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?

Days 12-13 - Diptych

Prior to this challenge, my favorite fairy tale was "The Juniper Tree."  (Now, it is "How Geirald the Coward Was Punished," as you may know if you have been faithfully reading.  Gold stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds if so!)  The Juniper Tree belongs to a particularly gruesome class of tale, formally known as "mother killed me, father ate me."  Yeah, I know.  That's gross, not to mention dark AF. 

I have often sighed at the grim characterization of stepmothers in fairy tales.  I understand that they are competing for the most limited resource imaginable: One inheritance, which is essentially destined for the father's biological child/ren.  I understand how jealousy and fear can bring out the very worst in human nature, even when not combined with the evolutionary, biological, and emotional drive to ensure the success of one's own offspring.  It makes sense.

What doesn't make sense, however, is saddling your own daughter with the notion that she killed her half-brother, which is what happens in "The Juniper Tree."  That's just selfish, and rather horrifically so.  It was an odd delight, then, to re-read a version of "The Juniper Tree" in which the stepmother is tempted by Satan.

WHAT?!

Given the role apples play in the story, the presence of Satan feels particularly evocative.  So.  As part of a project to reclaim wicked stepmothers, I created this diptych, in which the stepmother is tempted by Satan.

As a diptych, they want to hang side by side

Day 11 - Hansel and Gretel

The other night, I decided - because why not - that instead of a traditional canvas, I should complete one of my paintings on a a license plate.

See how it says 1873?  That will be important in a second.

I cleaned it, applied some clear gesso, and decided to take advantage of the panoramic dimensions to create Hansel and Gretel in the woods.

Painting trees on a license plate is NBD.  Painting children, on the other hand, was a surprisingly BD.  Don't try this at home unless you have lots of time to negotiate raised shapes.

I decided to dress Hansel and Gretel in clothing from 1873, because the license plate told me to.  I think the fancy fancy emphasizes how very out of place they are, and how ill-prepared for what lies ahead.

To finish out the composition, I added a bird, eating Hansel's crumbs.

I call this "Hansel and Gretel; or, License to Survive," because that's what they do.  They face abandonment, betrayal, fear, and a CANNIBAL (for the love of Pete), and still, they survive.  So can you.  So can we all.

As ever, this is available in my shop.

Day 10 - Rapunzel

I tried another watercolor ATC, and it failed, so then I tried a third, and it succeeded. YAY.

Here's Rapunzel, midway through having her hair chopped off by the witch:

Day 9 - Gretel Born of Fire

I am always too scared to play with watercolors, but this is a challenge, so why not be scared?!

That's "Gretel, Born of Fire," which is of course from Hansel and Gretel, but by way of one of my favorite poems, "Gretel in Darkness," by Louise Gluck.  Here's an excerpt:

"No one remembers.  Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you.  I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln -

Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
we are there still and it is real, real,
that black forest and the fire in earnest."

Day 8 - Red Goat

It took me an unbelievable amount of time to paint my Day 7 canvas.

Like, maybe that shit paints itself in the place where you come from, but in my house, I needed all of the hours allotted to me plus a few that rightfully belonged to my next door neighbor, as a result of which, I had to keep it simple on Day 8, if only for my own sanity.

Perhaps you have noticed (as a worldly individual) that in fairy tales, there are often feats that must be accomplished, usually in sets of three.  A fine Romanian gent named Fat Frumos, as one example, must bring the King the milk of a red goat.

And thus, RED GOAT!

This, as ever, is in my shop.

Day 7 - The Queen Fights Her Future Husband

I've read a lot of weird-ass fairy tales in the past week, but I've also found shining treasures buried deep inside the earth.  My absolute favorite by miles is "How Geirald the Coward Was Punished," which I will now summarize, because the Wikipedia summary sucks raw eggs through a straw.

Rosald, our hero, is the eldest son born to a poor knight.  As a teenager, Rosald meets Geirald, who is the same age, but who has the better fortune of being born into wealth.  Geirald longs to travel the world, but he needs a traveling companion, so he says that he will pay Rosald's way if Rosald will give all credit and glory for any accomplishments to Geirald.  Rosald agrees, and his parents give their blessing.

Along their travels, they first encounter a band of 12 robbers who refer to each other with color names - Blue, Red, Green.  Reservoir Dogs, anyone?  Geirald wants to flee, but Rosald comes up with a plan to go to higher ground and roll rocks down onto the robbers' heads.  The robbers are defeated, and Rosald gives the credit to Geirald, along with a ring from one of the robber's hands.  Geirald wears the ring everywhere they go, much to the admiration of everyone who sees it.

As the fame of this accomplishment spreads - two men defeating twelve dastardly robbers! - Geirald and Rosald appeal to a nearby king to stay the winter in his keep.  The king agrees, provided that they slay a pesky giant in his kingdom who has killed 50 knights.  After commissioning a special weapon for the purpose, Rosald single-handedly kills the giant, cutting off its head as proof.  Keeping his promise, he gives the head to Geirald to present to the king.

Word of these heroics spreads to the unmarried queen of a neighboring kingdom, whose subjects keep insisting that she take a husband.  She comes to a feast at the king's keep and asks if Geirald will fight one of her pages to demonstrate his skills.  The king approves, but Geirald becomes convinced that the "page" is going to be a valorous knight who will kill him.  As Geirald makes preparations to flee in the night, Rosald convinces him to stay by saying that Rosald will switch clothes with Geirald, fight the page, and give Geirald all the glory.  Geirald agrees.

When the time for the battle arrives- and this is the part that makes me want to jump up and down as if the whole world were my trampoline - it is not a page who appears to battle Rosald-in-Geirald's clothing, but neither is it a knight.  It is the Queen herself, disguised as her page.  The battle is mighty, but Rosald eventually prevails, and afterwards, he slips away to give his clothes back to Geirald. Pressed for time, however, he forgets to give Geirald back the ring stolen from the robbers.

Geirald appears before the king to receive his accolades in the torn and soiled clothes of battle, and as his prize, he asks for the hand of the Queen in marriage.  The Queen, who has just slipped back into the stands, thinks that while the clothes are the same, the man looks slightly different from the one she just fought.  When she also notices that he is not wearing the ring, she withholds her consent, asking that Rosald and Geirald fight each other.  Rosald throws the fight, but the Queen sees through that and asks for one last challenge, in which Rosald and Geirald both fight two knights of the queen's choosing.

Rosald cannot save Geirald from this final test, nor indeed can Geirald save himself.  Instead of appearing on the field at the appointed time, he hides under his bed.  The Queen calls off the fight and marries Rosald, impressed not only by his courage and his skill in battle, but also by his willingness to keep his promise, even at the cost of her love.

HOW GREAT IS THAT?!

Here is The Queen, Battling Her Future Husband.

This is, as always, available in my shop.