By Vicki Prichard
NKyTribune reporter
In 2006, Mark and Darlene Bossert of Fort Mitchell began a new holiday tradition. The decided to feature their then six-year-old daughter Maria’s holiday drawing on their family Christmas card.
The inaugural card featured what was clearly a young child’s rendering, as did the ensuing holiday cards — snowmen in wintery scenes; cheerful marshmallows splashing around in a mug of hot chocolate; and family Christmas stockings hanging from the mantel.
Maria’s latest Madonna and Child artwork. She has been designing the family Christmas card since she was six. (Photos by Vicki Prichard)
Each year, friends and family looked forward to the Bossert’s Christmas card and Maria’s whimsical drawings. Friends at holiday parties would comment on the cards, and Darlene says she knew it was “kind of special.”
“Everybody is always like, “I can’t wait to get her card.”” says Darlene. “They ask her, “What are you working on?” What’s this year’s card going to be?””
With each year, just as Maria grew, so too did her talent, and the family’s holiday cards chronicled her maturation and skill as an artist. In fact, the 2016 family Christmas card may well have found its recipients doing a double take to see if the Bossert’s had gone commercial.
“Every time I’d see her working on it, I thought ‘that’s just amazing,’” says Darlene. “My sister texted me today and said, “I got the card and all I can say is, “Wow.””
This year, Maria’s Christmas art will be the featured card for Catholic Schools Week at her school, Covington Latin, which runs from January 30 through February 3, 2017. Her colored pencil rendering of the Madonna and Child has come a long way from snowmen and marshmallows, and exhibits the talent of a skilled artist with a keen eye for detail and realism.
A decades worth of originals
“This card was a big difference from 2013,” says Maria. “I think I just realized that this is something I want to do for the rest of my life and I just became a lot more serious about it.”
She notes that her most recent cards have taken on a more religious tone.
“I guess that’s because I’ve gotten older and more mature, so it kind of reflects that,” she says.
For the 8×11 full page original art drawing, she says she spends between 20 and 40 hours working over a couple of weekends. She generally begins the Christmas card design in October.
Last month, the 16-year-old Covington Latin High School junior entered two pieces of art in the Thomas More College 2016 Juried High School Exhibition. Both were accepted into the show, and one, entitled “Busy in the Thistle,” earned the Director’s Choice Award.
Christmas 2006
Visiting the gallery at Thomas More and attending the opening felt, “kind of professional and awesome,” she says.
The growing recognition and accolades for her art have come in the form of first place ribbons from the Kentucky State Fair and a second place in the Congressional Art Competition, which is a nationwide high school visual art competition that recognizes and encourages artistic talent throughout the nation in each congressional district. The winning works are displayed in the U.S. Capitol for one year.
While Darlene and Mark have their own artistic skills — each work in design — neither claims to have the kind of talent their daughter exhibits. Maria’s love of art came early – and easily.
“I kind of tell the story that when I was three I stopped napping, which was really early. So, during daycare, for the two hour nap period, I would just draw instead of sleep because they didn’t know what to do with me,” says Maria.
And she’s been drawing ever since. Aside from the art classes at her high school, she’s never taken an art class and is essentially self-taught. She creates her art from her desk in her bedroom, and says the Prismacolor pencils she received as a gift from her mother made a difference in her art.
Mark, Maria and Darlene Bossert
“Every birthday or holiday, it’s what I ask for — art supplies.”
Maria turns those gifts into gifts for others as well. At only 13, she surprised her father one summer with a drawing of a well-worn baseball mitt for his 50th birthday. The image has a near photographic quality in its detail and earned framed status on the family room wall.
“My birthday is in August, and I’d come home and ask her what she did all day and she would make some excuse up,” says Mark. “I didn’t think she was doing anything and she was working on this. I felt a little bad.”
Maria has her own website which features her art, and where soon she’ll be able to sell her work. She recently created her first commissioned piece for a friend who wanted a drawing for her mother.
“It’s fun to go over to my friend’s house and see it hanging in their living room,” says Maria.
Maria says she and her mother made the craft show rounds and sold note card versions of her Christmas cards which feature her designs from the last three years. She’s also printed 500 copies of her Madonna and Child drawing for family and friends; the first copy, of course, goes to her grandmother.
“I think my grandma still has the first card,” says Maria.
Card art, 2016
God bless. Impressive, most im[ressive.