The idea behind this art shop is simple: I draw and paint things and put them up for sale here. You, as a person wealthy enough and privileged enough to afford and value art (thankyou!), can purchase it. 50% of what you pay goes to helping make the world a better place, 50% is re-invested in art supplies to cover the cost of making the work and buy more art supplies to make more work. Simple. If you want to find out more about why I do this? Read on.
The origin story
Not all of us can volunteer our time to work at the coalface of the volunteer sector. You know what I mean – serving soup to the homeless at soup kitchens, volunteering in op-shops, spending weekends planting trees in our local community. These are, of course, all good things, but many of us have lived lives that mean, by the time we’re ready to give back, time isn’t on the table; we’ve committed to certain things – jobs and careers, families, mortgages, and everything else that takes up our money and time.
I struggled with this for years. I wanted to do something good in the world but by the time I learned this about myself it felt… ‘too late’. I compared my options. Option one was about working in a high-paying first world job and sharing the money I make from that with organisations who are better placed to make change than I would be individually. Option Two was about giving that up and going to the ‘front-line’ of care; maybe re-training as a nurse or do on-the-ground volunteering to help build houses with my bare hands for communities who needed the help.
After a lot of research, it turned out that the impact I could make with money seemed, on the whole, a lot more effective than what I could do as an individual donating time. Money could be scaled, time could not. And there were already people in the world who were much better placed to make change on the ground in areas I cared about than I would be for at least a number of years.
Costs and Materials
These are the costs factored into the cost of the work. I’m not here to make a profit, I’m here to make a sustainable way of making art and giving others a chance to own something whilst at the same time, helping make the world a better place.
- Material cost of the work – Every original piece is made of real things. The paper, the ink, the paint. It’s not an easy thing to calculate because art supplies don’t really work as clear cut as that but the paper, paint, ink, and pencil you receive and put up on a wall in your home costs something.
- Cost to replace the supplies – In order for me to keep making this stuff, I need to replace the stuff I sell. If I didn’t do this, I’d sell a finite set of art and that’d be it – and that’s not very sustainable, is it?
- Time – As much as I’d love to believe that time *isn’t* money, we’re living in a time when it is. But, you’re not paying for my time because I donate it. We could get into a whole ‘opportunity cost’ debate here but instead of going down economic rabbit holes, I’m just saying I’m putting my own skin in the game here. The time I donate is of course the time required to make the thing, but also to buy the supplies, to go to the post office to send the thing, to think about the idea in the first place and the time required to run this website.
- Shipping – I think we all know what this means but in case it’s not clear – there is a cost of materials to ship the work (protective sleeves, tape, boxes and tubes etc), and also the postage cost (the cost I get charged by the Post Office to send this to wherever you are). This cost is factored into each artwork so that it gets smoothed out amongst all purchasers over time.
If something here doesn’t smell right to you, that’s OK, you don’t need to purchase from here. All I’m doing is trying to be as transparent as possible in an opaque world. The fact you’ve read all the way down to here tells me something, though – maybe you’re one of the good ones. So, thankyou.