About Holiday Honor Cards

For over 20 years, United Ministries has asked a local artist to create a piece of artwork for our Holiday Honor Card. The artwork includes a sense of the holidays, a sense of poverty, and a Greenville scene. The donated artwork is displayed in the Templeton Conference Room, where visitors can appreciate its beauty and significance. Before it is displayed, we turn the artwork into a beautiful holiday greeting card that you can use to honor family, friends, clients, and colleagues. By making a donation in someone’s honor to United Ministries, you are also honoring someone in our community who truly needs the kind of support that your gift will provide.

“Be the Light” – 2020 Holiday Honor Card Original Art by Douglas Piper

Douglas Piper was born in Greenville, South Carolina. Having grown up both near the mountains and close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, his love of the outdoors grew tremendously. Throughout his life, Douglas has always been fascinated by the magnitude of the mountains and the ocean. This interest was cultivated during his teenage years and further developed when he met his wife, who is an artist.

After meeting his wife, Douglas delved into block printing as a way of spending more time with her as she worked on her own artwork. He started incorporating found paper, maps and books as this was all he could find to print upon. He used the practice of printing on the vintage paper to spark memories of the viewers own past travels and experiences.

Douglas lives and works in Greenville, South Carolina surrounded by the mountains, ocean and his artistic wife, Meredith Piper.

Words from the artist about “Be the Light:”

I wanted to create a piece that gave hope to everyone who saw it. Hope to share with those that are less fortunate than us, and the hope we have around us. Open hands represents none of this is ours. Having open hands during this time bring people together and allows ourselves to give freely rather than take and hold on.