Featured Artist: Tracy Larsen
Title:
Hallmark Artist
Started at Hallmark:
October 14, 1987
Started at Keepsakes:
August 1995
Hometown:
North Ogden, Utah
Lee’s Summit, Missouri
Christmas is such a magical time and Tracy Larsen’s 2014 ornament, Snow Fun Ferris Wheel, will add a unique touch of magic to any tree. Continue reading to learn a little more about Tracy’s inspiration.
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.
Snow Fun Ferris Wheel (2014)
20th in the All-American Truck series
A favorite of his wife’s, the Ferris wheel is a must ride at any amusement park. Tracy believes “There is a magical, turn-of-the-century romance that surrounds Ferris wheels that I believe lends itself well to the nostalgia we feel at Christmas time, so it seemed like a good subject for an ornament.”
“In creating the ornament, I wanted to use a wintertime theme in both design and color. A snowflake motif for the wheel seemed like a natural fit with its six points to place carriages,” Tracy shared. Snowmen then became “the logical choice as patrons for this winter adventure. They look like they’re having fun as they circle around with the lights flashing and the wonderful calliope Christmas music playing. I especially like the little snowman vendor inviting us all to ride along.”
In trying to figure out how to bring the magic to life, Tracy and team decided to use a pull motor to activate the movement and sound. “Encasing the motor back by the wheel gears and making it part of the design,” was one of Tracy’s favorite elements.
Tracy hopes everyone will “Step right up, ” and enjoy this ornament as much as he enjoyed making it.
Featured Artist: Matt Johnson
Title:
Hallmark Designer
Started at Hallmark:
March 19, 2012
Started at Keepsakes:
March 19, 2012
Hometown:
Fresno, California
Hasbro’s Sorry!® kicks off the new Family Game Night series. With fond memories of Summer nights playing board games with the family, Matt Johnson talks about collaborating on a winner of a new series.
Matt has designed for companies all over the United States, but his appreciation of toys has stuck with him since childhood. Toys play an especially important role in Christmas, a holiday that gives Matt the inspiration he needs when it comes to crafting tree-worthy trimmings in the Keepsake Studio. He admits “there’s just so many people around here that make it feel like Christmas all the time!”
Matt graduated with an Industrial Design degree from the University of Kansas, and continues to be a student of product design as he follows his passion for ornaments, toys and games. As someone who appreciates fun, creative and offbeat entertainment for kids, the Keepsake Studio was just the place for Matt to work, but an opening wasn’t so easy to come by. After a few years of working in the Midwest and along the East Coast, Matt made the move back to Kansas City with his family—and, as luck would have it, an opening in Keepsakes was waiting for him.
The work of a Keepsakes designer is a challenge, but Matt is happy to see his designs inspire wonder for kids and kids at heart.
Sorry! (2014)
1st in the Family Game Night series
Talk to Keepsake Artists Matt Johnson and Rodney Gentry and it immediately becomes apparent—these guys have a blast working together. So it’s only fitting that they collaborated on the first ornament in the Family Game Night series—Sorry!
According to Matt, “I think there’s been a resurgence in families getting together and playing board games. And since we didn’t have much in the way of video games around our house, I have fond memories of summer nights playing with families and friends.”
When asked why they chose Sorry! as the first in series, Rodney replies, “During our brainstorming phase, we talked about a lot of different games, and Sorry! just kept rising to the top. It has stood the test of time…and nearly everybody we talked to remembers playing it as kids. So we went with it.”
As they collaborated, Matt provided a series of 2D sketches of the game. The design was chosen. Then it was up to Rodney to bring it to life as a Keepsake Ornament. “My biggest challenge,” Rodney says, “was to translate the level of excitement that Matt brought to his sketches into a 3D model.”
The real game’s packaging and design has evolved over the years. So the two went to great lengths to keep it relevant to game-lovers both young and old. They even combined the original game pieces along with the newer board design. Adjustments were also made to make it work at such a small scale. According to Rodney, “We tried to stay as true to the game as possible but as it gets smaller, you have to make sure it’s sturdy and everything reads clearly.”
Featured Artist: Nello Williams
Title:
Hallmark Artist
Started at Hallmark:
July 1995
Started at Keepsakes:
July 1995
Hometown:
Safford, Arizona
Keepsake Artist Nello Williams shares some fun, new interactive ways to celebrate the Christmas countdown, and a jukebox that’s sure to get you rockin’ around the Christmas tree.
