ACEO Fascination

ACEOs are fascinating me at the moment.

For a long time before I started encaustic art dabbling I made greetings cards, and it was this interest that first introduced me to the idea of creating miniature works of art in the form of an ATC (Artists Trading Card). At first I couldn't see the point. Why spend hours fiddling about with something that measures just 2.5 by 3.5 inches and isn't even a card you can send to someone? You couldn't even sell these tiny little cards because the whole point of them was that you made them to swap with other ATC creators.

I just didn't get it.

A while later I came across the expression ACEO (Art Cards, Editions and Originals), and this made a little more sense because at least they could be offered for sale.

Still, such tiny little things. What were people supposed to do with them? And yet the more I delved into the art/craft world, the more I realise they were everywhere.

Fast forward a couple of years, and encaustic art enters my life. Suddenly, the delight that is the ACEO dawns on me:

• Restrictions and boundaries: The size is strict. If it isn't 2.5 by 3.5 inches, it's not an ACEO. This in itself, although it sounds limiting, gives a kind of freedom. By ruling out so many other possibilities the artistic field is narrowed and the focus is tightened.
• Challenge: I can only liken it to writing. It often takes far longer to write a really short story than it does to write a longer one. So too with art. Working on such a tiny area and trying at the same time to make the picture mean something, say something, have some aesthetic appeal is quite a job. With encaustic art, the iron is bigger than the picture so it's easy to obliterate something you wanted to keep.
• Versatility: Store it in a collector's album, hang it on the wall, post it to a friend as a gift, call it a topper and put it on a greeting card - it's small enough to do just about any job you'd want a picture to do.
  
• Affordability: We all have a sense of the value of the 'one-off', the 'original'. To own something that you know is the only one in the world, especially in today's mass-produced world, is special. Original art is beyond the means of most people. Including me. But just about everyone can afford an ACEO.

And quite apart from those practical realisations, they're just so much fun - and maybe that's all the reason that's really needed!