Lynn saw this image in her rear view mirror last fall and ran home to draw it. She found it ironic that this this beautiful image showed up in a reflection of downtown Detroit, especially since the city's decay is all that you see in the media. 
The great thing about this card project is that you dont have to even try to ignore the obvious seasonal themes. That is what cards are meant for! This is a pretty standard pumpkin, but what you cannot tell from the scan is that its toothy grin is cut out as every pumpkin grin should be. The polka dots come from a magazine picture that has been pasted behind the card. In real life it adds some depth and an extra level of fun. 
After calling the village mayor to check in on my Samoan host family after the tsunami last fall, I learned that not only had my family suffered physical damage to their oceanside fale, but that my host mother and three sisters had died since the last time I had called. Like so many poor people without access to proper healthcare in the developing world they went to the hospital and never returned - despite having treatable diseases like diabetes. I had called Falelatai expecting bad news, but I never expected that its cause would be from poverty rather than from mother nature. I also never could have imagined how it has felt to grieve four family members at one time.
Jessica had been throwing pots for months by the time she wrote the card. And our blog had been up for a while too. She was in the throws of creativity and seeing her cards online reminded her of her other art, I guess she decided her cards were always drawn with little boxy borders. She wrote "I have been so stuck in a box!" and then decided to draw this lovely gathering of vases around a box to branch out! 
