Sunday, December 21, 2008

Valentines for Santa Claus


I spent the Solstice Eve making Valentine cards (examples, above). Sounds like an unlikely project just a few days before Christmas. But I am making them in anticipation of applying for the Artist Valentine grant, which has a deadline of January 19.

The way this annual grant works is: artists create hand-made Valentines and send them to the Artist Valentine Grant Committee, which sells them through various venues for Valentine's Day. The proceeds from Valentine sales generate grant funds, awarded by a Boston-area arts professional (a different person each year). Artists who have contributed Valentines are eligible to submit examples of their work, and from these the juror selects the group of grant-winners. Usually there are approximately five winners, who receive an average of $500 each, but this varies and is up to the juror's discretion.

For more information, visit the grant website here or email info@artval.org.

I was inspired by the beautiful Valentine that my friend Jeanne Williamson created for this grant last week. Jeanne was one of the grant-awardees last year, so that inspires me too.

My Valentines were made by drawing painted lines onto paper (the red ones) and spray-painting onto paper through lace cloth and a plastic "lace" placement (the pinkish ones).

2 comments:

jenjasmine said...

Those are beautiful!!

Catherine Carter said...

thank you! they sure were fun to make (although it did feel funny to do at Christmas-time, a week after I had made my Christmas cards)!