The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council of Oxford has started a new campaign called Tiny Art for Tiny Homes. A mass supply of artist trading cards was recently produced by local artists such as Sarah Gardner, Cindy Aune, Pam Locke, Bailey Blu, Janet Barnes, Lester Ferrell and Debbie Myers of the Oxford Artists Guild. The cards also include art from fun, upcoming artists and those who would best represent Oxford.

“The main idea was just to send positive, surprise mail,” said Stacey Sanford, education and outreach coordinator for the arts council.

The project started when the arts council invited the community to create artist trading cards among community members and local artists. The 2.5-3.5-inch pieces of art are meant to be traded similar to the way baseball cards are traded.

At the August Art Crawl, several local artists came in to teach community members how to do watercolor, pastel, collage, acrylic painting and zentangle to create these teeny, tiny pieces of artwork. At the end of the night, the arts council had large stacks of artist trading cards that amounted to about 150 cards that were made, traded or donated to the arts council from local artists.

The arts council then started to mail these tiny pieces of art to small homes all around the nation, targeting homes less than 800 square feet.

The homeowners receive a letter which explains what they are receiving, tells them about Oxford and says, “From our tiny town to your tiny home, please accept this tiny artwork as a gift from us.”

“It’s how they can contact us to post a picture or tell us about their tiny home. It’s kind of forming a pen pal and opening up this communication between us. It would be amazing for them to contact us back, but either way our goal has been achieved,” Sanford said.

— Megan Fahrmeier