Artists Choose To Make A Little Money This Year
Of Spokane County’s more than 600 visual artists, only a handful support themselves solely through the sale of their work.
Even so, non-profit fund-raisers increasingly view the art studio as a fertile and inexhaustible source of donations.
Mead sculptor Harold Balazs estimates he’s asked for contributions twice a week. And some solicitors can get downright heavy-handed.
“One of the greatest ones, for sheer chutzpah, was a request from a Montana organization that began, ‘Your prestige and our prestige are to be enhanced by this joint endeavor,’ ” Balazs recalls mirthfully. “And, ‘Please send us 25 slides of your work, so we may pick the one we will allow you to give us.’
“I just wrote back, saying, ‘I’m sorry, but I grew up in a time when beggars couldn’t be choosers. If you’re willing to accept what I send, fine. Otherwise, goodbye.’ “
Cheney Cowles Museum art curator Barbara Racker is sensitive to artists’ dilemma: balancing their eagerness to contribute to worthy causes against their need to make a living.
So this year Racker, a newcomer to the local art scene, gave individual contributors to the museum’s popular “Works of Heart” auction the choice of donating outright or splitting sales receipts 50-50 with CCM’s art acquisition fund.
Since its debut in 1986, the annual event has netted close to $150,000. Last February alone, the donated artwork sold for $40,735.
Given the choice for the first time this year, more than 50 of the 70-plus participants asked to share in the revenue.
Racker acknowledges the move will significantly shrink the auction’s bottom line. “But the trade-off is we’re doing the right thing - we’re showing support for the artists.
“In years past,” she explains, “we expected artists who had been included in our exhibits to, in turn, support the museum. But even exhibitions are a two-way street. We’re lucky to be able to show these artists.”
The art-for-charity’s-sake issue has been smoldering for years. Seattle gallery owner Greg Kucera fanned the flames to life last year when he wrote an essay for the Seattle Weekly describing the current relationship between artists and non-profits as “shameful.”
While auction buyers “get a tax write-off, public recognition for their generosity and … artwork for their collection,” Kucera opined, the artists who donate usually get nothing more than “the warm glow of giving till it hurts.”
Reaction among Northwest artists was “extremely positive,” Kucera reports. “They felt no one had spoken up for them before.
“Basically, artists are pushovers - they tend to be kind and want to help when they can. I’m not trying to deny them an opportunity to help,” says the gallery owner, “but there needs to be limits.”
What surprised Kucera was that fund-raisers he spoke with agreed with his argument. “But they said, ‘We can’t not do these auctions.”’
Kucera doesn’t expect artists to get a bigger slice of the pie any time soon. Running a successful auction is hard enough without trying to keep track of who gets what percentage of which sale.
“But at least they could add some humanity to the process,” he says. “One artist told me that when she turned in her donation, the organizer’s response was, ‘This is fine if you can have it reframed.”’
Seattle photographer Carolyn Krieg, a first-time contributor to “Works of Heart,” usually donates a print when asked. “If the piece sells at an appropriate price, then I’ll do it again. But if it sells too low or they don’t talk about the artist (who donated the piece), I won’t.”
Krieg hopes her “Athena/Tarquina II” altered chromogenic print brings close to its $600 value, and that its presence in “Works of Heart” generates interest in art photography - including her own.
Fine-art woodworker Richard Penziner of Bozeman calls the jewelry box he submitted to the auction “a vote of confidence for Barbara and an opportunity to meet some potential clients in Eastern Washington.”
Like Balazs, popular local artist Ken Spiering receives donation requests weekly.
“There’s the Spokane AIDS Network, there’s the Priest Lake community doing their thing, there’s the Catholic schools that our kids attended at one point - art auctions have become kind of a trend,” he observes.
“It’s always nice to be wanted, but you can’t donate to every cause.”
Spiering enjoys “Works of Heart,” describing it as “a chance to make something that isn’t governed by a selection committee.”
Even so, he elected to keep 50 percent of whatever his “Heartbreak Hotel” porcelain enamel earns at the Feb. 10 auction because, he explains, “trying to stay alive in the art world is just as difficult as any other profession.”
Fellow artist Gay Gardner, another “Works of Heart” regular, sees both sides of the issue. Four years ago, she helped launch Spokane Art School’s annual “Birdhouse and Tea Garden Auction.”
“People who go to these auctions usually want a bargain,” Gardner says, “and artists sometimes are offended when their piece sells for less than it’s really worth.”
After surveying participants last spring, Gardner and others at the school decided this year to allow artists to set a minimum bid for their piece. But they trimmed the portion artists can opt to keep from 90 to 50 percent.
“Fund-raising auctions are hard to pull off without offending someone,” Gardner says. “But I don’t mind asking for donations. This is a good way for artists to promote their work and also stay in touch with the community.”
, DataTimes