Mid-Career or End of Career Christmas Card Retrospective

2000 printed on silver metallic paper

For fifteen years I HAND-MADE Christmas cards each season. The tradition started when I was in college studying art and photography. I used the opportunity to showcase my ‘quirky’ sensibility and ‘dark’ humor. For you photo geeks out there, the first year, I produced hand-tinted cyanotypes. This involved painting a chemical compound on 100 individual 5x7 pieces of watercolor rag paper (in almost total darkness), waiting for them to dry, projecting/exposing an image onto each paper, developing each paper in a chemical bath, drying them and adding a bit of hand-applied color. This does not include the time it took to write a personalized message, label, stamp and mail them. This also does not factor in the time it took to recover from my subsequent mental breakdown.

 

In hindsight, I can only attribute my insanity to a multiple-personality disorder; my other self posing as Martha Stewart.  For the past three years, I have been on Christmas card sabbatical in an effort to cut down on holiday-induced stress. Besides my medical insurance no longer covers the stays at the sanitarium. This year, instead of spending thousands of hours collaging, printing & painting cards, I scanned previous years’ cards for your enjoyment.

 

In anticipation of the protests, “Hey, that’s cheating!” I have a few retorts, some of which are not appropriate for posting. Many of you either—A. put your cards on display to show-off how popular you are or B. throw them in the recycle bin or worse GARBAGE as soon as you open them.

 

My digital card retrospective is eco-friendly. No trees were killed in the making of this blog, Nor did I spend what would equate to arming a small country for the production and distribution of the cards.  And if you don't like them--delete.

2006

2005
2004
2003
2001

1999

1998
1997
1996
1993
1992
1991
1989
1988
1987