Christmas Card 2007 — The Human Candy Cane

This is our favorite card so far, and not just because it’s a bunch of pictures of us. It took two days, three separate shooting sessions, and more wardrobe changes than a Cher concert.

We were having our usual dinner table brainstorm back in November when Mars came up with “candy cane.” And that was like a lightning bolt of silliness to my head. I have been wanting to do a card using our bodies as props, and I immediately realized that with our martial arts gear and street clothes we had everything we needed to be human red and white stripes. Almost everything that is. I didn’t have any red pants. It took some hunting but I was able to find some $10 Sporty Spice wind pants at the local discount store.

Our basement has a high ceiling. It also has a killer skateboard ramp. We put our low-buck “green screen,” about 10 yards of cheapo green fabric, in the middle of the ramp flat bottom. I put the camera on a tripod, but then lodged it in the plumbing running across the ceiling. This set up worked pretty well. If I had taken the time to tack down the fabric to get rid of the wrinkles it would have saved some time in the editing. Also using better lighting would have made this easier. I just used halogen construction lights placed on each deck of the ramp.

With everything in place we started posing. Mary, Paris and Mars would lie on the fabric first. Then, I would climb up a step ladder, start the timer, jump down and throw the ladder to side because it caused shadows, and try to get into position in time. The hardest part to get right was the radius. We used blue tape as guide, but it took some trial and error. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell if it would work and be in scale until I was editing the pictures together. “Everybody put your stripe clothes back on.”

Previous cards: 2006, 2005, 2004

Image on back of card

Camera rig

“I know it’s cold down here. Bend to your left!”

Christmas Card 2006 — Snow People

Now that I’m finished posting the new music we got for Christmas it’s time for one last seasonal item: the 2006 Sigler family Christmas card. This year we struggled for a concept. Should we collaborate on something? Should we continue to make our individual themed handmade items? Paris had the idea of snow people. We rolled with that and decided to stick with the tradition inside the tradition, individual pieces.

Clockwise from the top left:

• Paris used rolled colored paper strips.
• Mars obviously used Legos.
• Mary worked with yarn and felted the nose and hat. She also broke the mold with a two-ball shorty.
• Tracy after a few failed attempts decided to use three lamps, he had made a while ago, for a minimalist, and sort of boring, snow-bot.

Kodak now allows you to put a stamp-sized image on the back of the card. We used a pic of our four hands in the same orientation as the snow folks.

Mary Earle-Sigler — Quilt for Ixa

Artist Mary Earle-Sigler has returned to her roots, fiber arts, with this quilt for her newest nephew, Ixa. The various fabric patterns pieced together in this work appear cheerful enough, individually. But in the context of this quilted blanket they seem to create a montage of land and sea combat. This reviewer believes the artist has depicted a raging battle for triangle supremacy. Amphibians versus fish. Who will rule the blanket? Based on the facial expressions of these gladiators (see detail in third pic below) the frogs will soon vanquish the fish.

Mary Earle-Sigler — Block Print of House

This block print is of a 1924 Georgian Revival house that was recently bought and now inhabited by the Siglers. The artist Mary Earle-Sigler, who formerly signed her work as MC Earle, and early in her career MEARLE, has signed this piece with a concise “MES.” What is she trying to tell the viewer this new moniker? Does MES also serve as a terse, phonetic description of the state of the house?

A very limited number of prints were produced and then scattered across North America via the postal system. Most of these prints now reside with people previously unaware of the Siglers relocation, the reasons behind which are still unclear to even those close to them.

Mary Earle y’all, Mary Mary Earle y’all!

Mary Earle-Sigler — Bread

If this isn’t a work of art I don’t know what is. Mary baked a few loaves of bread this morning, and I can’t tell you how good it smells. Soon I’ll be wallowing in bread crumbs and butter. Good bread is the best!

Christmas Card 2005 — Merry Christmas Tree!

For the 2005 Christmas card Paris suggested “trees.” As time was running out I continued to mention that we needed to get cracking on the cards. When I mentioned it one night at dinner everyone moaned. Frustrated, I said “you can make a tree out of anything!” Then, I grabbed the greens that were left in the salad bowl and quickly threw down a “tree.” I liked it so I got some dried cranberries for the garland and piece of pretzel for the trunk. Everyone got their trees done that night, with Mary’s being the most skillful, and time-consuming.

The backgrounds were removed and the trees were combined on a single white background. This time we had them printed at Kodak.

Clockwise from top left: Tracy, Paris, Mary, Mars

Christmas Card 2004 — Four Flakes

Mary and I have made each other Valentine cards since the mid-1980s. Last year we started making Christmas cards and got the kids involved. For this one everyone cut out full-sheet paper snowflakes, they were scanned, and finally combined on a red background. We printed these at home and even made the envelopes which had a large snowflake outline on it. The red you see here is brighter than the actual cards.

Clockwise from top left: Tracy, Paris, Mary, Mars