Cards are printed on an uncoated, recycled paper with soy-based inks. Each set of 12 holiday greeting cards comes with 12 green envelopes. They are packed in a recycled, kraft colored box, with a die-cut window displaying the front image.

Inside message reads:  Wishing you all the magic of the holiday season, and a wonderful new year!

These cards feature an image from an original oil painting by Iris Scott of Youngsville, New Mexico. Printed by Artists to Watch in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Iris Scott (b.1984) grew up in Maple Valley, Washington on what she describes as a “one-family hippie commune”. She and her sister spent evenings listening to their mother, a writer, tell epic tales about the anthropomorphized lives of the family’s pet parrots, lizards, cats, goats, and rabbits—with wild coyotes appearing in the stories as special guest stars. Iris’ father, a custom cabinet maker, worked in a shop attached to the house, and Iris absorbed how a woodworker manifests their ideas with their hands. Iris continues the family’s storytelling tradition of magical realism, like her mother, and emulates her father by building the worlds she imagines with her hands.

Scott’s college years were spent in Florence, in the same centuries-old halls where Raphael, Michelangelo, and Da Vinci worked. In her mid twenties, Iris moved to a tiny apartment overlooking a rainforest outside of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. During this time, she stumbled upon finger painting when a serendipitous lack of clean brushes prompted her to finish a painting with her fingertips. In that moment she recognized how fingers could scoop oil paint better than brushes, and overnight she committed to leaving her brushes behind. Scott worked exclusively as an oil finger painter from 2010 to 2020.

Her journey as a painter took her to New York, where she lived and worked in a Brooklyn loft space for six years. In New York, Iris was represented by Filo Sofi Arts. Her 2019 solo show, “Ritual in Pairing”, held in Chelsea, was praised by Jerry Saltz and received coverage from outlets including New York Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, and Artnet. On the West coast, Iris is represented by Adelman Contemporary. The bustling energy of New York led Iris, in 2019, to seek isolation and solitude in Northern New Mexico.

In 2020 the artist and her husband, a writer, purchased 500 acres overlooking Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O’Keeffe had once famously painted. Together the creative pair built a house and studio adjacent to national wilderness. Their adobe home sits perched on the edge of a canyon, within walking distance from caves, dinosaur bones, native ruins, and petroglyphs.

Much like the accidental discovery of finger painting over a decade ago, Iris happened upon another brush-free painting technique soon after she moved to New Mexico. While cleaning dust off a wet artwork with her shop air compressor, Iris inadvertently blasted surprising and beautiful circular marks into the surface of the fresh paint. Iris recognized the potential of the air compressor’s marks immediately. Ever since that day Iris has emphatically pursued a new body of work she calls “air paintings”.

Find more work by Iris here.

Artists to Watch is an award-winning company working directly with independent artists to craft high-quality products that meld visually intriguing images with thought-provoking words. Our line is carefully curated to publish several exclusive collections from independent artists - each with a different look, feel, and voice. The result? A unique collection of products that inspire, celebrate, sympathize, and encourage those we love and support.

Life is busy, but we can never underestimate the power of a handwritten note. All the little social media “Likes” in passing will never compare to receiving a lovely handwritten message from a friend or loved one. When paired with amazing art & perhaps a perfect quote, it helps us to feel grounded, connected, and part of the whole.

We believe that a sustainable environment requires everyone to be conscious about the consumption of non-renewable resources while finding ways to reduce waste. Therefore, we only print on recycled paper! Each printed product we create has the highest post-consumer content available in a sheet that will still produce a high-quality reproduction. By printing with vegetable-based inks our products are less harmful to the environment. All our paper mills and printers are Forest Stewardship Council certified. We respect our environment by recycling, reusing, and reducing our waste at every opportunity.

Find more work from Artists to Watch here.