled materials, buttons, beads, fabric, paper, even plastic ornaments are all transformed into the objects of an artistic vision.

And as with many artists, Lee puts part of her own spirit into each of her works.

- I made a, a guardian angel for a friend, a very dear friend of mine who was a, a, an abused child.

And so I, I went with, with the same, with the same kind of thing.

I wanted to take my pile of, of scraps and stuff that looked like nothing and turn him into something that she could see to help her.

She needed a guardian angel.

And so I made her one.

The angel probably was in the making for about six months before I ever started on him.

He just was kind of in my head somewhere.

And, you know, every once in a while I'd think about him and he just, it was, it was really kind of weird 'cause it was, he just sort of started appearing to me.

So when I sat down to make the moles and make the patterns for the clothing, he was, he was there.

- If angels speak to Lee from one side, then Mother Nature must surely speak from the other.

Lee seems to possess an almost environmental approach to art where her ideas and creations are part of a regular pattern of growth, like the seasons of the year.

- It, it's important to me to take old junk and make it, I'm, I'm a, I'm a pack rep for one thing, but for another thing, I'm, I'm a recycler.

I believe in recycling.

I believe I'm a gardener.

That probably is the best, best way to put it.

When you garden, you put stuff in the ground and it grows, and then you chop it down and you put it in the compost heap, and then you put the compost heap back in the garden and start all over again.

I mean, when you, when you work with that kind of cycle all the time, it, it kind of spills out over in the other areas of your life.

- For more across Indiana stories, go to wfyi.org/across Indiana.