Past

1998

Claus Air

"We Love to Fly – and It Snows"

The idea was to create a card that looked like an airline ticket (the kind that existed before E-Tickets and Homeland Security). The story was simple and dealt with what I saw out my window as I flew home on NorthWest Airlines.

2000

Salute to Edward Gorey

One of my favorite illustrator/writers, Edward Gorey, passed away in 2000. He personified dark humor in a rhyme scheme – sort of like Dr. Suess' not so demented, but much more demonic twin. His work revolved around the macabre and the morbid but always with sly pen and ink illustrations. I paid homage to him by riffing on his Gashleycrumb Tinies Alphabet, in which Victorian era children meet their demise in ABC order. In my version, I used my friends names and the evils and dangers of the Holidays.

2001

The Saga of Bad Baby New Year

I started thinking about my card for the year in early September 2001. And any sort of feeling of goodwill toward man I had was sort of thwarted by the events of the day. But my reaction was to personify the year (which was a rough year for me anyway) and kill him off!

2002

Whistler

This was the first year I was not going to be in any home for Christmas, instead I was going to be in Whistler British Columbia to go skiing (which would be my first time).

I was also in the middle of grad school so instead of working on an epic poem, I made it short sweet and cleverly designed and cut. I was also doing a bit of recycling here as my skier was an icon I had designed for a competition for the Torino Winter Olympics (I lost).

2003

Glamour Puss Holiday!

While still in grad school I started to fall back in love with my illustrative technique and also my love of puns – and of course drag queens. So in 2003 I opted to create a series of high fashion Christmas inspired glamour puss' and showcase them as if they were in an Andy William/Dean Martin Christmas Special circa 1963.

2003 (part B)

MoHoly Night

As I had just spent a semester learning about the Bauhaus and Lazlo Moholy Nagy, an Hungarian Constructivist designer and instructor.

I created a Mix CD of Holiday tunes for my classmates and called the disk MoHoly Night in honor of him.

2004

If Santa were from…

I had a realization that my Christmas cards were going all over the world to my very vast network of friends. So I had opted to celebrate them and poised the question, what would Santa be like if he were from their hometowns

2005

Santa's Sisters

I moved west after a stint in the Midwest and noticed that in California, there are Santa's all over. I figured if Santa Clause was based on the real St. Nicholas, then all these "Santas" must be related.

2006

The Sad Ballad of Dexter Hall and Bowser Holly

Puns are the lowest form of humor and I love them. I started playing with the words from “Deck The Halls” and turned it into two elfin sailors hell bend on hunting a bear-whale.

The bear-whale is an animal that is part Polar Bear and Part Orca, like a mermaid. The idea for the bear-whale occurred when one page of a drink coupon book from Southwest Airlines folded on another. They have pictures of their planes on the coupons.

2008

The Holiday Account of Dr. Frankincense

This year I was thinking about how hard Christmas can be when you have to deal with feelings of past Christmases. It started out with The Ghost of Christmas Past going to a therapist because she couldn't tell if people loved or hated her. And while trying to conjure a name for her Dr. and playing with Puns, I stumbled on "Dr. Frankincense." It was too funny for me to keep him a therapist and had to make him a mad scientist. The whole story took a different twist but the same meaning – that Christmas Pasts really do haunt us.

Also this is the first poem to be fleshed out past the card. Check out Christmas Present.

2009

Inside This Years Christmas Tree

When I was little, I didn't know what a cupid was called. I just saw these red-silhouetted children at Valentines Day and for some reason I dubbed them Tidrats. (I think it came from a variation of Titmouse, but I could be wrong).

A few Christmas' earlier I noticed that ornaments mysteriously fall from the tree once in a while. I figured there was just some gremlin in the branches doing the deed and that he was related to the Valentines Tidrat.

This years card I wanted to be an adventure – not something sentimental – so I made it into a chase down the limbs of the Christmas tree between a Tidrat and a ragdoll ornament in a race to save her friend a snowgirl made of glass.