JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

I want to share with you some of the great artwork that I have come by in the past few weeks. My grimy little dump of an apartment is not worthy of these pieces, or the other great stuff I have bought recently. I don’t even have enough wall space to hang it all… and yet it makes me feel so good to own a growing collection of artwork by my pals…

First up is a great picture that my pal Rhode gave me as a Christmas present before I went home to Australia. It was wrapped in Christmas paper but I didn’t want to carry it on the plane and I didn’t want to wait till the new year to open it, so I sneaked a peek at this AWESOME pic just before leaving on my trip… only to behold the power of YODA and RHODE combined on the one piece of paper! TWO masters for the price of one… it was a powerful omen that this would be the best Christmas ever (and it sure was!) Getting a scan of this pic was pretty tricky because this piece BURNED MY FINGERS when I took it out of the frame. Get me an oven-mitt cuz this pic is HAWT!!

Next up are two magnificent pieces that I won at the last Maverix charity art Auction, that raised $9,500 for the Children’s Creative Media Arts Center of Glide Community Church.

This beautiful picture by Patrick Awa is called DRUM THUNDER GIRL. No scan can do this painting justice. It is finished in Gold paint, and it dazzles the human eye. I wanted this picture from the first moment I saw some early sketches on Pat’s blog and I battled fiercely at the live auction to win it.

At this particular auction I resolved to spend the money that I had budgeted for TWO auctions, because I had gone home empty-handed the last time, and so I was empowered to be an aggressive bidder at the live-auction…

Behold this whimsically beautiful pic of Rhode’s. I had bid on his artwork at each auction before, and had always been denied when others pushed the prices beyond my budget, but not this time my friends, Oh no! I was determined to possess one of his artworks (not knowing that I would get another for Christmas) and verily, this time it was I who prevailed, winning this great Rhode pic in yet ANOTHER live-auction battle.

I normally write a detailed account of the Maverix Auctions but this time I was on a plane to Australia within a few days and didn’t have the time to post about it until now. For more about the latest Maverix art auction, read Patrick’s Awa’s account, check out Carlos Baena’s photos and some more photos by Bosco Ng.

Randall Sly has put up a small ONLINE TRIBUTE to the late, great DAN LEE at the always interesting Character Design Blog. Many people here in the Bay Area animation community knew and loved Dan, but for those of you who may not have heard of him, he was one of the main character designers at Pixar, doing some GREAT work on FINDING NEMO and most recently RATATOUILLE. Dan died of cancer in 2005, at the age of 35.

Next week, Maverix Studios is hosting yet ANOTHER AUCTION. After raising money for many international charities, this time the Maverix crew decided to help a charitable organization in the Bay Area community, Glide Memorial Church. The proceeds from this particular art auction will support Glide’s Children’s Creative Arts Media Center. Past Maverix Auctions have typically raised $9,000-$12,0000 and it is hoped that a donation of such a size will make a huge difference to a small local charity.

The evening will include food, drink and music and, of course, artwork from local artists will be up for bid in a silent auction, with the evening culminating in a live auction for the most sought after pieces! This is a great opportunity to get an early start on holiday shopping while supporting a wonderful organization working with and for the under served children of our fair city. The theme of the show is INSPIRE: GIFTS THAT GIVE TWICE.

I have a busy week ahead, as I try to tie up a lot of loose-ends before I head off to Australia in December, but I will absolutely make time to do a few art pieces to donate to the cause. Then I hope to pick up some artwork at the show to give to family and friends for Christmas.

Check the MAVERIX BLOG over the next week for updates on donations as they come in. The fun all goes down on Sunday December 2nd from 6PM to 10PM. I hope to see you all there!

One of my favourite things to do over the past few years has been to participate in the MAVERIX STUDIOS ART AUCTIONS. They have all been held to raise money for worthy causes, and the satisfaction in being part of one is many-fold. First of all, they are a fantastic prompt to make some original artwork that has nothing to do whatsoever with working for “the man”. Secondly, they are great social gatherings and gallery shows where I can see artwork made by my friends. Thirdly, If I get my check-book out and wield it wisely and boldy, I get to take home some of that inspiring artwork at bargain prices. Fourthly, they are wonderful ways to raise money for charity and the knowledge that I am part of that process creates a rosy glow that lasts for weeks. Lastly, because of all of the points raised above and more factors besides, they are one hell of a lot of fun to attend.

