Artist trading cards are becoming more well-known in the international art community and one of Merritt’s own has helped draw them here.
Artist Alexandra Edmonds attended high school in Merritt before moving to Kelowna, but she’s returned several times over the last couple of weeks to host trading card events at the Courthouse Art Gallery.
“People from the community came in and they participated in the workshop and took some [trading cards] home,” she explained, noting approximately eight people attended the workshops.
At the end of three lessons, Edmonds displayed the cards on the gallery walls. Over the past weekend, she and other participants in her workshop attended the gallery to trade the cards.
“When we take the cards down, the artists trade with each other there,” Edmonds said.
Kathi Dahlquist-Gray, gallery director/curator, said some of the cards traded throughout the world have become valuable.
“I had heard about them before, but I didn’t know how big they had become,” she said about the trend. “Most of the cards are traded, but some have generated massive value.”
The art medium could be a way to engage new artists because anyone can create them, Edmonds added.
“It’s hard for everyone to find art accessible and I think right now art is only usually really followed by the people who are either educated in art or they are artists themselves,” she said.
Artist trading cards started in Switzerland in 1996 during the mail art movement, which also included artist postcards.
“It just started with artists sending this stuff around the world and trading things like that,” Edmonds said. “It started as a trend over there and then got big throughout the world and spread to communities like here in Canada.”
Edmonds said people can get involved with the cards by going online and entering “trading cards” into Google. Many communities also have trading card groups that meet occasionally to create and trade the cards.
