QUILTERS ARTISTIC TRADING CARDS

Trading cards are the in thing right now with quilters and artists and they are gaining popularity all the time. These trading cards are a little larger than the size of a business card, in a way they are your own personal artistic card. They are usually 2 1/2" X  3 1/2". These cards are miniature works of art. You can be as artistic as you desire. This is an opportunity to try new techniques. You can use fabric, ink, pencils, rubber stamps, fibers, beads, any type of embellishments to create your own work of arts.

HISTORY OF ARTISTIC TRADING CARDS (ATC's)

In 1997 (approx.) M. Vanci Stirnemann, from Zurich, Switzerland exhibited approx. 1200 cards he had created in his bookstore/gallery. Don Mabie from Calgary was visiting the exhibition and was impressed enough to arrange with Stirnemann to exhibit the collection in Calgary. This happened in 2000 and with 80 artists from 10 different countries being represented. This was the "First International Biennial of Artist Trading Cards".

Criteria for Trading Cards.

There are just 3 rules.
Size, Creators contact information and Thickness

Size:
Cards must be 2 ½" x 3 ½". This is the standard size of baseball, football trading cards and QTC's must be the same size.

Contact Information:
So that QTC' s can be traded it is important to sign your creations, number them (especially if they are part of a series, or if you want a limited edition of a group, number these 1/ 5, 2/ 5, etc.) and a contact information you want to give. This can be an email address, or a postal address.

Thickness:
Use a standard trading card sleeve as a guide to the thickness of your card. They must be able to fit into one of these sleeves.

WHERE TO TRADE YOUR CARDS

We could start trading our cards within our own guild and then we could encourage other quilting guilds to participate.

"The New Gallery" in Calgary has a monthly trading session on the last Saturday of every month. Their website www.thenewgallery.org  is currently under revision and they hope to have it running again by the end of October 2008. I am told they will have a section on ATC's.

I introduced the idea of Quilt Artistic Trading Cards at both meetings in September and I would like to get some input on this idea.

I would like to ask members if they are interested in creating these cards and if they are interested in trading them. Any ideas on how we should set up the trading process would be extremely helpful and welcomed.
Please let me know what you think, my email address: lqgmember@hotmail.com

Thank you and happy quilting
Nuala.