We are celebrating our first year! It's hard to believe how much time has flown by since our very first studio sale last June, where Redd Volkhardt played on my back porch for a Fisterra Studio sale. Since then, we've grown and learned a lot.
We've produced or brought art to 16 events, and this weekend we will have shows for the Austin Child Guidance Center, RevelMusic, and the Amala Foundation. We also have upcoming shows for Core Health, I Live Here I Give Here, for PeopleFund and Center61, and many more. We are planning our fall gala and group show, and have several more artists studio sales planned.
Every day I talk to very talented artists who are watching sales creep to a halt due to the tightening economy. Few of us even have health insurance. I have urged them not to quit, but to keep finding new ways to sell work, but we don't get much studio time if all we are doing is trying to market our art. Generous Art is a great tool that helps them sell their inventory. I have founded Generous Art because I am an advocate for artists, and I love our artistic Austin community. I'm a single mom of two kids, work another job to pay the bills, and have three volunteers around my kitchen table working on Generous Art. GenerousArt.org is coming to the ends of its bootstraps.
We want to make Generous Art thrive, and every new business needs operating capital to grow. We've looked into seeking investors and loans, but wanted to start by asking our community for help first. We want to pay for advertising to drive sales, pay our volunteer staff, and grow to other cities. We can see a mutually beneficial future with the right investments.
Today, we could really use your help: We've started a RocketHub.com Crowdfunding Campaign (kind of like Kickstarter, but a better fit for us). I would really appreciate your support sharing this campaign with the right people. Anywhere you can promote this campaign would be a help to us: on your Facebook page, in your tweets, in your newsletters, on your site, in conversation. Any extra exposure helps!
You can see it here: http://www.rockethub.com/projects/8375-be-generous-buy-art
Can you help us? We can keep helping your cause, helping artists, and building sustainable creative community.
If you know of an investor who is also a philanthropist, please connect us.
We appreciate your support!
Jennifer Chenoweth and the Generous Art Team