Initially, the choice of beneficiary charities for each auction, and the ensuing preparations, were made by Maverix Studios members themselves, but recently Maverix has been approached by friends to host auctions for charities that they have some connection to. Enrico Casarosa instigated the EMERGENCY auction held earlier this year and this most recent auction was initiated by Esther Pearl and Nate Stanton, and then organised by them and Maverix to raise money for the Alzheimers Association. Amazingly, the preparations for this show were done in a mere 4 weeks and yet the auction raised a staggering $13,842.

You just got walked on by Maverix Studios
Maybe as much as $6,000 of that total was raised in the live-auction. A Maverix Studios auction is silent for most of the 3 hours, whereby bidders write down their bids beneath each art piece. However, Maverix reserves the right to pull a few of the most contested pieces off the wall and use them in the live auction BIG BID BATTLE at the end of the night. So, even though you’ve secured the winning bid on paper, you may be obliged to battle it out even further LIVE. As auctioneer MIKE MURNANE hilariously explained to the first such thwarted paper-bidder, “You thought you’d already won this piece but you just got WALKED ON by Maverix Studios.” Thereafter followed a series of cut-throat bid battles.

The drama and hilarity of the BIG BID BATTLES has become one of my favourite parts of these auctions, and a large part of the reason for that fact is the MIGHTY MIKE MURNANE. Mikey is a natural born button pusher and his skills at goading are nowhere put to better use than at these events. He surely gouged another several thou out of the crowd last Saturday. It is also fitting that Mike be the auctioneer at these shows, seeing as how he was the beneficiary of the very first Maverix Auction held in 2004, to raise money for his eye surgery.

Bidding for FULL QUENCH
I had it in mind to finally secure myself a Rhode Montijo original. Even though I had won a Rhode painting at the very first Maverix auction, I soon after gave that painting to Mike as a gift and have been in dire need of replacement Rhode pic ever since. However, this time around, there a was a giddy frenzy of bidding the likes of which I’d not seen before. I bid on a SWEET Rhode piece in the live auction, battling one-on-one with Bosco, each of us topping each other’s bid by $25, until the price was almost $200 more than the paper bid, which had been held by Bosco. Then Ronnie del Carmen blind-sided BOTH of us; he jacked the bidding up by $75 to $500 (which was my secret top price) and secured the pic for himself!

Ronnie’s bold bidding strategy got a huge round of applause, from Bosco and I no less than anyone else, and I think his boldness set the tone for bids to come, because thereafter bidders really pulled out all the stops. Luis battled Vaughn neck and neck for Patrick Awa’s GUITAR WOLF piece and, with the bidding at around the $750 mark, Luis blew the opposition away by bidding $1000, to a HUGE cheer from the assembled crowd.

Brenda Chapman made the room gasp as she bid against a woman called JUDY, taking the bids from $400 all the way up to the dizzy heights of $3,500, for a beautiful painting by Steve Purcell, who sadly wasn’t there in person and therefore missed out on the massive ego-stoke of seeing two women fighting over him so passionately. The crowd loved the theatre of this battle, and Brenda had a huge smile on her face as the victor, even though she wound up paying a few thousand more for a picture she’d already won on paper.

I have to point out here that even these “high” prices are actually bargains for the quality of the work on auction. A mere fraction of what you would pay at a gallery.

Thwarted for a good cause
Last time I walked home with a huge swag of goodies, whereas this time I was beat out on most of the stuff I bid on. I was tipped to be one of the people to pull the bid-sheets off the wall, and in doing so I wasn’t as able to defend my bids on a few pieces elsewhere in the room, and the last 5 minutes are everything in the silent bidding. However, I was able to win a great print by Sho Murase, and I was very happy with the fact that my donated pieces raised a lot more money than any of my submissions to prior auctions.

