Official Whiskey Flat Days 2025 logo poster. Photos courtesy of Amanda Raymond
It was early October when artist Amanda Raymond was approached, by a Kernville Chamber of Commerce board member, about the chamber wanting her to design their Whiskey Flat Days 2025 poster logo.
Raymond told the Kern Valley Sun, on January 2, she created the logo to correlate with this year’s Whiskey Flat Days theme “Rhinestones & Wranglers.” The poster was unveiled, at the recent Whiskey Flat Kick-Off Dinner, January 3.
This was an unusual year because, traditionally, the chamber held a contest to decide upon the artist’s work they would use to promote their annual theme. This year the chamber decided to choose one specific artist instead.
Raymond said that she communicated with the chamber discussing different ideas. Raymond based her design on the pictures they put together during that meeting.
The chamber wanted Raymond to do the design within a week’s time. However she needed more time. She was grateful they gave her about two weeks total.
“I pulled out my colored pencils and my pastels and started drawing. And the rest is history. It just kind of evolved on its own. That was my first draft. I had put together a compilation of different pictures and made a layout so I knew exactly what I wanted to create. The feeling that it has is what I was hoping for. I was hoping for something that was reminiscent of love, and of romance, and of being whisked away by love and romance. He’s riding in to sweep her away. And she’s running to him to be swept away.”
Raymond said, “I would imagine other people would interpret it differently. So there’s no right or wrong way to interpret the picture. It speaks for itself to each viewer.”
The talented artist was surprised to be chosen for the honor. She said, “I was so humbled and a little nervous because I wanted to give them what they were asking for. And I wanted to meet their expectations. I was just incredibly honored.”
The decision of which artist to use, for the design, was one that the board made. Raymond said she was thereafter approached by one of the board members. “I had not expected it at all. It looks like they were pleased with what was created, so I was thrilled.”
Raymond is a self-taught artist and relies on the Lord. She said, “I have tried to grasp what the Lord is teaching me. Every piece I do, I just pray over it, that it would bless somebody. And I want feelings of joy and warmth to come from whatever I do.”
Being from an entire family of creative people, her mother was a prolific artist. Therefore Raymond was raised watching her mother oil paint and create landscapes and portraits.
When she was in her early 20s she put her hand to a brush and some watercolor paints. However the mother of two grown sons took a break from her art, for about 30 years, while raising her family. Raymond was inspired to create again, when she inherited her own mother’s easel, after her mother’s passing. “I’ve just recently come back into creating. And I’m learning a love of colored pencil, and pastels, and graphite, and gouache, and pretty much all the mediums I have tried my hand at. And I really enjoyed them. And I’ve had a very positive response, which has delighted me. And so I became a full time artist,” Raymond said.
Raymond enjoys creating visuals of animals and of florals, which she says are forgiving and free flowing. As a member of the Kern River Valley Art Association, Raymond was Artist of the Month, in December of 2023. Her work was also shown at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest and displayed for a month at the Kern Valley Museum in Kernville. Raymond creates greetings cards, in glossy stock, sold at KRVAA Art Gallery. She has a website https://www.amandaraymondartworks.com/
Again Raymond expressed gratitude for the chamber giving her the opportunity to create the official Whiskey Flat Days logo poster of 2025.
