The City of Owensboro decided to take a more artistic approach for this year’s annual Christmas card. Designed and painted by local artist Aaron Kizer, the City’s Christmas card features the “Owensbear,” which was inspired by fond holiday memories Kizer holds from childhood.
It was time to change up the City’s Christmas card, said Mayor Tom Watson, and so City officials asked Kizer to design a card that would represent the City, while also giving the artist free reign to be creative.
“For the last 25 or 30 years, we’ve kind of gone in one direction, and since everybody is so good with change, I thought we’d change the direction 180 degrees,” Watson joked at Tuesday’s City commission meeting. “We have a great artist here in town — Aaron Kizer. We got together, and I said, ‘I need a Christmas card for the City,’ and he said, ‘I’m on it.’”
The City unveiled Kizer’s painting at the meeting for the first time, and Kizer was able to talk about his inspiration for the “Owensbear”– a teddy bear wearing a knitted hat, surrounded by images of falling snow, the blue bridge and a Christmas tree.
Kizer, 37, said his mother used to collect all of the Owensboro Christmas cards when he was growing up.
“It’s a huge honor for me,” he said. “My mom is going to be super happy to hear about this.”
The card design is complete except for one final touch. Kizer said he will go digital in including the “Merry Christmas” line to the card.
“I feel like Christmas is more about the kids than the adults — the older we get, the more stressful Christmas becomes,” he said. “But when I was younger, my mom always used to put this Santa Bear out. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but all I knew was that, when the Santa Bear was out by the tree, it was becoming Christmastime.”
The memory is important to Kizer as an adult, he said, because it takes him back to childhood, and he hopes this card can do the same for others.
“I wanted to take that image of that bear, recreate it for the City of Owensboro, so that, hopefully, the younger kids — as they get older — can go back and look at this card and remember Christmas in the same way I remembered that bear from Christmas,” he said.
The 2019 City of Owensboro Christmas card will be available to buy during the upcoming holiday season.
