In this day new abbreviations are popping up like weeds. They are used for lots of things that, unless you're in the know, you don't know what in the world it means. There are remedies for medical conditions with abbreviations used in television advertisements like COPD or ED. I found they abbreviate cat breeds like DLH or DSH in the kitty's vet records. Abbreviations are commonly used for organizations, because without shortening, I guess the names are just way too long to fit in a blank space on some form or another. These are things like CIA, FBI, ALPA or YMCA. You get the idea. Anything can abbreviated to express, I guess, someone's displeasure with saying or writing the whole thing out.
ACEO is one of these abbreviation "thingys" that has come to mean art of a certain size. To be an ACEO, the art must be exactly 2 1/2 inches x 3 1/2 inches (64 mm × 89 mm). ACEO stands for Artist Cards, Editions and Originals. It's known by the acronym, ACEO. Artists began with trading small samples of their work with one another, often through the mail. Then they were known as ATC (or Artist Trading Card), and they still are. There was no money exchanged; they were simply traded between artists. Then, somewhere along the way, they became popular with people who did not make art, and a price began to be charged when there was nothing with which a non-artist could reciprocate the trade, other than money. Because they were no longer just traded, another abbreviation was born to express the amount an artist would charge for an artist card - ACEO. ACEOs began to appear in online auctions such as eBay. The more an artist is collected, the higher the value of the card goes.
An ACEO can be created of almost any medium an artist can produce in this size. They are the same size as baseball cards, and they can be collected in the standard size sleeves or sheets available at art or office supply stores (and other locations). They can be matted, framed and hung as a single piece or in a collage arrangement with similar sized miniature works of art. They can be used for scrapbooking. They can also be used as a refrigerator decoration. I'm sure there are other uses also.
What, you might ask is an Edition? This refers to a reproduction or print of an original artist card. If the Edition is a Limited Edition, it is numbered by the artist to express how many likenesses are going to be created of a certain piece of work. You then would see something that looks like this (75/500) on the card which means that card is number 75 in an edition of 500. If, however there is no number, it generally means it is an Open Edition. Open Edition means that the artist could make an unlimited number of copies (reproductions or prints) as in thousands, millions, etc.
To be an Original is much more valuable because it is "the one" that the artist created for the first time with his or her own hands. It is an original, but not necessarily one of a kind (OOAK). If the description reads "Original OOAK" or "OOAK", it means that the artist is saying that this creation is the only one of its kind that will ever be created, or that is permitted to be duplicated by law.
I have scattered some of my original ACEOs throughout this article. All of them are currently available in my
Etsy store DreamON .
I hope this helps define what an ACEO is for those who might still be wondering. Enjoy!
