Art by the Inch

It's time to activate our blog so we decided to use a recent event in Petersburg as a springboard.  WAVE (Working Against Violence for Everyone), a local nonprofit, staged a fundraiser last weekend called Art by the Inch.  The idea: local artists were asked to create 22 X 30 inch pieces with the idea they would be cut up into sizes requested by purchasers at $1.00 per square inch.  Purchasers used pre-cut mats of various sizes to select the area of the paintings they wanted.  

I (Don) went for the gusto, simply painting a single painting which I secretly hoped would be purchased in its entirety.  Naive me.  That required one if the 100 to 150 attendees to really want that painting in the hour and a half available before the decisions had to be made.  Karen planned ahead, creating five paintings of ravens, each one with a white border so there was no guessing and no waste.  The practicality of her dad, Edgar Groth was not lost on Karen.

                     Winter in Gnomeland   22 X 30 inches  Alkyd on watercolor paper by Don

                        Raven Montage  22 X 30 inches  Acrylic on watercolor paper  by Karen

In the end, all of Karen's ravens sold which disappointed me because I wanted to purchase the one on the lower right.

Of course any of the others would also have pleased me no end.

Karen's were all spoken for as well as all parts of paintings by Pia Reilly and Doris Olsen before anyone cut into mine.  I'm told it's because no one wanted to cut it up.  Anyway, in the end two sections were taken -- roughly as shown here.

I don't have a photo of this final selection, since was in vertical format, but this gives you an idea that it contains the two gnome boys dropping snowballs. -- the lower one on two camouflaged deer, the upper one on the lower boy.

This one is of the gnome father on a sled with his son being towed at a high rate of speed by a porcupine.  Mama is skijoring behind the sled.

At the end of the gala evening, Karen decided  we should save the top of my painting.  Carey Case, one of the event organizers offered it to us for free, but since this was a fund raiser for a cause we believe in, we purchased my own painting -- well, a piece of it anyway.  So here's what we brought home:

The ever creative, extreme right-brained Karen turned it upside down and pronounced that she likes it better that way.  And so it rests on our living room mantle in the inverted position.   You decide which way you prefer.