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Keepsaker’s Korner
Next Meeting is Thursday April 11 at 7pm OKCC meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month. We meet at Becky’s Hallmark, 11109 E 41st (northwest corner of 41st & Garnett, next to Furr’s). Next month’s meeting will be May 9th. At the April Meeting It’s Swap n’ Sell time! Also bring items for the Mother’s Days baskets. And we will also be passing out the 2002 local club ornaments that have arrived from Hallmark!!!! Community Service Domestic Violence Intervention Service – We will be making Mother’s Day baskets for the women at the shelter. Please bring baskets, and personal care items and any other items you think they would like. Some suggestions are shampoo, conditioner, face soap, toothbrushes, deodorants, hair spray, perfume, nightgowns, and lotions. Food Bank – remember to bring your food items. They will go to Broken Arrow Neighbors unless someone volunteers to bring them somewhere else. Happy April Birthday to ….
Okie Keepsakers Meeting Minutes March 14, 2002 President Rita Randall called the meeting to order. Vice President Dana Blando reminded everyone to sign the sign-in sheet. She reminded everyone that she had the tickets for the food donations. Treasurer Sally Turner read the Treasurer’s report: $ 872.99+ Beginning balance 22.50+ Dues 15.00+ T-shirt sales 6.00+ Pin sales 8.84- March Postage 907.65+ Ending balance Secretary Teresa Pattison had copies of the updated club brochure. She also passed on information about an anniversary contest from Hallmark. (See the Hallmark news in this newsletter for more info.) Sponsor news – Earline said they won’t be getting any more Easter ornaments in. DVIS chairperson, Debra Kirk wasn’t at the meeting but Mother’s Day baskets are on the schedule for next month. Sunshine Committee chairperson Terri Legrand had nothing to report. Hospitably committee – Jeanne and Cris thanked those who brought goodies this month. Next month’s volunteers are Kathy Teeters, Alma Wilson, and Sandy Guinn. Old business – There are some extra club t-shirts with the old design in very large and very small sizes. What should we do with them? New business – Sallie McBrier read a letter she sent to Hallmark regarding the prizes for the contests that Hallmark is sponsoring. Program committee – Donna Lundy was not at the meeting. Jeanne Draughon said that last month 150 items were donated to Broken Arrow Neighbors. Door prize drawings: $25 monthly gift certificate – Lynn Turner Gift bag donated by Sallie McBrier – Dessie Howard Puzzle donated by BK Dreyer - Shirley Vesper Mary Engelbreit magazine - Cris Converse
Hallmark News Hallmark is asking for pictures of our club at last year’s Premiere. The photos will accompany a story in the June/July edition of the Club magazine about Premiere. They need them by April 12th. Anyone want to coordinate? There is a new program this year to show appreciation for loyal club members celebrating their 5, 10 and 15 year Club anniversaries. Club members will receive cards celebrating their anniversaries. Each anniversary member is automatically entered into monthly random prize drawings. There will be one 5, one 10, and one 15 year winner each month.
Key fobs are going to be mailed out to preferred gold crown members in September. If you are not a preferred member, you can call and request one later after they are mailed out. This will have your gold crown number on it so you don't have to whip out your card.
You may also remember the ornament offered last year via
magazine coupon (Santa Claus from NBC). This year it will be an ornament from
the Family Tree group. This will be in addition to the "starter
set" offered for a special price at October debut. Check out Wal-Mart for Maxine t-shirts! And here’s some new on what is in store for us at Premier and October debut!!!! Keepsake Ornament Premiere July 13, 2002 · Gold Crown Bonus Points: 100 bonus points per ornament, purchased on 7/13. 50 bonus points per ornament 7/14-7/19 · Gold Crown Card Ornament Buyers will receive a "Save the date" magnet · Keepsake Ornament Collector's Club members who show their membership card at premiere receive "Five Tiny Favorites", The mini ornaments fit the Christmas tree with decorations from Santa's Big Night. · In Store Trivia Game! Prizes include three first-in-the-series Keepsake Ornaments, One Magic ornament and three repainted designs! · Sugar Plum Table Top Topiary Accented with Battery-powered, multi-colored lights-no cord! Perfect for Linda Sickman's Miniature Sugar Plum Fairies! Only $19.95! October Debut ·
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· The Family Tree Starter Kit Only $9.95 at October Debut! Set of three Photo Frames from the Gold Crown Exclusive Family Tree Collection (reg. $16.95) Ed Seale Signings As you know, Ed is semi-retired from Hallmark last year and has gone out on his own doing signings and selling his own figurines at the signing. I found a list of his upcoming 2002 signing locations on his website www.edsealedesigns.com. The 2002 signing piece, shown here, is titled “Bearing Brunch”. There will also be a website exclusive piece titled “Bear Watching”.
