Garrett Arts Passport Patch
The Garrett County Arts Council, located in historic Oakland, Maryland, organized a new passport activity to promote arts and culture in this scenic mountain tourist region. Participants collect stamps at a variety of historical sites, cultural events and arts festivities county-wide, and can bring their filled out book to the Garrett Arts Gallery Shop for a commemorative embroidered patch designed by a local artist. The arts council selected my submission for this year.
The challenge was to create an illustration that would translate to 3x3 inches of embroidery. The creative solution was determining a specific story to tell; designing the art using simple, separated flat shapes, and picking bright colors that will catch the attention of children or someone desiring a travel memento. The patch at present has been generating an unexpected amount of interest for the program.
The artwork contains a fun narrative about the pristine wilderness landscape that Garrett County has to offer for recreation. The design starts with a black bear, the region's mascot, peeking out from flowering rhododendrons at Muddy Creek Falls, Maryland’s tallest waterfall. Muddy Creek flows into the Youghiogheny River, where boaters raft through the exciting commercial whitewater run downstream. One of the rafters holds a “paintbrush”, dipping into the colorful palette that symbolizes the arts theme of the passport. Our bear leaves its prints in some of the paint spots to make its artistic mark on the way up to the mountain-top.
Project Type Embroidered Iron-on Patch
Tools Adobe Illustrator
Role Artist
Year 2025
