Merry Christmas, Y'all! December '23

This year I decided I was finally going to make my own Christmas cards. I’ve always loved receiving cards, but have been woefully absent from making a list and celebrating in the giving side of the tradition. 

Opportunity struck when a friend from the Reaper days sent me a Facebook invite to her card-crafting, Love, Actually-watching, healthy-snacking holiday party along with five other delightful women. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed this in my life and I hope we can make it into an annual event. Thank you, Dani!

I decided that if I was going to be hand-making Christmas cards, I might as well stretch my art muscles a bit. To send cards out to even half the people I wanted would require planning and time, so it only made sense to make a small scale production of it. 

I first tried linocut printing in high school. It was fun, but so was everything else we did because Ms. Wood was a legend. In 2011 I took a relief printmaking Maymester class at UNT where, over three weeks, we dove into standard materials and techniques. We were a small cohort of art students from a range of disciplines, and the grad student in charge had a killer playlist. The studio in Hickory Hall had massive garage bay doors we kept fully open, taking in the fresh spring air as we hyperfocused on making prints for 6 hours a day.

I enjoyed printmaking immensely. Periodically over the years I have daydreamed about combining linocut and watercolor, so that’s what I decided to do with the cards. It would be fun kicking a long-considered art idea out of my brain and into the world.

Working on this project was like taking a trip to the past, bringing back fond memories of setting 2mm stones in my jewelry classes. Of building and cutting black rubber molds while listening to podcasts all day. Of demoing watercolor techniques under an Elmo document camera to a room full of 6th graders. 

I am most in my element when I am working on something precise with my hands. Always have been. Encouraged by the wild success of this first attempt, I aim to make one print every month for the year of 2024 (except January, which I spent planning this project and doing a little traveling). I will be sharing progress pictures on my Instagram, and writing a blog post telling the story of every print. 

Until next time.