My Secret ATC Trade with Wendy Southin

A Secret, Mixed Media/Collage ATC Folding Book (Cover), May 2011

Last month, Wendy Southin won a chance to trade an Artist Trading Card (ATC) with me and I was elated!  Although we’ve been part of the same ATC group for a couple of years now, we’ve never actually traded cards.  You see instead of trading in the conventional way, to save time, our group members make one ATC each and draw numbers for each other’s cards… so in all this time, fate has denied me one of Wendy’s amazing cards… but not for long!  I can’t wait to see what she’s done!  In the meantime, let me share some news about this latest ATC escapade of mine…

Wendy agreed to trade cards on May 9^th.  When it came to deciding on a topic, I was all for making it a free-for-all, while she felt it worked better with a theme and was happy to let me do the choosing.  The pressure was on … I had to come up with a really great topic… so after a little reflecting and Internet research, I decided upon: “A Secret”!  It ended up being too good for me – I spent weeks wondering what the hell I was going to do!  I’ve gotten so used to spontaneously creating my themes, that when I actually have one, I suddenly feel boxed in.  Anyway, I had some decisions to make… would I divulge some mysterious secret about the universe? Or relay some wise insight about life? (Nah, I’m still too young and foolish for that!) 😉 Perhaps I could draw on some fascinating secret about a celebrity?  Everyone loves this kind of gossip.  While speaking with Olive this week she suggested I come clean about a secret shopping excursion I’d hidden from my hubby (ah, she knows me well!) but seeing as he’s my blog editor, I nixed that idea quickly!  (ha, ha, Kev you’ll never know how many there were just in the last week!)  Despite doing this, Olive’s idea made me realize that often the juiciest secrets are personal ones…  maybe I could divulge a family secret.  This sounded fascinating but also scary … if only I could come up with a private secret that was a blend of fact and fiction… meanwhile as I pondered and procrastinated, my deadline loomed nearer.

Now, I don’t know about you but when I collage something… it really has to intrigue me… it needs to be something I can’t fully picture but would really like to.  A few days ago, I had a restless night’s sleep and awoke from a terrible nightmare … and that’s when I had an “aha moment” and made a mad dash for my dream journal!  A couple of years ago I started one, and let me tell you, when it comes to dreams, I could be the queen of nightmares!  I can’t complain though, because often these tragic visions are visually rich and compelling.  I excitedly reviewed my journal for the perfect dream to work with and found one that revealed a secret about my late father…

Dreams are great to work with because like collage, we often remember them in fragments.  One of the greatest artists of the early twentieth century, Max Ernst, used images from illustrated books to fashion his own seamlessly collaged dream world novels.  My ATC (see above), a two page card-like book on Stonehenge paper, is composed of magazine images and an old invoice fragment; it’s hand-coloured with Sakura Gelly Roll pens (can’t live without those things!) while the writing is done with a black Pigma Micron pen.  In composing the card, I chose several elements that I felt “spoke” to each other to reveal parts of my dream.  As I was working in a small space, I had to edit many of my dream details out but I was pleased with the results.  Now I was told you must never judge a book by its cover, but I was wondering just how intrepid you people are… can you decipher what my father’s secret is from the cover above?  If you can, I’ll send you an image of the inside of the ATC card via email so you, along with Wendy, can share in my dream secret, too!  Stay tuned in the near future for more on Wendy’s fabulous ATC.

Here are a couple of other dream-related pieces of mine: “Disturbing Dream” and another related to an old family home.  One day, I’ll devote a show to dream-related collages.

Other Related Links:
A Personal Glimpse into the World of Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards: History, Rituals, How To’s