By Carrie Mercer
Imagine the scene: Two art aficionados sit in a smoke-filled (okay, smoke-free) bar, eyeing each other’s spread-out stacks of glossy little cards. They negotiate the deal over a couple of pints. “Okay, then, I’ll give you the Hopper. But I want that Kahlo, you got three of those, come on now.”

Well, not exactly. Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) aren’t about famous artists and their performance statistics. Instead, the people who exchange ATCs are also the ones who make them. Anyone can make ATCs, be they artist or amateur. And about the only way you can get some is to make some, because these small-scale art pieces—each is the size of a baseball card—aren’t for sale.

Swiss Beginnings
It all started with Swiss performance artist M. Vänçi Stirnemann, who got the idea after watching some enthusiastic sports fans trading hockey cards. Stirnemann was inspired by the social interaction that resulted from the act of trading, and thought about creating a similar experience with handmade art. In 1997, he created more than a thousand cards for an exhibition in Zurich, Switzerland, but instead of selling the cards, he offered to trade them one-on-one with anyone—artists, friends, strangers—willing to make their own cards and bring them in. A huge trading-card session ensued and an art movement was born.

One of those who attended the original exhibition in Zurich was Canadian artist Don Mabie, who subsequently brought ATCs to North America, created an international exhibition, and started having ATC trading sessions at The New Gallery in Calgary, Canada (www.thenewgallery.org). At the recent eighth anniversary trading session in September, about 80 traders attended. The exhibit celebrating this anniversary displayed more than 800 cards and ran in conjunction with a work session for visitors to create and trade their own cards. Tomas Jonsson, the programming director for The New Gallery, notes that they still have regular trading sessions once a month that attract 20 to 60 active traders.

This may seem gloriously anarchical, but there are some rules. First, the Artist Trading Card is always the same size: 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Second, it is never sold, only traded. Aside from that, almost anything goes. Some trading groups like to pick a theme for everyone to interpret. I’ve been in swaps with themes ranging from puppets and vintage sewing to math and Halloween movies. Other swaps have been centered around a particular technique, such as using hand-carved rubber stamps or altering photos, and still others just make random art.

Artists commonly use cardstock as a base, but many people simply recycle other types of trading cards. Playing cards also work well. My personal favorite is all those cereal boxes in the recycling bin. Depending on what medium you like to work in, you might create an image using rubber stamps, pen and ink, watercolor, or collage. If you’re a fiber artist or quilter, you might use fiber or combine fiber with papers. If you’re a scrapbooker, you’ll already have all kinds of goodies. I like to use recycled items—old keys, pages from old textbooks, game pieces, and the like.

ATCs in the Art World
My own experience with ATC’s began locally with a Meetup group. The group was focused on making Altered Books, but one day someone brought in some ATCs. I was immediately hooked. I loved the small size, both as something to hold and to view, and as a challenge to fill with something artful.

Since then, I’ve helped put together a group that creates several different types of mixed-media art, much of it collaborative. About 15 people meet once a month to trade ATCs and share other types of projects (such as altered books). Another group devoted to trading ATCs took form last spring under the initiative of St. Paul artist-therapist Katelyn Mariah. With much overlap in the two groups’ membership, Mariah is planning to close her group down and has urged members to join ours.

People in our group come from a wide variety of backgrounds—art teachers, scrapbookers, a nurse, a computer geek, several businesswomen, and a couple of writers. Most of us are self-taught artists and have little or no formal training.

That may lead one to place ATCs firmly in the category of folk art, but opinions vary. Kathy Coulter, an artist and art educator , believes ATCs may have grown out of the alternative rubber stamping movement that has flourished with artists like Teesha Moore and Lynn Perella.

Susan Hensel, owner of the Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis, says she has only done a few ATC trades and discovered them through an art group that was creating their own Tarot card decks. “I don’t know if they’re really folk art,” she says. “A lot of these people were rubber-stampers first.”

It’s not a new form, says Jennifer Menken, Discovery Room Coordinator at the Bell Museum of Natural History and one of our group members. “People have been doing miniature art for thousands of years, and collectible cards of birds, animals, sports stars, etc. have been around since Victorian times.” Menken has a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Management, but she has always made art—“lots of animals and dragons as a kid. I paint watercolors, make costumes, and do other sorts of book arts and journaling.” Of the ATC format, she says, “I like the size and speed at which I can work. ATCs give me a chance to try new things without wasting a $20 canvas or a whole sheet of expensive paper.”

Coulter, who is also a member of our local trading group, finds that ATCs are a satisfying way to keep her hand in making art even while she is busy teaching. “ATCs are great when you need a little art shot,” she says.

She keeps a visual journal, and ATCs help her focus her visual attention, to think, “what’s in my world today that I can grab and keep and use in my art?” She recently added ATCs to her arts residencies in the schools, and found that kids love them. At the Art Educators of Minnesota Fall Conference, Coulter taught an ATC workshop and found teachers very enthusiastic—this was something they could easily fit into their curricula, and they really appreciated the opportunity to “exercise their own creative muscles.”

The trading aspect of ATCs can be a little tough for some people to get used to at first—they may want to hold on to their own cards because they like what they’ve made. But the trade is what creates the community of artists, infusing the group with new energy and ideas. Originally, trades were only done in person, which founder Stirnemann saw as a kind of art performance, and some purists still stick to this method, but with the explosion of Internet culture, it’s easy to trade with people from all over the world (check groups.yahoo.com for dozens of groups dedicated to ATCs).
“The randomness is something of a gamble,” says Menken about trading online, “and you don’t always get something you like, but on the other hand you may get a piece that is completely unexpected and inspiring.”

ATCs may not be the next big art movement—though there have been a few exhibitions around the country in small galleries, you probably won’t see one at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts anytime soon—but that’s okay with the people in my group, because we like to think small: about 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches.

Carrie Mercer is a writer and “nonartist” living in Minneapolis. She can be reached at cmercer@mn.rr.com.

For ideas and inspiration, visit Art in Your Pocket: ATCs at http://www.cedarseed.com/air/atc.html

ATCs made with drawing, collaging, and printmaking techniques