A Bevy of Yule cards

A bevy of Yule cards

A wise friend once suggested that a nice way to fill the well when feeling sidelined was to look at past work. And it’s customary toward the end of the year, and on one’s birthday, our personal year, to “take stock” and look back on the triumphs and trials of the past year. The trials, tedious as they were, are not the subject of this journal. Suffice to say, they kept me from my art studio most of the year and away from that particular strand of my creative life.

It’s gratifying, to say the least, to see the fruits of past labors and to gather some of them together for a family photo. The cards pictured here are a significant harvest of the last three decades. They were popular enough for me to invest in offset printing them, some of them multiple times. They still sell in retail outlets and at Revels shows around the country in December.

This crop of Yule cards is available over at the Prose and Letters storefront, some of them in limited quantities. They are available as singles, or more economically to mix and match in 10-packs for the best price of all.

I’ve shared in this journal some of my inspirations and art techniques that led to the making of some of these cards, in particular, The Longest Night, The Horn Dance, Yule, Dona Nobis Pacem, The Holly and the Ivy, and Let Union Be, (and again here).

Many of these cards are approaching “limited edition” status. The writing is on the wall, so to speak; the greeting card market is changing. It won’t make sense for me to print these cards in such large quantities anymore. Sales have been slowing down in recent years, though people seem to be buying more prints as gifts. The evergreen favorite, Fra Giovanni’s “Letter to a Friend”, is available here, as well as many others.

Though it’s becoming old-fashioned to send cards in December, Yule cards are still a nice way to greet friends and share a little bit of art and verse.

{ 0 comments… add one }

Leave a Comment