July 13 Fredrick's Hallmark Brookfield, Wisconsin (262)796-9810 September
28 Mary's Hallmark Sacramento,
California October 5 Joy's Hallmark Marlton, New Jersey (856)596-6201 November 9 Eva's Hallmark Lindenhurst, Illinois 1(800)699-4884 November 16 Noel's Hallmark Winston Salem, North Carolina (336)765-9553 November 30 Audrey's Hallmark Blue Springs, Missouri (816)228-4060
Date to be Determined McBride's Hallmark Seattle, Washington
Ty News Retirements: 3/15/02 Blarney the Attic Treasure 3/18/02 Sizzle and Cupid Beanie Babies 3/20/02 America the blue bear Beanie Baby March retirements - Beanie Babies: Kirby the Terrier, January Birthday Bear. Beanie Buddies: Seal, Ears, Flitter. Attic Treasure: Rosalyn. (Don’t know if this will be a new policy with Ty to announce retirements once a month.) 3/29/02 Basket Beanies Eggs, Ewey, Grace, Hippity, Eggbert, and Floppity click here 4/1/02 Pierre the Canadian exclusive Beanie Baby bear Introductions: Didn’t we all see this one coming! There is now a red America bear for the Red Cross. click here. Ooops! It’s already sold out as of April 1 (and that’s no April Fools joke!). April Introductions - 8 Beanies, 3 Buddies, 2 Attic Treasures and 1 Beanie Kid (again they are not on the Ty website – Ty wants you to buy their magazine to get a peek at the new ones!) ·
Beanies: May Birthday bear, June Birthday bear,
Champion bear - World Cup Soccer Bear, Mattie the cat, Pops Father's Day
Bear, Herder the dog, Toothy the tyrannosaurs · Buddies: Dizzy, Hero, Champion · Beanie Kid: Dumplin · Attics: Mommy and Dad Ty created Champion to celebrate the 2002 FIFA World Cup Tournament. Champion will arrive wearing 32 different flags representing each country participating in the final phase of the 2002 FIFA World Cup Tournament. Champion is a brown bear and it looks like the flag will be on the nose. On the chest will be the World Cup emblem. Looks like this Fall at McDonald’s there is going to be a Ty Teenie Beanie Bopper promotion. Hallmark Garage Sale Helen Carlton and Dana Blando will be having a garage sales at Helens house, 1604 E 41st St., on April 11-13 at 8am. They will have Merry Miniatures, stationary, pins, candleholders, mugs, puzzles, plaques, over 200 ornaments, and 100 cookie cutters from 1970 to the present. For a preview phone Dana at 628-0063. Raggedy Ann joins celebrity toys at the National Toy Hall of Fame Wed Mar 27, 5:52 PM ET by BRAD CAIN,
Associated Press Writer SALEM, Oregon - Raggedy Ann, a symbol of wholesomeness and simpler times, joined flashy Barbie as a National Toy Hall of Fame inductee on Wednesday — thanks in part to an international letter-writing campaign by legions of fans. The cloth doll with reddish yarn hair had been rejected four times by the selection panel. But both Ann and the Jigsaw Puzzle made the cut this year, elbowing out more than 90 contenders including G.I. Joe. Other inductees include Mr. Potato Head, the Hula Hoop, the Slinky and Silly Putty. Many of Ann's supporters consider the 87-year-old doll superior to Barbie and were miffed Ann had been passed over. "Barbie represents an idealized image of beauty. Raggedy Ann represents a huggable, lovable friend," said Patricia Hall, a San Diego author who has written books about the Raggedy Ann phenomenon. The hall received hundreds of letters supporting Ann's induction from as far away as Japan. One was from an elderly man who said he took Raggedy Ann with him on air missions during World War II. Johnny Gruelle created Raggedy Ann in 1915 to entertain his sick daughter. Raggedy Andy, the doll's brother, was born in 1920. "After Sept.11, people are looking for comfort and love and compassion," said Gruelle's granddaughter, Joni Gruelle Wannamaker, who was at the induction ceremony. "You can always cuddle a Raggedy Ann doll." Thomas Kinkade: Profit of light Painter/QVC regular says he's divinely inspired to mass-produce works and expand his empire By Marco R. della Cava
