Dan Rickards was honored last Friday evening with a presentation of an appreciation plaque from Rotary Club of Sisters at Clearwater Gallery during the Fourth Friday Art Walk.

In 2019 Rickards created artwork that graced the front of the very first Sisters Country-themed holiday card published and sold by Rotary entitled “A Warm Welcome.” The card featured a twilight image of a wintery country cabin in the woods festooned with holiday lights and the Three Sisters as backdrop.

Rotary Club of Sisters past president and manager of the rotary project Curtiss Davis said, “My wife, Ann, and I have admired Dan’s art for years and have three of his prints in our home.

We used to live in Corvallis, and Ann was very active in Assistance League including serving a term as president.

Corvallis Assistance League teamed with Corvallis artist Jan Roberts Dominguez, who did a winter scene around Corvallis for a Christmas card each year.

It was a very successful fundraiser for their service projects.

Then when we moved over to the Sisters area, we thought of doing the same thing; producing Christmas cards with art from a prominent Sisters artist to raise funds for the Rotary Scholarship Program.

We immediately thought of Dan because of our love of his art and particularly the way his art evokes a feeling of Sisters Country.”

When Davis approached Rickards about the fundraiser, he took on the project of painting something with the holiday theme.

“He gave me some thoughts about what they would like and some loose thumbnail photo images that might work into the idea of what the Christmas card would look like,” Rickards said.

Rickards ran with the inspiration and created an imaginary ranch with the Three Sisters Mountains in the background and a Christmas tree adorned with lights out front.

He added, “Growing up in Lake Tahoe the winters were a big deal. The whole idea of snow at Christmas time, and going out getting our own tree like we do here every year, has become an iconic visual part of the holiday season.

“I love painting snow, but snow and a night scene can be tricky. Such as having the lights on the live tree in front illuminating the snow. But that was the ambiance I was looking for. You see the cabin in the background all lit up with the tracks in the snow and the mountains beyond. I was mindful of how that was going to convey into a Christmas card, but it worked.”

Three of the Rickards children, Kyle, Evan and Jenna, all received Rotary Scholarships back in high school.

Rickards noted, “The proceeds from the holiday cards goes directly to Rotary’s scholarship fund, so in some small way it was great to give back, to see it come full circle.”

Each year the Rotary Club of Sisters gives out three Rotary scholarships, two academic and one vocational scholarship.

Davis said, “This was our first year for the Christmas card fundraiser and we consider it a good success selling out all 1,200 cards that we had printed.”

All 100 boxes of 12 cards each were sold, along with a number of 11 by 14-inch color prints featuring the same design. In addition to contributing card and poster rights of his original oil painting, Rickards will donate a generous portion of the proceeds from the sale of the original work that is still available at Clearwater Gallery located at 303 W. Hood Ave. in the Sisters art district. One hundred percent of the net income is set aside for the Rotary Club’s foundation in support of scholarships to Sisters High School students.