Back to the Drawing Board

I am back from a few days of very reduced activity, while I was seeing of J (who returned to blowing glass in California).

I finally launched into productivity over the past 2 hours and listed a new drawing on Ebay for the Penny Drawings Sale where I try and list at least one drawing per day starting with #1 at 1 penny and increasing the price per listing by an additional penny. I am at last up to drawing #61 and just noticed how one of the items has attracted quite a few bids.

It is such a nice compliment when complete strangers bid on something that I have made. Of course I have sold photographs as well as drawings anywhere between £150 - £850 but those sales overall didn't match my production costs. So while it sounds glamorous it still left me with a loss. (That never fails to puzzle me... I also wonder how does one keep buyers coming? At that price range?)

Anyhow what I find very special about the Ebay buyers is that they could be absolutely anybody. Over the past days I had a little time to think about this and I realized that the Ebay buyers are actually the audience that I originally was most interested in when I decided to move into the arts. I had this idealistic optimism and wanted to make Art for People. I didn't want to 'dumb' anything down, nor did I want to pander to demand either (not along the line of the media ratings system anyway) but I did want to create situations. Art works, performances and drawings that had complexity, validity and value without alienating Jane Doe or Joe Blogs, whoever they may be...

But I had  to admit that the Ebay action is taking an extraordinary amount of my time and I can't tell if people appreciate it when they receive something that I may have spent 15 or 60 minutes making. (I am trying ahrd to avoid listing anything more precious than works that I made in or under around an hour.) So when somebody receives a drawing that I really did spend 60 minutes on then I hope they understand that the item is hand made , that imperfection is part of the very nature of Art, that what I send I sent the best I could and made the best I could within the limitations of time and investment.

For example: The sturdy card that I send with most drawings to protect the drawings would often cost me more than the money the ebay bidder spent on their drawing in the first place.. I happen to have a lot of card in stock.. Should I really spend it on this project that will make me an average of 50 pence per hour income...? Probably not..

But mad as I am I am persevering and hope that I will be able to keep on top of posting the drawings in a timely fashion over the coming days.. It would really upset me if I got a bad feedback for the efforts.. So I am continuously nervous, keeping an eye on the feedbacks...

I hope it all goes smoothly.

I would like to list my little men paintings on ebay, too and see if I can get £35 for them. I just really doubt it, but they have sold for £75 in the past and it would seem plain crazy to sell for less than half price now.. wouldn't it??? 

Over 7 Seas & Birgit Deubner Etsy Stores pledge to Donate to a family in Cambodia

This is very important to me:

I WILL DONATE 5% of profit made through Etsy to Nakry's Family in Cambodia. (To calculate I will deduct only production costs, not my time or any other costs)

I will keep a public tally of how much is raised on this blog. I also accept donations for Nakry's family.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Birgit75

============================================================
The backstory:
I want to donate money to the family of a friend I made in Cambodia. I know first hand of several very good charity and NGO organizations who are active in supporting children and people of all ages to have a better future. I will update this post with a link to my blog that I have to write more about these causes.

My friend's family lost 50-60% of their rice crop to last years terrible flooding that swept across Asia. My friend's name is Nakry, his family live in a small house on stilts, the wood of which is splitting and they fear it will snap if another flood hits them before they can replace it. Nakry's family, like countless families in Cambodia, rely on their family's rice harvest to supplement their basic food needs.

I don't know how cambodian families will get through this time. Food across Cambodia will have run out some time ago (it is June now, the next harvest is not due until around december, most farmers only have enough water supply for one crop a year, few are lucky and can try their luck twice annually)

My friend's name is Nakry, his home has an open door policy welcoming any children from the extended family, if they are hungry Nakry's family will share their already tight food. Tight food? The children of the family have stunted growth, as has Nakry, he is rather small, the children who are 13 years old, look as if they are 7. The loss of the rice crop is dramatic on a family like this. It is all part of why for example Nakry's cousin left school before she finished, to work for small change as day laborer on other people's fields. She is 16, she could have become fluent in french had she stayed in school. This is a can of worms. I hope you will visit my blog when I forward the address in the next weeks (I need to update the stories, or at least make a strong start).

What is needed? Money to flood proof the house, the family fear that the wooden stilts it stands on will snap if the house is submerged once more for 2-3 months in 2 foot / half a meter of water.