Waste Not: My New Art-Paper Printed Business Cards

One of the dirty little not-so secrets of the art world is the amount of waste it generates. Paint waste, solvent waste, canvas and paper offcuts. In the case of digital art, paper offcuts, make-ready prints, and ink cartridges. 

I'm always very aware of these impacts, and do what I can to mitigate the waste coming out of my studio. I return my ink cartridges to Epson for recycling. I make my work prints on recyclable paper, and every now and then take a stack of work prints and turn them into memo pads. It's not perfect, but every little bit helps.

It had been bothering me that my smaller square prints are produced on a rectangular sheet of paper, leaving a 6"x17" strip of art paper at the bottom that is too heavy to bind into a memo pad. I kept thinking that I should be able to put that piece of paper to use. And then I needed new business cards. A little tiny energy-efficient LED Lightbulb came on in my head. I realized that I could squeeze eight business cards into the bottom of each sheet of paper.

I designed a business card, and re-did my square print to add the new cards to the bottom. Now after I make a square print, I trim off the band with the business cards, turn it over and print an portion of an art image on the back, then trim it into eight individual cards.

I print quite few square prints, and in the digital era, printing my business cards this way will more than meet my needs. As a bonus, they're on a wonderful thick acid-free paper that is the actual paper I make my prints on. They're beautiful, and great to touch, and people are loving them!

Click through below to see the stages of these cards coming to life: