10 Mail Art Tips on Hosting an Artist Trading Card Exchange

How to Be a Good Mail Art Host or Hostess

Hosting a successful Artist Trading Card (ATC) mail art exchange can be easy and stress-free if you follow some basic rules. Artist Trading Cards are traditionally traded by artists through the postal mail.

Both beginners and seasoned artists can all benefit from an Artist Trading Card mail art trade. In the mail art swap, artists make and send in cards to a host, who sorts the cards and mails them back out. While this sounds simple enough, and it is, there are still some basic tips to follow to make the mail art exchange go smoothly.

1. Number of ATCs to Trade

Determine how many Artist Trading Cards will be traded per person in each exchange. The number of is up to you. If you are looking for a large number of participants in the swap, do a trade for one card. A more standard number is three, which can be successfully mailed with a regular first-class postage stamp as long as the ATCs are traditional and flat, without embellishments. Another popular number to exchange is five.

2. ATC Themes

When hosting and Artist Trading Card exchange decide if you want to have a theme or not. The theme could be as general as "five originals" or "three digital art ATCs." Some of the most successful exchanges I hosted had the following themes: Pirates, Alice in Wonderland, Mail Art, and Self-Portraits. Other themes of successful mail art swaps in which I participated were color-based themes, experimental, body parts, random, and Valentine's Day.

3. International ATC Participants

Figure out if want the exchange to include artists from other countries or just your own. The reason you need to determine this before you host your trade is because mail art coming through internationally will take longer to get to you, the host. The Artist Trading Cards will also cost more for you to return. Feel free to request international participants to include their own country's stamps to cover the cost of mailing back the returns.

4. Artist Trading Card Mail Art Swap Deadline