Plus, even though I was denied in gaining many of the things that I had wanted, I was happy in the knowledge that I was thwarted for a good cause and my bids had at least forced someone else to pay some extra money to charity in order to be the winner. There are no sad faces at the end of a Maverix Studios auction. And if there was any sense of having to lick my wounds, I took that vibe with me to Mitchell’s Ice Cream and instead licked a chocolate dipped Mexican Chocolate Ice cream, served in a chocolate waffle cone.

Read some more reports of this auction, by Maverix Studios, Ronnie del Carmen, Enrico Casarosa, and Jeff Pidgeon, and also check out Carlos Baena’s PHOTOS (thanks to Carlos, Rhode and Ronnie for the photos seen here).

If you like the idea of this kind of auction but don’t live in the Bay Area, then why not organise an art-auction charity fundraiser for the holiday season this year? Scoop up some of the holiday purchasing budget in your community for a good cause, and walk away with some great artwork that you can give to friends and family over the gift giving season!

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A chronology of the Maverix Studios Auctions:
#1. AUGUST 19TH, 2004: For the Love of MIKE: $6000 raised for Mike Murnane’s eye surgery.

#2. FEBRUARY 4TH 2005: TSUNAMI RELIEF: $22,955.60 raised for the victims of the Asian Tsunami, with donations given to UNICEF, HABITAT FOR HUMANITY and SAVE THE CHILDREN. Participation by 80 artists who donated 220 pieces sold at the auction night and on a follow-up Ebay auction.

#3. NOVEMBER 17TH, 2005. HEAL: $9000 raised for the CHARLOTTE MAXWELL COMPLEMENTARY CLINIC.

#4. DECEMBER 15TH, 2005. EARTHQUAKE RELIEF: $12,000 raised for the victims of the Earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir, with donations given to the PAKISTAN RED CRESCENT SOCIETY and DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS.

Over $40,000 was raised in 2005 at 3 auctions, and perhaps due to exhaustion there was an auction hiatus in 2006.

#5. MAY 20TH, 2007. EMERGENCY: $13,003 raised for LIFE SUPPORT FOR CIVILIAN WAR VICTIMS

#6. SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2007. $13,842 raised for the ALZHEIMERS SOCIETY.

Thanks to my generous, good friend Bosco, I now own the new ART OF RALPH McQUARRIE book, which collects a lifetime of fabulous artwork by the famous concept-designer and illustrator. If you have an interest in Concept design in general, or Star Wars in particular, this book is for you. Though you’ll have to wait for reprints as this print run is sold out.

When I was 13 years old, I saw Star Wars at my local movie theatre and, like most kids that year, I was agog at what I saw up on that movie-screen. I remember walking out of the theatre into a warm summer night and expressing, to my good childhood friend Stephen, what a bummer it was that real life was never going to be as cool as that movie…

To make up for this sad fact, I sought out information about Star Wars, which wasn’t hard to find due to the worldwide media blitz that even reached as far as the tiny town I lived in. I read a lot of articles about the film, including some on how it was actually made. In doing so, I first became acquainted with the artwork of designer Ralph McQuarrie. His drawings and paintings really fired my imagination. A year or two after the movie had come out I ordered my copy of the original “Art of Star Wars” book, which eventually fell apart from constant reading. In many cases, I found that I liked Ralph McQuarrie’s early concepts better than what ended up in the film, and that is saying something because I liked what ended up in the film a whole lot.

By that point, in my mid-teens, I had already decided that I wanted a career in animation but for a time I considered being a movie concept-designer instead. Wrestling with this big career decision was a somewhat abstract problem because I didn’t seriously believe that I’d ever have a chance to do either job anyway, living in Australia. All the big budget space movies and cartoons were done in the USA as far as I knew.