USA TODAY 3/12/02 MORGAN HILL, Calif. -- Inside a 400,000-square-foot factory set amid the Central Valley's rolling green hills hums the sound of . . . art? Nearly 500 paintings emerge daily from this immaculate place, a cross between a spic-and-span hospital and an orderly exotic-car factory where each product carefully shuttles from station to station for twitching and tweaking. But look closely: Each image is a mere high-tech clone of an oil-on-canvas original. And yet some cost in excess of $10,000. Today, workers squeegee, peel, glue, dry and highlight The Light of Freedom, which depicts the Stars and Stripes fluttering before a World Trade Center-less Manhattan skyline. The sea of prints boasts a dizzying sameness that would make a Xerox machine jealous. Into an adjacent warehouse walks the controversial man (he says Picasso ''had a talent but didn't use it in any significant way'') behind the name (Thomas Kinkade) behind the trademarked moniker (Painter of Light) behind the company (Media Arts Group) responsible for this assembly line. Sipping water and fiddling with trail mix, he sits contentedly in a living room set used for remote QVC broadcasts that showcase his work. Life is good. Media Arts,
the mass-market company he took public in 1994, has soared on the back of his
popular reproductions -- an unvarying cascade of idyllic, people-free images
with titles like Home Is Where the Heart Is and The Garden of
Prayer. Currently, the company licenses out the Kinkade name to great success. Nearly half a billion dollars of success to date. And Kinkade hopes life is about to get even more lush. Besides the publication of his first novel (Cape Light, ghostwritten by Katherine Spencer) and the recent opening of a housing complex whose $400,000-plus homes were ''inspired'' by his art (The Village by Taylor Woodrow Homesin Vallejo, Calif., outside San Francisco), Kinkade has plans to take on the Goliaths of his métier. Not landscape masters Vermeer or Frederick Church. Try merchandisers Walt Disney and Martha Stewart. ''But I'm broader,'' says Kinkade, 44, an affable, barrel-chested man with a tidy mustache who is utterly convinced of his mass-produced destiny. ''It'd be hard for me to envision a Disney line of upper-end home furnishings or a Martha Stewart theme park. But we can do both,'' he says. ''A Thomas Kinkade fragrance? Maybe. Thomas Kinkade Saturday morning kids' programming? Sure. The only limit is our imagination.'' That's not to say the commercially minded Kinkade doesn't want to join the pantheon of art's elites. Critics may scoff, but Kinkade places his work beside that of two heroes, fellow populist Norman Rockwell (''I've seen every single thing he ever painted'') and renegade pop genius Andy Warhol (''He is my hero, and I'm his heir apparent''). Although still enjoying the deep-pockets fan base that has even given rise to next month's Kinkade collectors-only cruise, Media Arts has posted four straight quarters of losses, and 15 of its 360 Thomas Kinkade galleries, which pop up in tourist towns from coast to coast, have closed. In January, the company named a new CEO, Ron Ford, who vows the Kinkade brand has staying power. ''We're not in the art business. We're in the hope and inspiration business,'' says Ford, 40, alluding to the Christian subtext in Kinkade's work. (The painter became a born-again Christian at age 20 during a revival in Southern California.) His barometer of Kinkade's potential? ''My mother,'' he explains. ''Her dream is to own a Thomas Kinkade painting. In fact, when she heard I was coming to work here, she cried.'' Devout followers Kinkade does have a passionate following. ''They're like a cult. The cult of Kinkade,'' he chortles. One such fan is Don Davis, 58, a retiree in Mesquite, Texas. Davis saw his first Kinkade painting in a Dallas gallery in 1990. ''It was just pretty. Peaceful, calm, real and, of course, filled with that light,'' he says. Davis currently owns 44 Kinkade works. Only two are in a closet; the rest cram his modest home. ''It's pretty tasteful, although I think the breakfast nook, with nine, is borderline,'' he says. He has spent around $80,000 on this collection. ''My favorite Kinkade?'' Davis muses. ''Well, that'd have to be the one I don't have yet.'' The Kinkade faithful show up by the hundreds to get his autograph at his in-store appearances. They road-trip to his boyhood farming town of Placerville, Calif. They commit details