Why Cards

Brighten someone’s day.

To me, that is the foundation for my greeting card designs.

Starting as a young child, I found inspiration from my mother, who hand-cut, colored and built wonderful birthday invitations for my siblings and me. I enjoyed making cards for my family and friends. Joyful, funny, cute, meaningful, outlandish—whatever the occasion or moment called for.

In the early 1980s, in need of a way to support my budding career as a professional dancer and inspired by the designs of Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw of the Pacific Northwest, I began exploring artwork using one or two colors. As my medium I used linoleum blocks, which I had worked with in grade and high school; I enjoyed the challenge to use negative space more mindfully. I hand-printed and sold over a thousand greeting cards, but the endeavor ended when my dance career ended in the early 90s.

In 2015, I revived the designs, not as hand-printed cards (the linoleum blocks were showing their age), but using an inkjet printer. I like the way the inkjet mimics the velvety look and vibrancy of the original cards. And on bright white card stock, the designs now appear crisper and livelier.

Along with the linoleum block reprints, I have developed new series of cards based both on characters from childrens stories I am developing and on the universal characters found on the signs that guide us through the world.

As in the 1980s, the cards are again just a piece of my artistic journey that includes videography, photography, performance, graphic design, and storytelling.

–– Jeffry