The Dumbo Art Center Pop-up Art Sale

This weekend I will be participating in the Dumbo Arts Center‘s Pop-up Sale. The opening is Friday night 2/26/2010 from 6-9PM, and the sale continues Saturday, 2/27 from 12-8PM and Sunday 2/28 from 12-6PM. DAC is located at 30 Washington Street, Brooklyn, NY. go here for DAC’s contact info and directions to the gallery.

Not only does this look like a lot of fun, it is a relief to see a arts fundraiser being done the right way. As a painter whose work sells pretty well, I get asked to do a fair amount of fundraisers. If you don’t know, the usual set-up is to ask the artists to donate work outright to the charity, which then auctions or otherwise disposes of the work to raise money. What is funny is that a lot of arts organizations think that this is a good way to do things, taking handouts from the artists they are ostensibly there to help. In reality, the vast majority of artists need the help more than these organizations. What’s worse, tax law has generally not allowed the artist to claim any more than the cost of goods as a deduction for their donation. So a painting selling for thousands can only be deducted for the hundreds that were spent on the actual materials involved. The artist gets nothing for their labor!

Enough ranting. DAC is setting a good example by splitting proceeds with the artists for this event. Come check out the show. If anything catches your eye and you decide to take it home with you, 50% of the sale will go directly to the artist. Not only will you be supporting a great arts organization, you will be supporting the artist that made the art. Which really could be the start of something good.

I’ll have three pieces in the show, a painting and two drawings. Here’s the painting, a sweet little nocturne started during my residency at the Saltonstall Foundation and finished several years later:

"Ithaca," 2007, oil and gold leaf on panel, 9.75"x19.75"