Let It Burn ATC

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,

only the things I didn’t do

crackle after the blazing dies

--"Burning the Old year" by Naomi Shihab Nye

For the new year: fire. Burn the old to make something new.

Make two Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) from the charred remains of your unfavorite pile.

We know you have one: maybe it's a box, maybe it's an envelope, maybe it's a folder. You keep the disappointments there, that came in the mail: someone slapped some stickers, someone has the graphic design sense of a blind rhinoceros, and there's the growing stack of carefully crafted zines/ postcards/ ATCs that have an aesthetic sensibility that makes you throw up a little bit in your mouth. You hide them away.

Time to repurpose these!

Take an unloved ATC, postcard, inchie, zine, bookmark, journal page... and run it through the fire. Watch it singe, blacken, and burn.

BE SAFE! I recommend using a candle, not a roaring fire. Certainly not a gas stove. TAKE PRECAUTIONS! Work in a non-flammable space. Make sure there are not scraps around, curtains, paints, or anything else that may catch on fire.

You will want to carefully manage the burning: if you let it all turn to ash-- while that can be very satisfying for particularly icky pieces of art-- you will not have any scraps left over to design a new ATC.

Your new ATCs should show some evidence of the previous incarnation.

Think of it as collage, using pieces of other people's art. You've added a transformational element: fire.

You will make two ATCS: send one to each partner.

Here's an example on my Flicker account