Latest News: Sneak Peeks

Title:
Hallmark Artist

Started at Hallmark:
October 1987

Started at Keepsakes:
August 1995

Hometown:
North Ogden, Utah
Lee’s Summit, Missouri

A longstanding artist with diverse and divergent interests, Tracy Larsen has contributed greatly to the Keepsakes legacy. From early pop culture pieces featuring Howdy Doody™ and The Three Stooges™, to his own recent imaginings of Santa, Tracy’s versatility and creative spirit continue to invigorate the art of ornament-making.

Like most preschoolers, Tracy Larsen spent a lot of time with cartoons—but instead of just watching them, Tracy studied them! He spent his childhood hours drawing characters from The Flintstones™ and Peanuts®. He also copied newspaper comic strips, but at the mature age of eight, Tracy moved to the more sophisticated material on the editorial page. The 1968 Nixon vs. Humphrey presidential race became a favorite subject. While looking through newspapers and magazines, Tracy started noticing the differences among artists’ styles—another aspect of his self-described “knack for art.” He studied everything he found around his house, from European magazine illustrations to his own personal favorite of the day: Mad magazine. Tracy did his first sculpting with clay-like kneaded erasers, but through his schooling, moved on to higher-quality materials and projects. He produced his first serious sculpture, a bust of Muhammad Ali, while he was still a teenager. During junior high and high school, Tracy kept honing his skills in his art classes, his primary instructor/mentor being the noted fantasy artist, James Christensen. What a great program those schools must have had, since Tracy is one of several classmates now working as professional artists.

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