But that fact didn’t stop me from day-dreaming and drawing… So began a period where I drew spaceships and robots in addition to the cartoons and goofy pictures I had already been drawing for years. It was during this phase, when I was about 14, that I wrote the only fan letter I have ever written in my life, which I sent to Ralph McQuarrie (care of the publisher of the ART OF STAR WARS book, I think). I wrote about how much I was inspired by his artwork and also told him of my desire to get into animation or movie design someday. To my great surprise and delight he wrote me back a very encouraging letter. I certainly wasn’t expecting a response, but perhaps getting a letter all the way from Australia was a novelty for him. Whatever the reason for his taking the trouble to reply, that letter meant a great deal to me at the time. Any encouragement from adults was welcome at that age, let alone from the great Ralph McQuarrie, who had inspired me so much.

Not much later, at the age of 17, I had the great good fortune to actually get a job in animation and I gravitated back to my first love which is drawing cartoons, where I could (and still do) get away without knowing either perspective or anatomy or how to paint…

Years later, my animation career brought me to the San Francisco Bay Area. When going through an old box of stuff I had brought over from Australia, I found the letter from Ralph McQuarrie and was surprised to discover that the return address was from right here in the Bay Area, where of course, those early Star Wars movies were made. When I had received that letter at the age of 14 it was just a letter from the USA and the actual city it came from had not registered in my memory. So, as an adult, I wrote again to Ralph McQuarrie to thank him for the encouragement he had given me so long ago, for the inspiration that he gives me still, and to tell him that I DID manage to find my way into the career I had always wanted, as he had urged me to do. I sent the letter to the return address he had used many years earlier, but this time I got no reply. That was about 10 years ago, I guess.

Most likely he never got the letter, as I imagine that he may have moved in the many years since our first exchange of mail. In any case, after 30 years of getting fan mail from gomers around the world, I doubt that Ralph McQuarrie has the time to reply to even a fraction of the fan mail that he does receive… Hmmm, perhaps he DID get my new letter but feared responding to a stalker who had come to the USA from the far side of the world!

Anyway, looking through this fantastic new book brings back memories of reading all the old “Art of STAR WARS” books. I still get a kick out of looking at all those great paintings, plus, this book contains a ton of wonderful stuff I’ve never seen before, that will feed my hungry eyeballs for years to come. Thank you, Ralph McQuarrie, wherever you may be.

Osamu Tezuka has been a big influence on me since I was a small child. I enjoyed his animated shows that played in re-runs on Australian TV in the 1970s, namely Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. Years later, I found out that both these shows were based on comic books that Tezuka himself had drawn, and were merely a fraction of the many properties that he had created.

Tezuka is sometimes referred to as the “Walt Disney of Japan” which is a comparison that Tezuka himself would have been flattered by, as he was a big fan of Walt Disney. But Disney’s (unmistakeably huge) influence is mainly that of a visionary businessman; his artistic output of drawings over the course of his career is minuscule at best, whereas Tezuka’s creative output in BOTH comics and animation, was staggering.

The Asian Art Museum here in San Francisco is showing an exhibit of Osamu Tezuka’s original comics artwork entitled MARVEL OF MANGA, which runs until September 9th. This exhibit was created by Australia’s National Gallery of Victoria, in co-operation with Tezuka Productions in Japan. The original show ran in Melbourne from November 2006 through January this year, when it moved to The Art Gallery Of NSW in Sydney for February and April. In June the exhibit came to San Francisco, for what will be its only U.S. appearance.

If you have any interest at all in Manga or Anime, I strongly recommend that you see this show. Even though the art style may seem dated and quaint to some people, it is worth remembering that many (if not all) modern Manga and Anime artists stand on the mighty shoulders of Osamu Tezuka. For me, it was marvelous to see his original artwork with my own eyes… I had never seen any of his original art before and there certainly is a lot of it on display. Plus, the sheer scope of all he did, taken in all at once, is pretty astonishing.

I was happy to see that as well as his comic artwork, there were some screenings of Tezuka’s animation, including his experimental films such as “Broken Down Film” and “Jumping” Which are both very much worth a look-see.

The exhibit started on June 2nd and runs until September 9th so if you have plans to be in SF during that period then don’t miss the show. Be sure to check on the schedule of lectures ahead of time so that you don’t miss out on any goodness. Also, take a look at the exhibition program/catalog, which is a beautiful hardcover book, including essays about Tezuka compiled by the curator of the exhibit, Philip Brophy. I regretted not buying this book as soon as I left the museum (I will pick up a copy on my NEXT visit).

