Greeting card connection with mother led Cheryl Raber to art

Published 9:00 am Saturday, January 22, 2022

Cheryl Raber has been an artist all of her life, but it was a birthday card that she sent to her mother back in 2020 that inspired her to share her art with others.

Originally from California, Raber has made her home in Sparta since 1995, along with her husband, Kevin, and her son, Arthur. In the late 1990s, Raber’s mother began a long journey with dementia, forgetting the conversations and history that she had shared with others. Though the two always talked on the phone on special days, Raber decided on her mother’s 87^th birthday in 2020 to send her a birthday card for the first time in 20 years. And on a whim, she decided to send another card the next day as well, hopeful to keep the connection going. 

She continued to send the cards every day. Soon, though, Raber lost interest in commercial greeting cards and had an idea to make the cards herself. She had already dabbled in abstract, mixed media and intuitive art as medication, so she went and bought a package of blank cards and began adorning them with her paintings.

She sent the cards to her mother daily, filling them with poetry, notes or whatever may have been on her mind, and her brother in California would read them to her. Oftentimes, he would find their mother reading the cards again, renewing the conversations as if they were brand new.

After her mother passed away in July 2020, Raber felt a void, and so she began art journaling and writing, which ultimately evolved into pieces on larger paperworks and canvases. She began posting the pieces on Instagram and gained a following, and now Raber is taking part in her first art showing at Milledgeville Allied Arts. 

“I’m really super excited about it,” she said. “I’m happy to share all the bright colors. I didn’t realize how bright everything was until I got everything on the wall. It very much reminds me of Spring.”

Raber describes her art as moving, flowing pieces with openness and colors that resonate with her. 

“When I paint, it’s like I’m transported someplace in my mind, or in my heart or soul…,” she said. “I like to think of my art as an active meditation, a little journey away from everyday life.”

Her business, Wild Prism, is named for a symbol that she discovered in her 20s when she was a poet. Now in her 60s, she said the wild prism fuels her art.

“It is my channel, my artful meditation focal point,” she said.  

Raber said people can expect to see a lot of color when they visit her current show, and she hopes that it brings them joy. The pieces are acrylic on either watercolor or mixed media paper, and a few are on canvas.

“The show is a blast of color, and I like to think of it as being uplifting,” she said.

She is also hopeful that her art impacts others in such a way that it inspires them to share their own creativity.

“I would like to think that it would encourage them to go out and make their own art…,” she said. “I didn’t realize how fulfilling this was, how much I needed it in my life until I started doing it … I’m at my most comfortable, peaceful moment when I’m painting and I’m just playing. There are no pressures. I’m just having fun with all the colors.”

Wild Prism Art will be on exhibit at Milledgeville Allied Arts through Feb. 11, and a virtual tour is also available on the Allied Arts website — https://www.milledgevillealliedarts.com/ . Call to schedule a tour of the exhibit, 478-452-3950.