Some collect baseball cards; others collect Pokemon cards. For Alex Paulus, a kid in the ’90s, it was Marvel trading cards. “That was my favorite thing when I was a kid,” he says. “They were like these fully rendered oil paintings of Marvel characters.” Little did he know that his childhood hobby would inspire him to start a new kind of trading card in Memphis, almost three decades later.
In 2020, when lockdown rolled around and boredom took over, the artist explains, he had an itch to return to those Marvel cards that had once excited him, so he purchased a box of them. “I found out that in one of the packs in the box, you could get an original hand-drawn piece of art on a trading card,” he says. “And I got one of those cards. I was like, ‘Oh man, this is really cool.’ … So that kind of gave me the idea of what if I could buy a pack and it was just filled with all of these handmade cards and how cool that would be.”
Paulus, as it turns out, wasn’t the first to think of creating trading cards with original art. That honor belongs to a Swiss artist, M. Vänçi Stirnemann, who in 1996 initiated an ongoing and now worldwide performance whereby artists of all backgrounds create, collect, sell, and trade self-made unique works, 2.5-by-3.5 inches in size.
Inspired by this, Paulus became determined to bring the phenomenon to Memphis. In 2021, thanks to a grant from UrbanArt Commission, he created 50 packs of his own artist trading cards, with three little paintings in each, and he sold all of them at his 2021 show at Off the Walls Arts. Some of these packs even had golden tickets — Willy Wonka style — that granted the recipient a full-sized painting hanging at the show. The goal, Paulus explained in his grant application, was to “inspire others to make their own artist trading cards and become part of the performance, too.”
Inspire it did, as this weekend seven other artists will join Paulus in the first-ever Artist Trading Cards Memphis event. They include Michelle Fair, Keiko Gonzalez, Mary Jo Karimnia, Tad Lauritzen Wright, Sara Moseley, Nick Pena, and Matias Paradela. “These are legit gallery-showing artists who are making these,” Paulus says. “It’s not just getting our friends who like to doodle on stuff.”
For the day, these artists will sell their 2.5-by-3.5 inch works at affordable prices, some as low as $10. Some will sell them individually, and others will sell them in packs. Some cards you’ll be able to see before purchasing, and others will be a surprise. Some packs will even have golden tickets for full-sized artwork if you’re lucky. Of course, you’ll be able to trade cards with other collectors at the event, and you can even bring in your own 2.5-by-3.5 inch works to trade if you so please.
“There’ll be tiny abstract paintings, really detailed pencil portraits, Ninja Turtle porn, altered baseball cards,” Mary Jo Karimnia, one of the participating artists, explains when asked what type of images collectors should expect. Clearly, there’s a range in subject and even medium. For her cards, Karimnia explores motifs of eyes and rainbows, and some incorporate symbols inspired by old Icelandic magical staves, with spells “to get protection from witches,” “to destroy all weapons,” “to nurture humbleness,” and so on.
Karimnia, who “caught the [tiny-art] bug” after Paulus’ Off the Walls Arts show, says that the small form allows for more experimentation. “It’s a different challenge [than my usual work],” she says, “Plus if I don’t like one, I can throw it in the bin.”
Paulus adds that working on a small canvas has influenced his “normal” work (in addition to giving him carpal tunnel in his wrist). “I’m incorporating some of the style that I’ve been doing [on the cards] back into my larger scale canvas paintings,” he says. “I thought this was just gonna be like a fun little side project, but it’s just altering what I’m doing.”
Overall, the artists hope that the trading cards will connect the arts community with the Memphis community at large. Anyone can attend, and everyone who does will walk away with original art. “It’s making art accessible,” Karimnia says, “and the cards are great to display, frame, or trade.”
The group hopes to host more trading events in the future and add more artists to its roster. Keep up with the group on Instagram (@artisttradingcardsmemphis).
Artist Trading Cards Memphis (ATCM) Inaugural Event, Wiseacre Brewing Company, 2783 Broad Ave., Sunday, March 19, 2-5 p.m.
