Artist trading cards
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If you ever collected baseball cards or Pokemon® cards, then you have a very good idea what this mail art looks like. It is relatively new art form which began in September, 1996. The concept was created by Swiss artist M. Vänçi Stirnemann.
They are small ( 2 ½ x 3 ½ inch) miniature works of art which can be produced as an original or as very limited editions. They can be made using all techniques and materials like paint, collages, photographs, rubber stamp, assemblages, small found items, digital art, etc.
On the back of the card is usually the signature, the date and the number (if the card is part of an edition). You can create, trade and collect these little works of art with artists from around the world.
The only rule is the dimensions: 2.5 x 3.5 inches.
There are similarities between the two creative activities, MailArt and ATCs, as well as a very distinctive difference. What is unique about the concept of ATCs is TRADING, and, to be VERY specific: face-to-face trading. If ATCs are sent in the mail they become yet another variation of CMA, but, once one attends a Trading Session the cards come to life!
What is unique to ATCs is the social activity that takes place at the Trading Session along with the face-to-face trading. There is no difference in a formal sense between ATCs and CMA --- that is, in both cases they incorporate the full range of art media and disciplines, they are not a formal innovation such as Cubism. Conceptually ATCs are extremely close to CMA, they are both about exchanging art without the interface of the artworld and without money being involved. Except for the concept of the Trading Session, which is profound difference, the two activities could be, for all intents and purposes, the same --- but, trading via mail is a very diminished experience when compared to an actual ATC Trading Session.
More information about ATCs can be found at:
- Artist Trading Cards (http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/index.htm)
- Mailartist.com (http://www.mailartist.com/kiyotei/ATC.html/)
- Artist Trading Cards (http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/)
- Art in Your Pocket (http://www.cedarseed.com/air/atc.html/)
- ATC's by Ed Beals (http://www.geocities.com/edsatc/)