sitting still is for suckers

The weekend of July 31st was painterly.

Bloom had it's 2nd annual Art for Africa event. In a nutshell, Bloom supports Ah-Gah-Pay Mercy Children's Center (AMCC) in Kenya. We have a relationship with a few people that spend a regular amount of time there, being our on-the-ground presence. The rest of us help out financially. One way we do that is to hold an annual art auction.

We lasso local artists and ask for donations of original art work to be auctioned to the highest bidder. All money raised is sent to the orphanage and used to feed the kids, pay for maintaining the buildings, and recently, helping build a sustainable chicken business so that orphanage will hopefully become financially self reliant and able to rely less on outside help. We raised 3500 bucks. Not bad, and I believe this is nearly triple what we raised last year. Nice job everybody. For more info on AMCC orphanage, click here.

The auction was held at Rooster and Moon Cafe. Thanks to Boddie, the owner, for the swell hospitality and generous use of his cafe. If you're a Denverite, go enjoy a cup of coffee or tea over at Rooster + Moon, 9th + Bannock.

I think we had close to 20 artists total this year who brought a really beautiful and eclectic selection to the table. My contributions were two. One piece was a painting, or rather an illustration, of a little character I've been sketching for the last year, mostly as a way to give myself a break from my usual portraits. An example of the work is actually at the top of this page. Painting this little robot has been a fun side project and he's captured the imaginations of a few people besides myself. The illustrations are easy and simple and are a quiet contrast to the concentration that the portraits demand.

I've sold a number of the robot pieces and I've included other robot paintings in the last two auctions and they've been given a surprisingly affectionate reception each time. We'll see where he goes, probably into the future.

The other piece I donated was a portrait of one of the young girls that actually lives at the orphanage. Her name is Naom, and except that I think she's about 12, I'm afraid I don't know much more about her. The portrait turned out pretty well considering I was working on it up to within an hour from the time it was hung for the show. I rue down to the wire situations and I'm usually a boy scout when managing my time, but July was a feat of time-keeping acrobatics.

Here's a photo of Naom's portrait, and of Cody, who, along with his wife, were the high bidders for the painting. Thanks, Cody + Emily.

As well as getting ready for the auction, I was involved in preparing four of my portraits to be hung at Backstage Coffee downtown. Backstage Coffee is located directly across from the opera house, on 14th + Curtis. This is another great place to relax with a cup of something, and now if you visit, you'll be able to sit beneath four of my paintings. If I'm allowed to say so, they look great up on the walls, and the location couldn't be better. High visibility and high traffic. They'll be hanging around Backstage Coffee through the month of August. Additionally, I was asked to show more of my work during another to-be-scheduled month in 2011. So take a trip downtown, because it's always better to see original work live. Check them out now!

Sharon and I are running the Georgetown-Idaho Springs Half this Saturday. For Information's sake, a half-marathon is 13.1 miles. Start time is 8 am mountain-time. We'll leave our house for Idaho Springs at 4 am. Buses will transport everyone from Idaho Springs to the Georgetown start-line. I think it'll be a lazy run for both of us. I think no records will be broken, but certainly a sweat will be, and we'll get to flex our muscles and fill our lungs, and the scenery is better than the one from the couch. Cheer for #s 2579 + 2578.

Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glenn,

Dave