of his life to memory; letters pour in congratulating Kinkade on his upcoming 20th wedding anniversary to Nanette, with whom he has four daughters, ages 13 to 4. ''My fans name babies after me,'' he says. ''People are moved by what I do. If the critics want to attack, let them attack. I must, as Christ himself said, be about my Father's work.'' And the critics do attack, or at least those who'll even bother to comment on Kinkade's oeuvre. ''His works are facsimiles of something inherently dead. Escapism is not art,'' says Kenneth Baker, art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. ''He might as well not exist. He could just be a branding concept. He might as well be selling hamburgers.'' One expert isn't even sure of that. ''This phenomenon is artificial and not sustainable,'' says Peter Sealey, former marketing chief of Coca-Cola and co-author of Simplicity Marketing. ''I think he's got too much stuff out there, and as supply exceeds demand, you'll see a decline in interest.'' A 'darkness' in his
heart Kinkade and his artwork don't appear a perfect match. Where the paintings are ethereal and somewhat feminine (gardens and cottages are to Kinkade what paint drips are to Jackson Pollock), he retains the roots of his blue-collar upbringing, evidenced in his burly bearing and rough hands. He could be a truck driver just out of a day spa. He is likable and well spoken, long-winded and candid. Asked whether his art reflects who he is, he laughs. ''Now it does, yes, because I'm all about a simpler way of living. We have no TV connection at our house (a gated compound in the mountains outside of Santa Cruz, Calif.). I like to hole up where it's quiet,'' he says. ''But that's not who I was.'' Kinkade ground his way through a perturbed youth. ''There was darkness in my heart,'' says the artist, who was raised by his mother. His father walked out when he was 5. ''I had anger and frustration at the world around me. I had a chip on my shoulder. I was in the stinky small town, and I wanted so badly to be raised in New York, where all the museums were,'' he recalls. ''I was embarrassed by our home, because it was so shabby. And among my friends, I was the only kid from a broken home. So I guess maybe God became the father I never knew.'' Kinkade says he got through those times thanks to ''sharing humor'' with his brother and sister. The latter proved an artistic influence (''She loved musicals and art,'' he says), which led him to study art at University of California-Berkeley. He then set off for Hollywood, where he painted movie sets. Eager to make his mark, in the early '80's, Kinkade decided to peddle his art out of his car trunk. Word soon spread of the inspirational artist whose work glowed with a surreal light, something Kinkade says is a gift from on high. And that's not the only one. ''Well, it was almost as if God became my art agent. He basically gave me ideas. And one of the foundational ideas he gave me was a way to create multiple forms of art that looked like the original, but weren't just a poster,'' he says. Kinkade's divine yet technical inspiration was the perfection of a process by which an original oil painting -- he creates a dozen new images a year -- is digitally photographed, transferred onto a plastic-like surface and glued onto canvas. Each print visits ''highlight artists,'' mostly Hispanic and Asian hourly workers. In a paint-by-number style, they add a dot of red to a tree here, a dash of white to an interior light there. The process allows Kinkade to keep his originals, which he locks in vaults when they're not on tour in a mobile home. (His early paintings were sold; collectors say they trade hands in the low six figures.) There are nine versions of each reproduced image, from Standard Numbered editions, for a few hundred dollars, to Studio Proofs that feature a textured canvas, more highlighting and Kinkade's machine-etched signature -- compete with his DNA, courtesy of mixing the ink with the painter's hair and blood. Where critics see mechanized saccharine, Kinkade sees goods for all income levels. While they compare his work to McDonald's Happy Meals (the Chronicle's Baker), he is sure that in the future