I was recently accepted into a different kind of gallery called Art in Giving. It is an art gallery associated with the non-profit The Rachel Molly Markoff Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) that has donated over $1.4m over the years to pediatric cancer research centers all over the US. Half of the sales of the work goes directly toward grants that the foundation offers to these research centers. Considering that I used to work for Children’s Hospital Boston before I became an artist, I feel that this relationship has come full circle for me.
This new venture stemmed from the above painting, which I had specifically created to engage the corporate real estate side of the Boston art market. Sailing the Charles is a view of Boston as seen from the Cambridge side of the Charles River. It’s big, at 48″ x 96″, and it’s perfect for a business lobby or boardroom somewhere. Art in Giving deals mostly with this market, though they do sell to individuals as well, and I’m happy they accepted this piece with others to sell to their clients.
Buying Art and Giving to Pediatric Cancer Research
One aspect of this relationship that I liked is that they appreciated works from different creative periods of mine. The stained-glass series has been tremendously popular the past few years, both regarding private sales and public-art commissions. But at the same time, my minimalist / color-field period was very important to my development. It’s when I learned that less is more regarding my aesthetic voice. Dusk is one of those works that I did while at a residency when I was seriously thinking of how to express myself during that period in my life.
This piece to the left was inspired during a trip to the northeast of Brazil. At the time of the trip, I was living in the south of Brazil developing my early thoughts as an artist. We took a river boat trip on the Parnaíba River Delta and landed on a small, surprisingly inhabited island in the middle of the delta. There were many trees with hard branches and few leaves spread throughout the island. I did a minimalist drawing of this in charcoal first before coming back to paint it a few years later. It is symbolic of the convolution of simple chaos that dominated my life at that time.
Variety in Art Creation is a Value
The stained-glass series came about as an attempt to paint abstract landscape. It took a lot of practice, but I found a way to make it work. And work it has, with three public art commissions coming from this series so far. This piece to the right is of a famous section of my hometown in Maine, located in Acadia National Park. Art in Giving actually wanted more of what I offered them, but I’ve sold so many that I need to create more to bring that stock back up. Now that I’m in the Boston area, I may develop around that geographic idea more in the coming years.
Most lately I’ve been working on abstract photography. It’s an area that I’ve been thinking about for years from an intellectual perspective, but it took me until the past few years to figure out how to make it work as a process. Cold Reflection is one of the first pieces of success that I had with this medium. It’s actually quite different from my other abstract photos, but the process was the same and it provided excellent critical feedback for me. I’ve genuinely enjoyed this new phase, but it doesn’t mean I’ve left my other phases behind. It just means that I’m diverse as an artist, and that diversity is fundamental to my intellectual process.
So take a look at the Art in Giving website. It’s a great cause and an excellent way to give to pediatric cancer research and have something to show for it in your own home at the same time.