Halloween Art

Spider ATC's by Phillip Hoyle

I have acquired quite a large collection of Artist Trading Cards, the result of several years of trading these baseball trading card-size pieces of art with other artists. As a result I’ve had to increase shelf space to accommodate the growing number of ring binders in which I store them. Still, by comparison with two other collectors who have over 22,000 cards, I’m only a beginner.

In the collection I have many cards related to Halloween and Day of the Dead because these topics are always the October themes of the two trades I attend. Thus I have collected cards of glowing jack o’ lanterns, witches in pointed hats, flying bats, black cats, spider webs, and so much more. There are skeletons wearing party clothes, flying ghosts, ghastly ghouls, walking dead, on and on—designs I don’t particularly groove on yet ones that have become increasingly popular in American life and entertainment. 

Eclipse ATCs by Phillip Hoyle

On Saturday I took several sheets of gloomy ATCs to a trade at CORE New Art Space in the Santa Fe Street Arts District. My themes were spiders, the moon on a dark night (actually the lunar eclipse a couple of weeks ago), and the word BOO. I had other new cards as well, ones I prepared in case some folk should not be so deeply into fright. While I don’t find the topics exciting, I did look forward to the creativity of the Halloween enthusiasts. The October trades generally bring out larger participation!

Even though we did not have anything like a record-breaking attendance, I did take home about thirty cards--really nice ones: clever, arty, skillfully made, funny, weird, and always creative. Check on line searching for Artist Trading Cards, Denver to see more cards and, if you like, get a mild artistic scare.

Boo ATCs by Phillip Hoyle

Denver, 2015