Small Art Creation for Your Art Career

In a world where you are who you know, networking and spreading your name for all to see is an important step to getting the publicity that you deserve.  Not only is networking important for success, but it’s also a great way to get familiar with who else is out there, both in terms of your colleagues and potential competition.  In the art community, one of the best ways to get your name and art out there for the world to admire is through artist trading cards.

What are Artist Trading Cards?

Referred to as ATC for short, artist trading cards are small 2.5” x 3.5” inch cards that can be traded back and forth between artists and are miniature pieces of art unique to the artist who created it.  Popular and useful among communities of artists of all shapes, sizes, and mediums, they offer a unique way to network and get your name out there.

Where does this come from?

If you know anything about trading cards, you probably thought of baseball cards as soon as you saw the dimensions of the art trading cards above.  The creation of it is pretty similar.  In North American, after its creation in 1996 by Vince Stirnemann, A Swiss artist, art trading cards came overseas to us through Don Mabie, a Canadian artist who had seen these cards and loved them.

How are these cards used?

These important cards are small sized pieces of art that can be just about anything an artist could imagine.  You could have all of yours the same, or you could have all sorts of them in different artistic styles to show your breadth.  The cards are designed and finished and then traded among the public or other artists.  The goal is to use these as business cards but to do it as creatively as possible.

You would also be getting these cards from other artists and gather your own collection of artists via their cards to trade on or to keep for yourself if you so choose.  Through such an accessible size, these can be created quickly and also spread far and wide if so chosen.  Networking and growing a diverse collection of these cards is as easy as baseball cards, but with no cost attached.

Since these are used in a swap situation, there are no fees to gathering new cards or selling your own.  The whole point of ATC art is to trade and get your own art as far out into the public as possible while doing the same for those cards that you receive.

How do they work in our modern world?

ATC art is more popular than ever in our modern world.  This is because everyone has a price on everything, and being able to spread the love of art through art itself all around the world with no financial incentive is liberating.  Similar to calling cards or business cards, these trading cards also allow for artists of all kinds to get their art out there and reach potential clients that they wouldn’t have known about before.

From projects in class to networking, to enjoying a collection of diverse trading cards yourself, the spreadable world of ATCs is here to stay and it is making itself a name within the art community. The only thing now is to get in on the trend and enjoy the entire process and what it can offer your own artistic flair. and networking potential.

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I enjoy getting comments and questions.  Please leave yours below. – Shirley

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