Nello Williams grew up drawing anytime, anyplace, even in school—and not just in art class. His class notes ended up looking more like artwork than a study sheet.
The young artist started out sculpting the ships and robots from the television program Lost in Space. Once, he saw a scary dungeon set advertised in a comic book, but like most kids, couldn’t afford to buy it. So Nello recreated the toy instead.
Popular culture kept on inspiring Nello’s art. In high school, he and a friend made masks of characters from Planet of the Apes—a big movie of the day. Now he keeps up on the latest trends for his creations in Keepsake Ornaments.
Nello spends much of his outside time nurturing one of his other big interests—music. He designed the album covers (wishful thinking) and T-shirts for his high school garage band. He even designed a guitar for himself, and twenty years later, he actually built it! Nello sees guitar design as a place where his two great loves, sculpture and music, meet.
Featured Artist: Ken Crow
Title:
Hallmark Senior Artist
Started at Hallmark:
August 1979
Started at Keepsakes:
November 1983
Hometown:
Long Beach, California
.
Inspired by artist Ken Crow’s love of Ol’ Saint Nick, Santa’s Magic Cuckoo Clock is filled with magic, just like Santa! Read more about what led this true believer to create this spectacle of light and sound.
Most of us doodled in our notebooks during high school, but Ken Crow’s drawings were a real learning experience. In his 11th grade history class, he discovered that his pictures were worth a thousand words. History teacher, Mr. Ciriello, began letting Ken use creative illustration instead of taking class notes.
During a Civil War lesson, Ken drew battle scenes. When Ciriello explained how an economy works, Ken sketched his teacher running a treadmill turning the cogs of an economic engine.
Ken calls Mr. Ciriello’s encouragement the “green light” for his ability to express his artistic sensibility. Ken always understood the power of communicating ideas through art, and he became an editorial cartoonist for a newspaper. Now he conveys a sense of history and emotion in the expressive and complex work he does with Keepsake Ornaments.
But how did Ken go from drawing to becoming an expert in mechanical Christmas ornaments? As a child, he tore apart every toy he ever had to see how it worked. He even made other toys out of the spare parts. For Ken, Keepsake Ornaments will forever keep him connected with that inquisitive kid inside.
Featured Artist – Anita Marra Rogers
See how two holidays came together to make a fun new series as Keepsake artist Anita Marra Rogers brings her love of Halloween to the Christmas tree.
Horses, dogs and unicorns—typical subjects for children’s artwork. But Anita Marra Rogers didn’t draw like a typical child. Her mother quickly recognized that early talent, and she signed Anita up for oil painting lessons. At age 19, Anita used those paintings in her portfolio when she applied for a job with Hallmark. As good as those paintings were, she was turned down.
A few years later, a Hallmark sculptor looked at those same paintings of seascapes and landscapes. He saw talent. He told Anita that she simply wasn’t doing the kinds of images Hallmark wanted. He invited her to come in and see what the Hallmark Artists were working on—whimsical animals, warm Christmas scenes, wintry landscapes. Anita tried her hand at one, sculpting a deer and a bunny looking sweetly at each other over a snow bank. As soon as her friend saw it, he told her that her Keepsake Ornament career had begun.
Hallmark wasn’t Anita’s first sculpting assignment. As a child, she made animal shapes out of cotton candy for her brother and sisters. There’s still a touch of sweetness to every Keepsake Ornament she creates.
Happy Halloween
1st in the series
There are lots of details tucked into this spooky Halloween scene, so we went to sculptor Anita Rogers to learn about the inspiration for her design:
“Each year, I’ll be creating a different pumpkin with a different Halloween character, and this first one is a cute little witch. Instead of the moon, I put her in front of some wispy clouds and gave her some sparkle. I actually designed her to look like my daughter when she was little. My daughter’s older now, but she still has long brown hair and green eyes, so this little witch kind of reminds me of her a little bit! I put her in a purple dress because it’s my favorite color and I think it looks pretty good with the orange.”
Next year’s jack-o’-lantern is a very different take on another traditional character. Fans of this series will have to wait a little longer to see what details are in store!