When I was a child, my Grandma let me stay up past my normal bedtime when she baby-sat me one night. I saw an episode of THE AVENGERS, and fell in love with EMMA PEEL. I was absolutely fascinated by this pretty lady, clad in catsuits and leather, who bashed the bone-marrow out of all the bad-guys. I had never seen anybody like her before and I couldn’t take my eyes off her when she was on-screen. Emma Peel was my first ever crush, many years before I was old enough to have any idea of what a crush even was.

Supposedly, I made a huge fuss on subsequent nights when my standard bedtime was enforced and I wasn’t allowed to see Mrs Peel kicking arse any more. Grandma tried to make amends by helping me write a letter, asking Emma to put her TV show on earlier, before my bedtime. I doubt very much that the letter was ever sent… but a few years later I was old enough to stay up late and watch the re-runs, anyway.

I recently bought some DVDs of this 1960s TV series, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. It is a snap-shot of that time when everything coming out of Britain was automatically seen as being cool. The Avengers still plays well today, if partly undermined by other shows that have come along since, including many that THIS show inspired in the first place.

The martial arts fights that I had remembered as being so exciting, when I was a child, are hopelessly naff by today’s standards. We are now accustomed to seeing well choreographed action, and women in fight sequences aren’t a novelty any more, either; television has a different battle-babe for each night of the week. That wasn’t the case when Emma Peel hit the screen for the first time; she was a revolutionary character.

Though her “Karate Chop” style of fighting may look cheesy to some modern viewers, the character herself is every bit as charming as had I remembered. Even 40 years after Emma Peel first appeared on TV, there aren’t many characters to match her easy confidence, strength, book smarts, wry humour and sense of style.

The playfully platonic relationship between Emma Peel and John Steed holds up particularly well. It is still unusual, even today, for a man and a woman to have a long running screen partnership that doesn’t inevitably end in a romantic entanglement.

I should also mention that Emma Peel, as played by the incomparable Diana Rigg, is every bit as beautiful as I had remembered her, maybe even moreso.

These days, many artists (even those still in school) have their own web-sites, with links to artists who have influenced them. Hop-scotching around the internet from site to site has been a great source of inspiration for me in recent years. You can see links to artists that I admire on my LINKS page, but some of those who have influenced me the most have been those that I have worked with personally, and in many cases they don’t have websites and are therefore unknown by people who have not worked with them too.

Part One: Early Influences
I didn’t attend art school. When I started working in animation, at the age of 17, I was trained on the job and there wasn’t time for much “proper” training in the midst of production. So, while a lot of people remember the early influence of their art teachers, I am grateful to those few artist/co-workers who took time to show me some tricks and give encouragement when I was starting out, and had even less idea of what I was doing than I do today. Here are a few of the cartoonists who influenced me early in my career.

JON McCLENAHAN is an American, but he entered the animation industry in Australia, which is where I met him, when I started out at Hanna-Barbera’s Sydney studio, as an inbetweener. Jon was already an animator and he was the first artist ever to take an interest in me and I owe him a lot for that. He gave me encouragement and help with some animation I was doing in my spare time, because I was getting frustrated with being an inbetweener. Partly due to that after hours experimentation, and Jon’s encouragement, I did eventually get a chance to animate. Jon was, and still is, a very focussed, hard worker and he got a lot of work done by staying in his chair all day and drawing, rather than yakking with co-workers, which was my habit back then. I have since acquired his ability to work hard, day after day, but sadly I have never been able to apply Jon’s straightforward approach to creativity; he doesn’t second guess himself, and forges ahead with his first idea. I admire that approach very much and tried to adopt it for myself, but sadly I am rarely happy with my first idea, and so my method is is to “noodle” and try alternatives and throw away a lot of work along the path to making something I am proud of. Years later, after Jon and his family had moved back to his home town of Chicago, I had a chance to work with him at his own studio, called STARTOONS. Fans of Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Tazmania and other quality TV cartoons from the 1980s and early 1990s may have heard of that studio because many of the funniest (and Emmy winning-est) episodes of those popular shows were animated by Jon and his crew.