his work ''will be seen as important.'' But right here, right now, all Thomas Kinkade really wants is to get along. ''If my work became unpopular tomorrow, I'd receive that message,'' Kinkade says. ''And because I'm a servant of art, I'd say to our culture, 'Culture, how can I reflect who this nation is and what it needs?' And then I'd go deliver it.'' On a print, mug, calendar, night light, novel, house, recliner and kids' TV show near you. Radko collectors cover all interests and holidays By MARILOU BERRY Evansville (Indiana) Courier & Press There are more than 30,000 members of the Christopher Radko Collectors Club. They pay an initial $50 for a quarterly magazine, an ornament, a catalog, a cloisonné membership pin, an angel button, a certificate for club-only ornaments and a notification when limited editions will be available. Some collectors are from the Tri-State. Others are celebrities, including Elton John, Barbra Streisand and Whoopi Goldberg, who bowed when she met him. Others are Katharine Hepburn, Robert DeNiro, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. Local Radko fans include Oak Meadow golf professional Greg Charnes and his wife, Manina. "My parents gave us our first Radko ornament as I recall," Manina Charnes said. "Then we started collecting in '96. I have lots of Santas, a lot of cookie jars - one has already appreciated in value. We get the Radko bunny each spring for our grandchild. But now we must get two, one for our grandchild already here, and one for the one on the way." Her husband, a train collector, likes Radko Santas. "I'm probably most pleased with the St. Nick portrait series I have," Manina Charnes said. "There were such a few pieces made. But I managed to find at least one of all three pieces. I don't dare put them on the tree." Devin Allen and his wife, Bonnie, are avid collectors. "We started with his '12 Days of Christmas' ornament in the mid-'80s," Allen said. "The beauty, the detailing of Radko ornaments are, I think, almost unbelievable. I now have a complete collection of them, which we display on two trees at Christmastime - Disney characters in the family room and only Christmas ornaments in the living room." More than 40 percent of their ornaments are now retired, Allen says, and some are collector's editions. Also big in Radko collectibles is Leslie Dunn of Owensboro, Ky., who received her first Radko ornaments as gifts. "But I grew to like the Italian ones best," she said. "And they are harder to find. I really searched for an Italian lady called 'Persian Delight.' I called all over the country to find it. Even tried eBay. "Finally, I heard from New Jersey. The caller told me he was calling from Mr. Radko's 'personal store.' That may have just been a line, but I got the ornament, and that was the important thing." For Nancy Litke of Henderson, Ky., design is the important feature about Radko creations. "I mainly collect Santas. I display them on a huge tree along with other Radko ornaments. All have such character. "My brother from Alabama has hundreds." So does a Radko devotee in Middleburg, Va., who owns Radko's largest private collection. To accommodate her 500-plus Radkos, the collector restored an old stable and displays them year-round in temperature-controlled glass cases. With her collection valued at more than $300,000, this collector no longer buys new designs. She prefers those from 1986 to 1990. All are cataloged on her computer, where she regularly searches the Internet to find missing pieces from the official Web site (www.christopherradko.com) or other Radko collectors. |
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There
is also going to be a members-only web page on hallmark.com.
90
New Keepsake Ornaments unveiled including the Gold Crown Designer Exclusive
designer collections Christmas Morning Treasures- Set of Three presents fit
under the Premiere Tree and is the final piece of "Santa's Big
Night" collections
In store trivia game is back! including
these prizes: one Keepsake Ornament from each of the four Designer
Collections, Frostlight Faeries, Too Ornaments, Two repainted designs and one
pack of TEN memory cards from past favorite series ornaments!
