What a fun evening! Pics n Tales hosted a long overdue ATC Challenge on Thursday 14 April 2011 and everybody thoroughly enjoyed it. We even heard: "I'm hooked!" from Frances!
Art Cards have a very long and very interesting history. Art cards or miniatures where the rage in the 16th century. They were mostly portraits and they were sold, not traded or given away. They were the first wallet "photos". Men would have nudes painted of their Mistresses on art cards (without their wives knowing)--usually by the same Artist that would do the big family portraits of their wives.
Miniature Portraits would be used for exchange when rich people arranged marriages. In fact, this caused a big problem for poor Henry the Eighth, when the artist who painted his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, took a little too much "artistic license". Poor Anne was not up to standard and Henry divorced her.
The French artists were the first to come up with advertisement on the art cards. It wasn't until the mid-1700's that the English picked up on the idea of using the Art cards for advertising. During the Impressionist Age artists traded art cards among themselves to study each other's style and techniques. They also traded or sold the art cards as necessary for supplies, food and lodging
In 1887 "baseball" cards started to appear. These early cards are now very rare and it is uncertain what they were made of. They were not mass produced. During the period 1902 - 1935 baseball was in its golden years. Cards during this time were usually sold with bubble gum, chewing tobacco and cracker jacks. As they were marketed with different size products, baseball cards were different sizes and it was not until the 1960s that the modern 2.5 x 3.5 size was standardized.
In 1997 the Swiss artist M. Vanci Stirnemann created an exhibit of over 1,200 handmade cards and started a new trend for atc's. He asked others to create cards, as well, so that on the last day of the exhibit he could trade his cards with them. The idea was a hit and turned into a world-wide phenomenon.
The theme on Thursday was "Inner Beauty" and most of us made sets so we could swop ate the end of the evening. Here are a few of the artist trading cards that was made:
Ezme Hartman
Mare-Liez Oosthuizen
Janine Kennedy
Marie-Anne Ihrl
Frances Janse van Rensburg
Marbe Herbst
Frances Janse van Rensburg
Pics 'n Tales will host an ATC Challenge again soon. News events are posted on our Face book page regularly.
Until next time!
