Interacting with art has had a profound impact on my life, and I want to help others connect with it as well. The idea for Stockpile started to take shape over a few beers with a friend and collector David Dowd. We wanted to bring people together for an art event that was beneficial to the artists, the collectors and the community. Myself and four other Chicago artists (Steve Seeley, Baldur Helgason, Zach Schrey, and Anthony Lewellen) focused our efforts to raise money for public school art programming in our home of Chicago.
We each came up with an image for an 8 x 10in screen print. The guys at Popink were really generous donating their time and resources to print us an edition of 50. This allowed us to make a box set of prints with 100% of the proceeds going to the cause.
I asked each of the artists for 3 to 5 pieces and we put the show on at my studio. It would be a blind-bid auction including 24 total works. 25% of each winning bid would also go to the cause, with each artist choosing which school they would like their 25% donated.
The idea and the evening was an experiment, and I was so happy it turned out a success:
- All 50 print sets sold
- 21 / 24 of the paintings found a home
- We collectively made over $5000 for public school art programs in Chicago:
(spread between Hayt Elementary, Palmer Elementary, and the Children First Fund)
A huge thank you again to Popink for graciously printing the print sets, and to Firestone Walker for providing the refreshments!
Thank you to David Dowd for being an amazing partner on this and helping from beginning to end. We couldn’t have done it without the artists: Steve Seeley, Zach Schrey, Anthony Lewellen, Baldur Helgason, and of course all of the wonderful art loving people that came out in large numbers, spending their hard-earned money to make sure art continues to thrive in Chicago. We had a great time and we hope to do it again soon!