Art swap

Art intimidates me. Not looking at it -- I enjoy that -- and not in the "don't tell mom on us or we'll squish you under the mattress" way. It's more on the creation end.

Sprawling art that would take me weeks to produce cover the walls of the galleries here. They're large. They're detailed. They're just too much for me to imagine creating. So when I heard about the Artist Trading Card workshops at the Black Door Gallery, I was admittedly intrigued.

For background: Artist Trading Cards are small cards, about 2 inches by 3 inches, decorated and traded among friends and strangers. People collect binders full of them.

The cards are small, taking away the feeling of shadowy dread that creeps over me when a large project sits blank in front of me.

The workshops, from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturdays, provide the materials to make the little things and in February will display them on First Friday, complete with the swap. If you've been and made something, you get to trade it for someone else's you like.

People put buttons on them, watercolors, magazine collages, whatever. One woman at the workshop Saturday was meticulously cutting half-inch squares of checked paper and glueing them onto the card to make a quilt. Another woman was making a Halloween themed card. In January. She really plans ahead. Actually, she said, she just really loves Halloween.

Those two women claimed they weren't artists, but had done the Artist Trading Card thing before and said the only reason they made them was to get them. One woman's sister mailed them beautiful cards, but only if she received one every once in a while.

It's like a "thinking of you" card without the boohoo Hallmark script. It's completely personal.

The cards from the workshop won't be mailed; they'll be hung up. But you still get to see who takes your cards and you get to take cards you like from other people. It's a swap meet of tiny proportions and something to do on a frozen January Saturday.