I know whenever I say anything regarding auctions I get a lot of folks that missunderstand my point. To be clear, I am a huge fan of Artist Trust, in fact, I am currently trying to create a scholarship fund for one of their programs, so do don't get your undies in a bunch about this. It's just an opinion. So here goes:
When I was on the PONCHO art acquisition committee, one of my suggestions was that all the proceeds from the visual art auction go to visual art organizations and that the other disciplines should do their own "donating for fundraisers" but my idea did not fly. As a visual artist, I would love to afford to go to the opera and the ballet and the symphony and I do want them all to thrive but I have little access to any of them. Any ballet dancer, opera singer of symphony musician can go to any gallery and some museums (at least on certain days) for free yet I don't see any of these organizatons (Ballet, Opera, Symphony, etc), individually or collectively, doing anything to benefit the visual arts.

@1, I have to agree with you. I've helped to procure auction items for an arts organization (not Artist Trust or for PONCHO - a much smaller one), and while visual artists will often donate their own work, the donations from performing artists invariably consist of tickets to their shows - which don't "cost" them anything personally. Musicians and other performing artists at our auction event always, rightfully, are paid for performing. As a group, we made the decision not to seek donations from visual artists, unless and until the time that we could pay some percentage to them of the auction proceeds.

Just a side comment... I read this as "go to straight visual artists only" and got really confused.

To clarify: proceeds from Artist Trust's 2010 Benefit Art Auction, and the new Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation's Art Innovator Award, are not related. Artist Trust announced the award at the Auction, and announced both in a recent press release, but the Auction and Chihuly funds are separate.

Please read the details at http://www.artisttrust.org/about_us/pres…

Thanks!

I like this idea very much that Juan is putting forward, I do feel I miss out as well on the other disciplines due to an inability at times to afford it. It could be a wonderful trade off!

YES

Here are some questions I posted on my FB page after I posted this Slog post yesterday and got several odd responses:
Is it possible that artists of other (non-visual) disciplines are not given the opportunity to contribute as much? Would they like to play a more equal part in fund-raising for the arts? How could that be suggested or encouraged? Could organizations of all types be capable of brainstorming different ways of raising funds other than the pyramid-style of taking from the wider bottom of the group to give to the top few of that same group? Is the generosity of art patrons limited to when they get visual art in return? Could there be other incentives including using other art disciplines in some way? Can there be a discussion that doesn't turn into attack and defense?
The times I have felt the most growth as a human is when I have been enlightened to another's point of view, so I'm inviting differences of opinion but I request that those differences remain respectful and dignified.
Thanks.