Holiday Cards. Performance Anxiety Anyone?

It all started many (don't ask how many) years ago, in a tiny dorm room at San Francisco State, ironically designed by the same guy who designed San Quentin. Armed with typing paper, paint brushes, and green and red paint, I splatter painted my way into what became the first of many holiday cards. What can I say, it was the 80's and splatter paint was big. Over the years the process, and the artist, have evolved -- moving from splatter paint and potato stamps to color copies and finally desktop publishing. I've rarely missed a year, with the exception of a couple when my daughter, Mara, was small. As she's grown she's become an active partner in the process and each year has been a tougher act to follow than the last. We start asking each other in November what we'd like to do this year and we never have a clue. As a matter of fact, we rarely know what we're doing when we're actually doing it and some years, like this year, the cards go out on Christmas Eve (or later...) We've run the gamut from the rediculous to some pretty deep thinking. I'm still not sure how I feel about this year's card - but here it is.

Since I've been working a lot with images of bird, mostly corvids and raptors, I really wanted to do something with wings. I also love using words as integral visual elements, so used a favorite quote from Mother Theresa to illustrate the image of a wing and a recent poem my daughter wrote for the heart. (And for folks who want to know what the words actually say, we've put them on the back of the card this year.) The background is textured and painted acrylic medium and the whole kit and kaboodle is scanned and assembled digitally. (Gotta love Photoshop!)

Happy Holidays! The sentiment in this year's card goes out to all.