As those artists who have been around a while can attest, sooner or later you will be approached to donate a piece of your artwork to a charity for their fund raising auction. In years past, when I was participating in a lot of arts and crafts fairs I got loads of requests - it seemed like every other week at times. I must admit to having mixed feelings about the whole thing ranging from “Sure, I’d be happy to help the woman’s shelter or the animal shelter - they are definitely a worthy cause” to the less charitable “Not again! Why don’t they ask some rich people instead?”.
As Joni Mitchell said in one song - “There’s a wide wide world of noble causes...” and it’s true that most of the groups that ask for donations truly are worthy causes.
So what to do if you can’t donate to them all? My solution has been to choose one or two that I have a special feeling or connection to. One of my choices is my neighborhood library. I use their services all the time and in this era of budget cuts and austerity - they need help from the community to survive.
It does help that I’ve been producing art for many years and have accumulated a lot of pieces that haven’t been saleable for one reason or another but are still of value. So I’ve designated a special donation box in my studio where I put any jewelry that fits that description. Now when I get a request, I just go to the box and pull something out instead of having to rummage through my inventory. I find that it’s not only a good feeling to help support a good organization through my artwork but it’s really liberating to clear out some pieces that have been hanging around my studio far too long !
