If you've been reading this blog for a year or longer, you may remember that I make homemade Valentine's cards every year. I mentioned this in a blog last February. I've been doing it for about 25 years or so and every year at about this time I go a bit nuts.
Right now, my living room is a complete mess, with supplies everywhere and bits and pieces of crud on the floor. It's not normal card making crud either. This year's cards will be made out of metal mesh, felt and cord. There's no typical "pretty card paper" to be found, In fact, I haven't made a Valentine's card out of "pretty card paper" in years (1999?). And the last time I did, it was watercolor paper which had an original painting on it. My cards are often made out of all sorts of household materials typically unintended for greeting card usage. Sometimes, I will make cards on canvas: meaning oil paintings or some type of 3-D design which needs to be affixed to a perfectly flat surface. Usually though, my cards are overgrown, migraine-inducing projects for me. (Who can ever forget the year I commissioned a metal shop on Cleveland's west side to precut metal plates out of steel? Then I glued on tiny glass beads into the shape of a heart.) These cards are as much work as building a full-size Eiffel Tower out of wooden sticks in my backyard.
If I survive the ordeal, in your mailbox, you'll find the large envelope which contains the artwork, some chocolates and a child's store-bought greeting card intended for the third-grade classroom: One Direction, Superman, Scooby Doo, Justin Bieber, Charlie Brown or whatever is currently popular. Recipients love the entire package and that feels wonderful. (Over the years a few husbands have thanked me for sending their wives, my old friends, these cards. The husbands claim I takes the pressure off them.)
Every year I send out 5 or 6 dozen of those things and the mailing list is constantly evolving. New friends are shocked when these unknown packages arrive in the mail. (You see, I don't tell new friends in advance about them.) They phone me, expressing some form of mixed appreciation/shock/glee. I've been accused of "having waaaaaaay too much time on my hands" And, as this is the real world, others do fall of the list. People who may have been art of my life 10 years ago, but whom I no longer have an active friendship with, no longer get cards. Unless, of course, they phone me on February 15th screaming, "WHERE'S MY GODDAMN CARD?" Then I do resume them the following year. (This has happened.) But I just cannot make 200, or more, of those things and mail them out every year. I wish I could, but I can't. I don't have the money or time. This year's list is just under 60 and that was with ruthless editing, which I unfortunately must employ. As it is, cards go to Europe and 10 states besides Ohio.
I began making these cards while studying art in school, but not as an art project. They're simply a creative outlet for me. Today, everyone who knows me well, knows that my regular artistic endeavors are: hairdressing, commercial window design, creative writing, food prep and Valentine's Day cards. That's probably enough. But who knows what the future holds?
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