Greetings From M.A.R.S.

Four young entrepreneurs make their mark in the Bay Area.

by Kelly Gallagher & Diane Irvin

an April 1998 article from

M.A.R.S. is (from left) Rosie, Marlene, Sebastian, and Annie.

Greetings From M.A.R.S. is a local ground level greeting card company owned and operated by four teenagers: Marlene, Annie, Rosie, and Sebastian. They have long had interests in art, and at first, drawing developed into just hobbies for them. After talking it over with their mother, Marlene and Sebastian decided to invite a friend each and start a small greeting card company. They originally started a company called J.A.M.S., that made Christmas cards last year. However, after a company rearrangement about three months ago, the new company, often referred to just as M.A.R.S., was formed. Their logo is an alien holding a red planet.

The four young entrepreneurs combine their artistic talents with business and personal skills to make up a winning team. Marlene, the librarian & record keeper, "can understand Annie" and "likes to read, a LOT." Annie, the inventory & quality control manager, and the only member who claims to actually come from the planet Mars, "speaks in patterns of distinct grunts, clicks, and squeaks." Rosie, the company treasurer, "plays piano, takes Kenpo karate. Has dyed her hair almost every color of the rainbow. Loves to rollerblade, skateboard, and skim board. Favorite place to be is the beach. Loves listening to music," and "writes poems." And Sebastian, the worker bee," is insane!!" and "has creaky knees." Their backgrounds in art range from classes in pottery to creative art. Most of their drawing skills though come from a mix of just sitting around drawing and serendipity. The greeting cards from M.A.R.S. are created by a group effort. The process begins by the M.A.R.S. members just getting together, sitting down and drawing whatever comes to mind. They do not start out with any preconceived themes, yet on occasion when one member comes up with a particularly interesting piece of art work, it is often repeated for awhile as variations of that theme. For instance, when one came up with a fish design that was accidentally sprinkled with paint, more sprinkles were added for an effect that turned out very nice, and another fish drawing soon followed embellishing on some of the newly discovered effects.

The drawings are done mostly using colored pencils or water colors and pastels. The handmade cards created by M.A.R.S. all come from their original works of art. These artistic greeting cards cover an array of themes from fish, flowers, and cubic fruit to birds, barns and everyday objects in surrealistic settings. The inside of each card is left blank for the customer to modify for any occasion. M.A.R.S. presently has over a dozen card designs that it can reproduce as orders come in, and so it is now working on the marketing end before creating more designs. The members feel it would become too complicated if they create any more designs at this time. After their company gets off the ground, they plan to continue creating more greeting card designs, and expanding into other fields. They now sell mostly individual greeting cards; however, for the holidays, such as Christmas, they package together groups of cards around the holiday themes.

M.A.R.S. presently works out of a rented space in back of Bay Moss Studio where they get together in 1½ -2 hour sessions a couple of times a week. Most of their time is spent drawing and snacking with very little time left for "goofing off." All of their art works are drawn at the gallery and then photocopied down the street at South Coast Printers before being assembled either back at the gallery or at Sebastian's home. The production process from drawing to photocopying and gluing has been quite a learning process for the team. They have adjusted some of their methods to continually improve the quality of their products and thus keep their customers happy. The future of M.A.R.S. may include producing business cards for discriminating businessmen and businesswomen who would enjoy having something above the ordinary. A second marketing idea is to begin creating personalized stationary for both home and office use, and to offer designer cards at a client's request, showing the client's house or whatever the client wants. M.A.R.S. is also contemplating doing workshops for young people to show them how to create greeting cards of their own. These workshops will most likely be over the summer break and the fee of the workshops, about $15, will just cover the cost of the supplies. Locations and times are still in the planning stages, so call 269-0965 before summer vacation begins to check for prices, schedules and availability.

Presently, Greetings From M.A.R.S. cards can be seen and purchased in Coos Bay at Bay Moss Studio. Over this past spring break, the M.A.R.S. team marketed their cards up and down the coast in towns like Bandon and Florence, so there may be more art galleries and gift shops carrying these wonderful greeting cards soon. For more information, you can contact a M.A.R.S. member at the phone number above. Greetings From M.A.R.S. are truly fabulous artistic greeting cards that are out of this world, and just about anyone would enjoy sending or receiving one no matter what planet they're from.