Success!

Imagine you're hearing the theme song to Rocky.

Do any of you remember the huge business card project I did for school last spring? How all of my homework from that semester disappeared along with my teacher? That included all 300 artist business cards I collected for my final project. Originally, he said all our work would be returned to the Continuing Ed office two weeks after our class was done. Four weeks after the semester finished up, I took a day off from work to commute into the city and pick everything up. Nothing was there. Concerned, I wrote to my teacher. He wasn't even in town but promised he'd deliver it soon after he returned. Then I never heard from him again. And the work never appeared in the school office.

Fast forward to this semester. Apparently, several of my fellow students were also concerned about the disappearance of their entire semester's worth of work. One of my classmates even exchanged e-mails with the head of the Continuing Ed department about it. Still no word.

This weekend, I attended the Fort Point Open Studios. I know my teacher is involved in that, so I tried to track him down at the show. No luck.

That is...until last night. A different classmate informed me that all our work was now waiting for us in the continuing ed office. He had picked his up two weeks ago! Two of us (myself and the girl who had written to the Continuing Ed department head) raced down before class began last night and made an inquiry at the front desk. The woman was really nice and showed us to a back storage room. There was the entire semester's worth of work for our entire class neatly packaged! We enthusiastically began scooping everything up (including the projects of fellow students who were upstairs) while cheering "Woo-hoo!". This caused the continuing ed lady to exclaim, "I feel like Santa Claus!" I laughed and said, "I feel like you're Santa Claus, too!"

My Rolodex with all those beautiful artist business cards is now back in my hands. I plan on posting those long-ago promised pictures of it this weekend. Yeay!!!

Mr. Postman, do you have a letter for me?

Last night the first two envelopes of business cards arrived, as promised. Yippee!!!

I expect more to be rolling in all week. I think I might be getting a little too excited about the prospect...but, c'mon! I opened my mailbox yesterday, and for once it's not stuffed with bills or misdirected pieces of mail. (I'm still getting mail for the previous owners of our place. We've been here for 3 years. And we also still get mail for my MIL. She stayed with us for only 6 months and I swear she gets more mail than we do!) Anyway, it's doubly nice to be getting something that will be an aid to this ginormous typography project that I have looming in front of me. You guys rock.

This is not to say that I don't need any more cards. I do. In fact, I need A LOT of cards. Nothing would make me happier than to be up to my eyeballs in business cards. (o; Like I've been saying all week, if you are an artist/crafter/designer I still need you to send your business cards into me! E-mail me here: honeydewstudio@gmail.com

Moo cards are great. Digital files are perfect. I'll print them up myself. Anything and everything would be great as long as it's a) from a creative person and b) in business card format.

Now, to discuss a different kind of card...As I've previously mentioned in other blogs, lately I've been very interested in ATCs (artist trading cards). I have a book about it and have been doing a little research. From what I can gather, ATC trading was created in 1997 by Zurich artist M.Vänçi Stirnemann. He came up with the idea as a way for artists to get share and socialize with each other.
For those of you who don't know, an ATC is a 2.5" x 3.5" sized original piece of art. Artists trade and collect them. There are a couple general rules about ATCs -first is the aforementioned size restriction. Second, they have to be original works of art. And lastly, they're not sold. You trade one of your cards for one card from another artist. (Generally, you aren't allowed to trade other artists' cards.)
The idea of collecting small works of art became so popular, that many people do sell them, but as ACEOs (art cards, editions and originals). I know ACEOs are available on Etsy.
I'm not looking to sell. I'm interested in the original concept, which is artist-to-artist trading. I'm dying to find out more about them, and to try my hand at making my own when I have some free time. Does anyone out there belong to a good online ATC trading group? I'm interested in joining one and getting more info from someone involved with the process. Leave me a comment if you're an ATC artist. I'd love to hear from you!