Featured Artist: Edythe Kegrize

Hallmark Keepsake Artist Edythe Kegrize loves birds and has brought her passion to the Keepsake Ornament Beauty of Birds series since 2005.This year’s stand-out cardinal may be her most dramatic and elegant bird ornament yet.

Continue reading to learn more about Edythe and her ornaments.

Edythe Kegrize had an in-depth love of three-dimensional art ever since she was young. She remembers making all kinds of creations from scraps around the house, including a tiny paper television with pictures that rotated with the turn of a knob and a crèche fashioned out of laundry detergent and food coloring.

Edythe’s talents blossomed with the help of her loving family. Her grandmother saved tidbits of fabric, trims, and pretty papers. Her mother never hindered her daughter’s creativity despite the risks of having holes cut in tablecloths or glue on the rug. From her father, Edythe inherited attention to detail, patience and mechanical curiosity that make her Keepsake designs so intricate.

While in college, Edythe majored in illustration, but also was inspired by ceramics and weaving classes. At Hallmark, she would often devise unique folding cards that brought an extra dimension to her designs. Edythe featured needlework and collages in her greeting cards and crafted several original dolls to be photographed for select card collections.

With nearly 25 years of experience illustrating greeting cards, Edythe cultivated an appreciation for a wide range of decorative surface designs, from traditional folk art to classic, elegant scrollwork. This is perhaps most evident in the details of her Santa’s Around the World unofficial series.

Western Tanager (2015)

Growing up in southern New Jersey on a migratory bird route, Edythe Kegrize saw all kinds of species common to East Coast habitats. When she first started designing Keepsake Ornaments, she focused mainly on birds like the oriole, blue jay, and cardinal.

“I’ve mostly done East Coast birds because I’m more familiar with them,” Edythe said. “But I started feeling like I should branch out a little more, so to speak.”

She generally gravitates toward birds with a strong color combination. “I’ve done some that are more subtle,” Edythe said. “But generally, I go for the ones that really have that strength of color.”

That led to this year’s Western tanager. She described the paint on the ornament as “opulent.” The design features the distinctive blaze of white on the wing, but the look is stylized. “I try to be true to the broader markings on the bird, but it’s treated in a more idealized way.”

Anniversary (2015)

After 25 years of illustrating cards, Edythe knew her way around popular themes and icons. For anniversary cards, Edythe drew a lot of doves, which are known to mate for life. “So it was only natural for me to interpret that into three dimensions,” Edythe said.

As with many of her pieces, the decorative touches on this piece have an idealized quality, like the silver flourishes on the wings and tail. Usually, she works by drawing as many sides of the ornament as it takes to convey shape and style so it can be sculpted by others. For something as intricate and interlocked as this, she wanted to handle the rough sculpt herself so she would know exactly how the form would translate into the final design, as well as where the center of gravity would be so it would hang just right.

“When drawing something, you can’t always get a feel for that,” Edythe said. “Sometimes you just have to hold it in your hands.”

The porcelain doves come with interchangeable heart charms featuring milestone years as well as a blank one to add a specific year.

Ruby Red Cardinal (2015)

The first Beauty of Birds ornament Edythe created was a cardinal. This premium Ruby Red Cardinal is an intentional nod to that first bird, although the wings are more unfurled and “he’s a little more gussied up,” Edythe said.

The look was inspired by the timeless technique of cloisonné, in which fine golden lines give shape to colored enamel, adding detail and contrast.

“The finish on it has a great luster,” Edythe said. “It has a shimmery quality to it.” The elegant metal design’s resemblance to jewelry reminds Edythe of her great-grandmother, who loved fancy Christmas pins. “She’d always get gussied up.”

In fact, it was her great-grandmother who helped her develop her love of birds. To get Edythe out of the kitchen, she’d give Edythe a plate of crumbs to throw out for the seagulls. Then Edythe would sit at the window and watch the flurry arrive. So when Edythe came to Keepsakes years later, the first series she proposed featured birds.

“All my life, birds have been something I’ve collected for my own Christmas tree,” Edythe said. “So it was just easy for me to think in those ways.”