Big Art-Little Spaces: Postcard Swap for "Leap-Day"

 "Not every act of art creates something special, but it creates something. It is the act of art that is important, not the result." Michael L. Goodman

I used this postcard for another swap on Swap-bot in honor of Leap Day, 29 February 2024. I made the card in 2012 when I was working on a book in a book arts class at the University of Utah called Artist Books Two. I made a book called Loco-Motion using copies of photos, Plate 169, by Eadweard Muybridge. [I was the oldest member of the class at 65. The rest were twenty-something college students.] This card was made from one of the extra copies I did not use in the book with a few collage elements added.

This is what the book looked like:

Big Art-Little Spaces: Postcard Swap on Swap-bot

 "Not every act of art creates something special, but it creates something. It is the act of art that is important, not the result." Michael L. Goodman

I started looking for some mail swaps on Swap-bot this week. 2018 was the last year that I participated in a Swap-bot posting. I joined a postcard swap that was open to handmade cards. Most swap hosts ban handmade cards because some swappers slap a few stickers on an index card and think they have performed an act of art. If those swappers were Ray Johnson, they might get away with it.

However, some of the best cards I have received in swaps were handmade ranging from pristine pencil drawings to elaborate collages. The card I sent in the swap was the penultimate card in a series I made in 2011 featuring small scherenschnitte pieces I cut for Valentine's Day. I am keeping the last card in the set for my own collection.

I would not mind receiving a postcard like this in the mail.

Here are some other postcards I have made.

Two Artist Trading Card Swaps to Start a New Year

I joined two swaps for the beginning of January: one, a black and white; two, a mega swap of ten cards. For the black and white , I did a couple of Kokopelli drawings. My trade partner listed on her profile that she liked Native American design, especially kachinas. They are simple, but I like them.

My daughter gave me an envelope maker for Christmas, and I used it to make an envelope for this swap. I used a page from an old Southwest Art magazine, and I like how it turned out.

The mega swap was for ten ATCs. I made a few new cards and combined them with some that were from series that I made in the past years. I don't think I could have created ten brand new cards in the last two weeks. Here are six of the cards I sent.

New Year Swapping in January 2014

I am sending out two swaps today. Both of them have double partners. The first is a location swap where traders pick a state or sometimes a country to represent on the ATC. I always choose Utah, where I have lived for43 years, if it hasn't been snapped up by another. New Mexico, where I lived from 1949 to 1960, would be my second choice; then California where I lived from 1960 to 1970. When I do a Utah location trade, I pick Delicate Arch as the theme. If I were to do New Mexico, I would build the card around the Saint Francis of Assisi Church in Rancho de Taos. I have done several art pieces on that subject. I don't know what I would choose for a theme if I did California; probably something around Huntington Beach, maybe the auditorium and tower at old Huntington Beach High School. Now there's a thought!
The second swap is a simple silhouette on a background. I used a silhouette of Delicate Arch on two backgrounds made from extra ATCs I made a few years ago.
Location ATC card:

I made three of these, so I could keep one for my collection. I haven't hiked up to the arch in many years. My knees won't let me walk that far up hill (coming down is even worse). I am glad I took a lot of pictures.

Silhouette card with the two backgrounds:

Here is what I usually glue on the backs of the ATCs. If I run out of the contact papers with this design, I will put an address sticker on the back with the title, number, and date.

The design is from the title page of an old biographical encyclopedia published in 1888. I bought the book almost 50 years ago at Acers of Books in Long Beach, CA, one of my favorite places to browse when I was a student at Long beach State. I bought many books there that are now over 150 years old.

I also decorated the envelopes for sending the swaps. Here are three of the front sides and two of the backs. The paper was stained with inks in my "secret" process. I like to outline things with black. It must be my expressionistic side.

 

 

My Last Swap-bot Trade of 2013

I sent out my last Swap-bot trade, ATC Profile Trade, on December 27. This trade was sent two partners based on something in the partner's Swap-bot profile. One of the partners I had, listed in her favorite television shows Doctor Who. My three daughters are Doctor Who fanatics, and they have hooked my wife on the program. Curse Xfinity on Demand and all the Doctor Who seasons that are available. My wife is watching them all the time! I admit to watching a few of them with her. We used to watch the show every Saturday night back when Tom Baker was the "Doctor," but there have been a lot of regenerations since then, and I am a little lost.
I made two Doctor Who themed cards for my Australia partner, though only one was required. (I like to send extra ATCs and decorate the envelopes if I have time.) I didn't over do the card hoping that "less is more." I didn't want to cover up the backgrounds, which were made of stained cardstock that I made in 2012. I used the same backgrounds for some Halloween ATC trades in 2012. The color was supposed to be black, but it turned out gray instead. You never know what you are going to get with my paper staining technique. It is always a surprise, usually pleasant, but occasionally a disappointment. I was hoping these backgrounds would suggest the atmosphere surrounding the traveling Tardis. I took these photos with my phone because my scanner is not working, and the digital quality is not very good.

My other trading partner had an alphabetical list of likes. For "Z" she listed zentangles, so I experimented with some zentangles. These may no longer qualify as zentangles, but I like the results of my experimentation. Again the quality is not very good. Scanning gives a much better result.

 

Happy New Year to all. If you contact me, I will send you an original Artist Trading Card to add to your collection, or get you started on collecting. Just remember that you should always reciprocate with an ATC of your own.

A Few More Swap-bots

I did three swaps on Swap-bot in April. Two were ATC trades and one was a handmade envelope trade made from a magazine page. I found an old LIFE Magazine (Dec. 1999) and used an ad page for a vacation in Costa Rica as the base for the envelope. I then cut out a few bits and pieces from other pages and glued them on.

The ATC trades were a "Blue" and a "Yellow" trade. Color ATC swaps only have to have the specified color somewhere on the card. The first idea that flooded my little brain for the blue swap was Elvis and the movie Blue Hawaii from 1961.

 For the yellow, I did a series of five cards using the famous St. Francis of Assisi Church at Rancho de Taos, NM. Yellow was mainly on the first two cards. Anyone who has been to see this church in person or has seen photographs (the most photographed and painted church in America) will see that the bottom of the left wall of the building has been modified in my drawings. I was more interested in the overall shapes than accurate details.

 

The first swap I have done in May was a 50 State ATC Swap. There was one swapper for each state. The states were claimed on a first come basis, and I grabbed my state, Utah.  I used Delicate Arch to represent Utah for the ATCs. I often do more than one ATC for a trade, even though only one is required. The first is a crayon wax resist with a blue water color wash on a half tone photo of the arch. On the second ATC I used gel pens and cutouts from a postage stamp catalog.

I always send my swaps in a decorated envelope. For this swap, I made an envelope with a page from an old book about games that had been discarded from the library. The pages show different decorated game boards from around the world. Is there any doubt that this letter came from Utah?