Exhibition: Invest With Confidence
Artist Reception: Friday, July 9th from 6 – 9pm & the exhibition runs through July 31st.
Location: Practical Art / 5070 N Central Avenue
This will be my 2nd exhibition over at Practical Art. If you aren’t familiar with the location, Practical Art is on located near the corner of Central Ave & Camelback Rd. It’s a friendly craft retail and gallery space featuring 100% locally made functional & fine art.
I’ve titled this latest series of art works “Invest With Confidence“. All the pieces are cast concrete wall panels. With these works, my aim is to draw attention to the disparity between how the American people are feeling the economic recession and how they are understanding it. Each piece contains a host of embedded objects representing free market commodities, as well as a piece of modern paper currency that is sealed within the work, but accessible enough to be removed and recirculated by the collector, thus raising questions about the negotiable integrity of the piece and the value of art as investment.
There’s also an additional twist… I decided to drive the point home about what the word “investment” means. To do this, I’m partnering with HandsOn Greater Phoenix, a local volunteerism hub, in an effort to have viewers & potential buyers examine financial priorities. A little lost by what I’m saying? Ok, basically I’m offering two different prices / payment options on each work of art for sale….
Option 1: a full monetary price set by the artist / gallery
Option 2: a substantially discounted monetary price with a donation of 5 to 10 hours of volunteer service through Hands On Phoenix.
Any potential purchaser has the freedom to choose either option. If you choose to purchase using option 2, upon payment transaction, there will be a form to fill out committing you to “x” amount of volunteer hours through Hands On Phoenix within the next 90 days.
With cash embedded into the work in combination with the unusual payment options, I’m hoping that viewers will begin to think more broadly about what they consider an “investment”. Communities, neighbors, civic responsibility are also important investments. No, these things are not as glamorous or as sexy as cash, cars, 401k, wall street and all the other material goods we get sold into “investing” into, but they are equally [if not more] important to a sustainable and healthy society.