Jon and I haven’t worked together for many years but we are great friends to this day.

Simon and Chris. These guys are often mentioned in the same breath by people who know them, because they are such complementary friends. When I first started working, they were like the big brothers I never had as a kid. In addition to picking up a cynical sense of humour that I hadn’t really earned yet, I learned a great deal about animation and cartooning from watching these two blokes:

CHRIS HAUGE has animated on the influential Gorillaz videos, including that first one for “Clint Eastwood” that blew everyone away (I must have watched it about 100 times). He did those when working in London for Passion Pictures. Before being part of that buzz, years and years earlier, Chris turned on a light bulb over my noggin when he was the first animator who explained to me that animation wasn’t just individual drawings or even pretty drawings… it is the relationship between those drawings that is important; he made me think about TIMING, which is something that he excells at himself. Chris showed me how to plan out the action in thumbnails first so as not to jam too much “stuff” into a scene, and ensure that the drawings each had enough screen time to “read” for the audience. That may seem obvious, especially to those of you who have had formal training, but it was a revelation to me when I was 18. (He later tried to teach me to surf, with much less success. My thrashing and splashing around made him look “uncool” in front of his surfer peers). As well as enjoying working with Chris at Hanna Barbera in Sydney, I also learned a lot from him when we both worked on commercials at Colossal Pictures in San Francisco (my favourite company I ever worked at). Chris now has his own animation studio in Sydney called HALO PICTURES with not only a great showreel but also a great location; near the beach. (Being close to the surf was one of the major factors in choosing a studio location for Chris).

Chris is the only of my art-pals on this list who actually does have a website, so please check out his animation for GORILLAZ and various other bits and pieces of coolness.

SIMON O’LEARY has worked on projects such as Disney’s Tarzan (in the Paris unit) and now directs commercials in Sydney. His cartooning ability, dry sense of humour and unpretentious approach to working were all major inspirations to me when I started in the animation industry and he inspires me to this very day. He is one of those guys who can do FUNNY drawings… drawings that’ll make you blow your coffee out your nose; you are laughing so hard. This is especially so when he busts out a savagely accurate caricature of a co-worker (or YOU) or a funny doodle based on something that happened at lunch hour. For 25 years or so Simon has both written and drawn a comic strip called Fred Gassit which runs in the Australian Motor Cycle News magazine (and several other motorcycle magazines around the world). While the strip is ostensibly related to the world of motorcycling, the humour is really about Simon taking pot-shots at the world in general, via the persona of Fred; a sarcastic dog-like character who is a cantankerous bastard but appealing none the less (much like Simon). Both the humour and the artwork are vulgar yet sophisticated (much like Simon), which is a winning combination for me; the hardest laughs happen when neurones within the low-brow and the high-brow are firing simultaneously. I have a collection of these strips that is a treasured possession I look through when I want a laugh or need to swipe ideas on how to draw a vehicle, a goon, a bikini babe, or anything for that matter. To my mind these cartoons are insanely funny and I wish that Simon was rich and famous as a result, but the fact is that he doesn’t even sign them let alone “promote” them. Self-promotion is not what Simon is about. Which explains why he doesn’t have a website and why you probably haven’t heard of him.

I have worked with Simon in Sydney, Paris and San Francisco and I look forward to working with him again some day.

DEANE TAYLOR may best be known as the Art Director on the Nightmare before Christmas (and a spin-off game). He also did design work on the animated shows Cow and Chicken and I.M. Weasel by Dave Feiss (yet another animation hero of mine, from later in my career). But years before that, Deane ran the layout department at Hanna Barbera in Sydney. After I had been animating for a few years, Deane offered me a chance at learning layouts under his supervision. Consequently, most of what I know today about composition I learned from Deane, or picked up by working with him and watching him go. He was the most prolific artist in the department. He has a very dynamic drawing style, featuring a clever use of shape and silhoette, that many of his trainees tried to copy, but nobody ever matched Deane for graphic dynamism and energy of line. He taught me some simple compositional guidelines that I learned to apply over and over again, but apart from art tricks, he also showed me quite a bit about work ethics and attitude. Even though the shows we worked on were pretty crappy in those days, and many people just went through the motions when making them, Deane was one of the few who tried his hardest on every show, no matter what. He took pride in his work. He respected people who did a good job on whatever they were given to do, rather than those people who will work on only 2 cylinders, saving themselves for the big deal job on the distant horizon.

