July 2026

Since I’ve been using Instagram to post updates about my art and music activities for the past few years, I had neglected my website for quite some time.  I’m here to add to a bit of history about my “artoncards” series.  My first website was called artoncards.com because I had made a series of  painted faces — 2-dimensional paintings, that were an extension of a project I was helping with at the time.

After returning home from a trip to Senegal in the late 1990s, I began volunteering with an African dance troupe named Batoto Yetu, here in NYC.  I was a volunteer assistant to the Artistic Director, as well as impromptu face painter of the children when they had performances. I also constructed papier mache masks that were worn by the children for dance and TV appearances which were wore on the backs of their heads. While their faces were highly decorated, they looked like they were facing front in either direction.  I continued to make some papier mache masks for my own purposes, and then continued the concept of the colorful faces by re-purposing discarded wooden shelving that I had found in my building.  All the “masks” paintings that I made for the first wooden series were 9 inches wide pine, and approximately 24 inches tall.  Several of the original works are in private

collections, and some remain.  I continued the series using plywood, and I even animated one recently using AI for the visual and the music.

Soon after completing them, I shared photos of my “masks” with my brother, Jeremy and he thought they would make great greetings cards, and I immediately had them photographed (by Scott Newirth) and had hundreds of cards printed, and soon thereafter launched artoncards.com. Eventually, I retired that website — although visitors to it will get forwarded to ruthantrich.com if they click on it.

These cards are still available directly from me.  They’re 4×6″ include an envelope.  They are $2 each.