Thursday 10 May 2012

Artist Trading Cards

Wow! This is the longest time I've been away from blogging. No excuses. Well, just one; I've started writing something else but it's not ready to share yet. 

So I'll continue with my blogging theme for the year: a review of my various  doings over the past twelve years, things I've started, enjoyed, and ended.

In 2006 I began making Artist Trading Cards, inspired by a dynamic group of local artists who put on an impressive exhibition at a nearby gallery. Our first meetings, the last Saturday of the month, took place at a restaurant/bar in Alexandria, Ontario.( Since then, both the gallery and the restaurant have changed hands. ) When the restaurant was in limbo we found the local community hall in Dunvegan to be a good venue, and so it was until, little by little, interest in this activity began to peter out. Fads have a life, a sustained period of gung-ho enthusiasm  followed by gradual lessening and finally stopping altogether. Fun while they last.

One of our group, the multi-talented Ronna Mogelon, created  a quarterly ATC Magazine, featuring traders from all over the world. Here is the first edition, Winter 2006. This centerfold page features one of Ronna's cards, bottom right. The top left card was done by Susan Valyi, one of the original editors.

What follows is a selection of some of my own card series, always a group of nine 2.5"x3.5" images, always themed, though there was never a rule about that.


SNOW GLOBES

ROCKABYE BABIES


VARIATIONS ON A GLASS BIRD
(One is missing) 


MUSICAL MERMAIDS

When he was ninety I cajoled my Dad to join us for a few sessions. This is what he whipped up for his first effort. He loves trains.

Unfortunately we scanned these without considering which way was up.


So here is a singleton. I love this one.


At the end of the trade we leave with a plastic sleeve that looks like this, a remembrance of that day and the people we shared art with. I have two thick binders full of these. They might make for some interesting perusing in years to come.

And, finally, here is the centerfold in the last edition of the ATC Quarterly. Winter 2012. 
It was good and now...Goodbye!