An Idea for an Auction

Okay, so I've been mulling an idea for several days now, and I would like to gauge your interest and hear your thoughts.

The Idea

I set up an online auction for my January contest paintings.  Proceeds do not go to me, as income; they all go toward justice (see more below).  

The Risk

For me, this idea is exciting and terrifying.  I am already setting aside 30 days of intensely concentrated work so that I can improve my skills, but this would reframe the results of my efforts.  I would, in effect, be donating my life for 30 solid days - my all-nighters; my self-doubt; my tears and triumphs; my shitty lukewarm dinners and troubled sleep; my eight or 12 or 14 hours on a single canvas; my vulnerability, as I get up each day and place my work out there, to be liked or not liked or ignored.  All of that is something I'm happy to donate, if I can raise a respectable amount of money, but I can predict with absolute certainty that I'll feel damned stupid (and not a little sad) if 30 days adds up to $50 or $100.

The Charity Catch - It's Political

As an individual human being with my own convictions, I feel intensely drawn to support both the Innocence Project and the Chicago Bond Fund. The former, as you probably know, works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, usually based on DNA evidence.

Me in my Innocence Project shirt.

The latter pays bail for people charged with crimes in Chicago.  Does this mean I want to donate a month of my life to help criminals?  Not exactly.

Bail basically undermines the presumption of innocence by incarcerating people before they have been convicted.

As the web page for the Chicago Bond Fund says, "High bonds are justified by the idea that they keep us safe, but setting monetary bond undermines the very idea that safety should govern release or detention decisions. Someone who is not dangerous should be released regardless of their access to money; likewise, someone who is truly dangerous should not be released simply because they can pay bond. Our current system makes wealth, not safety, the primary determinant of whether someone is released while awaiting trial. Add to this the fact that 70% of pre-trial detainees at Cook County Jail are detained for nonviolent offenses and that Black defendants are generally more likely to be given cash bonds and have bonds set at higher amounts than white defendants, and the merits of money bond become hard to identify."

 https://www.chicagobond.org/

 

The Questions

• Should I do this?
• Would you be inclined to help me support either or both of these causes by purchasing art?