Barb Lund

 

Barbara Lund began her Department 56 career working with her father, Neilan Lund, who originally brought the idea of Dickens’ Village to Department 56 in the mid -1980s and has designed Village pieces for Dickens’ Village, New England Village, and the North Pole for the last 29 years.

When the Villages became increasingly more popular Neilan needed someone who could assist him doing research on the history and architecture of each piece. Barbara also spent time learning the precise art of designing the houses. When Neilan retired, she stepped in to take the reins and now is well versed in creating the buildings doing extensive research to make the pieces extremely authentic. “Our options in design are almost limitless so long as the factories have the technologies to create what we have asked for. Now having said that, we do push the envelope a bit each year. As the Department 56 team is fond of saying, ‘these little houses are not widgets.’ Sometimes we ask factories to solve challenges, and once they find the solution, we have something new to offer our collectors.”

One of Barbara’s favorite parts of designing buildings for Department 56 is “meeting the many people who took long, and sometimes very long trips to meet me. This would be true for all the artists and I bet we all find it pretty humbling. I know, I do.”

With her imminent retirement in 2019, Barbara designed one final Dickens’ Village piece that is destined to become a special part of every collectors’ Village – the “Russell Street Books”. She will be attending three special events where collectors can buy and have the piece personally signed. These stores and their locations can be found on the Department 56 Events calendar. The piece honors the whole Lund family as Russell Street was name of the street where Neilan and his wife Ruth raised their daughters who have all participated in the Villages since their first introduction in 1984.

Department 56, the leader and gold standard in lighted collectible Villages, is part of the Enesco family of brands and is located in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.