Deane taught me to always think of how to “plus” the material that came across my desk. That is certainly what he always does.

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I am very lucky in that I have worked all over the globe, at some really great studios, on some quality productions, with loads of amazing artists over the years… but these guys listed here had a huge influence on me, disproportionate to the quality of the projects we worked on together. In many cases the stuff we collaborated on was a lot of crap, yet these artists are still some of those that I respect the most.

The Maverix Studios and Sketchcrawl Art Auction raised a mighty $13,000!!!! Not a bad effort for a few hours of honest fun.

All the proceeds will go to the charity called EMERGENCY: Life Support for Civilian War Victims.

This is another of the three pieces I submitted; a watercolor of Sephilina, which was successfully bid on by Derek. (I am not sure yet who got the other two).

Derek also put in the top bid of the night; $900 for Patrick Awa’s magical “Little Dead Riding Hood” watercolour. The next highest bid was for Tadahiro Uesugi’s Watercolour, which was won by Ronnie Del Carmen. He was a very good sport, because his bid was already the winner in the silent auction but then, after live-auction bid-battling, he was obliged to pay another $150, or so, which he did with a big smile on his face (knowing that the extra money is all going to a good cause makes it easier to be philosophical at such times). Rhode Montijo’s Ink drawing was won by Ted Mathot and the Steve Purcell Mermaid was taken home by Anthony Hon.

Visit the online galleries of photos of both the artworks themselves and people having fun at the show (pics by Bosco Ng).

Yet another Maverix Studios art-auction fund-raiser has come and gone and I think this may have been one of their best yet. I certainly had a very good time. You can see here the 5 pieces that I won in the bidding (From top to bottom: Ted Mathot, Ronnie Del Carmen, Mike Murnane, Louis Gonzales, and Bill Presing). I am VERY happy to own each of these, and I certainly wasn’t the only person grinning from ear to ear while clutching recently acquired artwork, at the end of the night.

Despite being on the same day as the famous Bay To Breakers Marathon, the auction was well attended, and there were a great number of quality art donations, which inspired some pretty heated bidding over certain pieces. I have no idea of the amount of money raised (they were still adding it all up when I left) but I predict that it may have been one of the more financially successful Auctions that Maverix has yet held.

Most of the artwork was sold to whoever had written the highest bid on the bid-sheets beneath each piece. However, a few hot-properties were selected for the BIG BID-BATTLE SHOWDOWN at the end of the event; a live auction hilariously adjudicated by Auctioneer extraordinare, the mighty Mike Murnane. Being a natural born button-pusher well qualified Mike for the task of needling a few extra dollars out of bidders who had their sights set on the most contested pieces, which in this case were by Rhode Montijo, Patrick Awa, Tadahiro Uesugi and Steve Purcell.

But these shows aren’t only about the artwork and the fundraising, they are also for having fun, socialising and meeting new people. This time I got to meet someone who I had only known before as his avatar in online forums and through his blog; mr John Hoffman (AKA MonkeyFeather). He had done one of the art pieces that I had targeted, but in that case I was out-gunned by some other lucky bidder.

To make a great night even better, someone suggested going to Mitchell’s Ice Cream in the Mission District. Their tasty, exotically flavoured ice cream is made on the premises and they are open till 11pm. Despite it being a chilly Sunday night, plenty of other people had the same idea, and there was a line out the door (you should see the line at Mitchell’s on a HOT day). I have a pathological dread of waiting in line, but I will make an exception for Mitchell’s, only because Mexican Chocolate ice cream served in a chocolate-dipped, nut-encrusted waffle-cone is just such a civilized way to end the day.