JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

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.

Recently my good friend Rhode held a MAD HATTER’s TEA PARTY in Golden Gate Park to celebrate his birthday. This happy occasion inspired a large group of his good friends to once again put on silly costumes and go out in public to make even bigger clowns of themselves than they did at his 1970s Frisbee Party, held in the same spot a few years ago…

A costume party where nobody wears a silly outfit is a sad thing indeed, but fortunately Rhode has many friends who are happy to dress-up and act the fool (myself included). Many veterans of previous Superhero Parties and Clown Parties were in attendance, so both the silliness of outfits and whackiness of hats was assured. Just seeing the guests arrive in all their finery put smiles on everyone’s faces and got the proceedings off to a fine start.

A super-long table was draped with lacy table-cloths upon which there were fancy tea-pots full of sugary drinks, and plates stacked high with enough sweet finger-foods to make your gums itch. This fine selection of teeth-rotting delicacies kept everyone buzzing until Mrs. Montijo’s tasty, home-cooked food showed up, brought all the way from Stockton by the gracious chef herself, and accompanied by even more of Rhode’s family members.

A feature of Rhode’s get-togethers is the PARTY GAMES. I have to confess that, even though I am happy to make a spectacle of myself by wearing a bald wig, fake moustache or even a skin-tight hero-suit at a costume party, I am very shy when it comes to party games. I don’t know why this is so… Some traumatic episode from my childhood perhaps? A game of Twister that went awry? A suppressed memory of a Dominoes match that ended in bloodshed?….

In any case, the games at Rhode’s parties never end in bad feelings. In addition to the traditional PINATA, at this particular party there was an egg-toss, an imaginary potato-sack race, and a 3-legged race… and it goes without saying that the winner in each event received a dandy prize. GOOD TIMES. A spirit of whimsy kept the tea-party in the land of happy-vibes all throughout the day, right up until the evening when everyone went home tired, well-fed and happy… to vigorously double brush their tingling teeth.

Thanks to Chris, Grace, Kenn and Elaine for taking these great photos.

This picture was drawn years ago for my friend JOY who used to have a retro clothing line called FROCK & ROLL. (These days she designs under the label of HOT COUTURE).

The recent discovery of an old, water-damaged portfolio has prompted me to sort through my sketchbooks and stacks of scribbles and make a digital back-up of my older drawings (the newer ones have already been scanned at some point). I really SHOULD be doing a mini comic for Comic-Con but I am having the worst mental-block about it, which is what inspired me to sift through old drawings in the first place, looking for some inspiration.

One bonus of this spate of scanning, is that I have been updating and resizing some of the scans in the ART section of this site (for example this, this, this and that). Many of the images in my galleries were scanned years ago (as long ago as 2000) and were consequently posted at the tiny size required in the pre-DSL internet days.

After almost 7 years online, and 6 years doing this NEWS page, this is POST #200.

My first website launched in Late 2000, initially as part of the MAVERIX STUDIOS site (until I got my own domain and hosting in early 2002). This NEWS page began in August 2001 and I made the posts by hand in HTML until I discovered BLOGGER in August 2003.

The ease of the Blogger interface meant that the frequency of posts went up from one per month to roughly one per week, and the focus broadened from merely listing updates to my site, to posting general ramblings about this and that. In March 2006 I moved to WORDPRESS and I really like the flexibility and features of this platform.

Here are some stats from my administration dashboard: There are 200 POSTS and 703 VISITOR COMMENTS, the most commented post received 32 comments. A whopping 15,418 SPAM COMMENTS have been caught since I installed SPAM blocking software in March 2006. The real-comment/spam-comment imbalance is pretty intimidating…

Speaking of statistics, thanks to all of you who come by once in a while and create a HIT in my VISITOR STATS (I am ashamed to admit how obsessively I check them; it makes me strangely happy). EXTRA special thanks to those of you who occasionally take the time to post a comment and make this blogging process a dialogue instead of merely a monologue.

Having my own little outpost on the web has given me a lot of pleasure and I think that being part of a worldwide art-nerd community is a large part of the fun…

Lately, I have been scanning a bunch of doodles, sketches and scribbles that I have done over the years. Here is one from last year.

The pic is a sketch I did last year, recently coloured in photoshop.

I have just found my own web host, so even though I am still a part of the Maverix Studios site, my files are hosted by www.digitalriot.org, who I can heartilly recommend. Their prices are very reasonable and they always have speedy responses to my dopey questions.

I have added sample pages from my 2nd Rocket Rabbit comic book to the Comics section, and there are details of how to buy that and my other books in the Store section. Speaking of that, I have also been having fun making artwork for the products in my store, and I will probably buy a bunch of it myself and take care of all my year end present buying in one hit. (hint hint)

Other than that I have been doing some illustrations for a book written by my Dad, wrestling mightilly with a new comic story, and picking Rhode Montijo‘s brains as to how to get my already self-published stuff distributed…

This is probably old news to many of you, but I have recently been getting a kick out of reading and posting on a few graphics message boards; Shane Glines’ Drawing Board The Aimee’s studio board and the Bellefree forum are the main ones. Artists from all around the world post stuff on there and it has really increased my success rate in finding good art sites on the web. Oh, and don’t forget the Maverixstudios forum where you are all welcome to post your pix!

San Diego’s Comic Con is coming up, and thinking of Comic Con reminds me of booth-gals posing in the most difficult-to-wear costume of all time:

The gomer-showdown begins in less than 8 weeks, so I still have some time to prepare new stuff, most likely prints, sketches and maybe a mini-comic. Abismo/Nerve Bomb will be exhibiting in the same great spot as we had last year; BOOTH #1329.

Hope to see you all there!

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).