Selling mashed potato sculptures, noodle jewelry and fruit-juice finger paintings aren't exactly your typical fundraisers and although the ESSENTIAL art auction didn't adopt the idea either, the art auction did help raise money to buy food for Oregon's hungry.
ESSENTIAL curator Gerry Blakney proposed the idea of an art auction as a fundraiser because he had always been attracted to the connection of art and helping people. He chose to go forth with ESSENTIAL because it directly helps Oregonians eat, something that is very important to Blakney.
"I grew up in rural Montana on the 12 different ways to eat Ramen. I know hunger, and it is something that I hope to help with," said Blakney.
And so the invitation was sent out to anyone and everyone to submit work, and 19 artists welcomed the invitation. One piece of work was even donated by an established artist from Portland.
"The goal [of ESSENTIAL] was to give Western creatives the opportunity to express themselves artistically, while helping out the community in ways that they may not normally be able to," said Blakney.
Several media and styles of art were submitted and all with a distinctly hungry theme about them. Christian Rogers, a Western sophomore, took a food-can lid and made a printing plate out of it and printed the lid as a relief print.
"I wanted to do something that had to do with the subject of hunger, and cans have a great 'manufactured organic-ness' to them, especially when they have something embossed into the tops of them," said Rogers.
The pieces were left unframed and were hung untraditionally. Milk crates served as pedestals for some of the work in following with ESSENTIAL's purpose.
"ESSENTIAL is the boiled-down version of an art show-nothing to detract from the idea, the cause, or the work," said Blakney. "ESSENTIAL was just the work, the auction, and the people who go to bed hungry every night."
Although the bidder numbers were low, ESSENTIAL managed to raise $150-which translates to over 900 pounds of food-all of which will benefit the Ella Curan Food Bank in Independence.
"I am satisfied with the amount of money that ESSENTIAL raised, but it is a hard time for charity, especially canned food drives. It is hard to make your rounds, especially because Oregonians, as a whole, are trying hard to scrape by themselves," said Blakney.
"To help others is icing on the cake and something I am proud to belong to. We need to know that 11,000 Oregonians will need emergency meals today. We need to get back to a time when we cared about each other and our communities," added Blakney.
ASWOU, Campbell Hall Art Galleries and a Western, student design group sponsored ESSENTIAL. The Governor's Canned Food Drive fundraiser ended on Feb. 28, and the totals raised have not yet been released.
