Auctioning on Empty

Promo'Arts is having an auction of paintings in aid of cancer research in May and we are hard at it organising this event.

It seems we'll have our work cut out actually raising any money, however. Montpellier is apparently known nationally for the propensity of folk to go to charity events, take advantage of the hard work and efforts of sponsors and organisers by gobbling up every last crumb, downing every last drop of drink and going home without spending the least Euro cent. Advice given to us was 'Give them as little as possible to eat and drink'.

It seems that the definition of the word 'charity' has not quite penetrated. People regard such evenings as a free dinner, albeit a light dinner, but dinner quand même. They go, they drink, they eat, they look at pretty things, and go home happier because their wallets are in the same state they were, and yet they've been out for the evening.

DRK put up a painting to be auctioned for a charitable cause (can't remember which) and during the sale, the auctioneer removed it saying that he was not going to let such a good work go for peanuts to a bunch of rats.

Should we even bother?! It's certainly causing quite a bit of anxiety, because one of Montpellier's best known local artists, Jean Leccia has donated three paintings; paintings which sell normally for thousands of euros. If the auction proves a flop, he'd be justified taking his paintings out of the sale too. Why enable stinginess?

What we really need is some American-style generosity. Maybe that's the stumbling block...

Introducing Promo'Arts Blog

Promo'Arts, the association (for which I am the Secrétaire) which aims to promote 'jeune talent' and raising money for good causes now has a blog, which yours truly created this week.

It is, of course still in its infancy (both the association and the blog) but a date has been set for a fund-raising evening at the superb Domaine de Verchant to raise money for cancer research in May. Three paintings by Jean Leccia, one of the most renowned painters in the region will be auctioned, together with a raffle to win a painting by Diane Rauscher-Kennedy, who painted 'Loft', on the left there, and whose work is visible in greater numbers on the Promo'Arts blog.

For those who take an interest in such things, I decided to try out Wordpress as the blog host site. I like Blogger, but you only get one page, whereas Wordpress allows you to mimick a website by adding more pages. I wanted to be able to distinguish between Promo'Arts news, pages for participating artists, and a basic 'About' page. I have yet to write the text, but the foundations are laid.

We are especially looking for sponsors and DRK, the President, has been out banging on doors and hotting up the phone lines in search of generous companies. Generosity has certain fiscal advantages, of course, as does buying a painting through the association. For those of you who pay too much tax, you can help the association AND offset the purchase against tax, so basically everyone's a winner babe!

Most recently, Diane donated a beautiful dyptique painting called Stormy Sea to the Institut St Pierre, a children's hospital at Palavas les Flots. They invited her to a special ceremony to thank her, and laid on a lovely gouter for all the children so they enjoyed it even more! I went along as a hanger-on and made myself useful passing round sweets to the kids, although not to all, as it's a centre of childhood obesity, so those kids were, of course, privés de bonbons.

Diane makes an annual donation, when she chooses the best painting of the series and offers it to a marvellous local institution. Others who have benefitted are the Pompiers de l'Hérault to whom she gave the painting 'Garrigue en Flammes' in honour of those who participated in 9/11. As she is half-American, she felt more than gratitude for their bravery and courage. I didn't know her at the time, so didn't go to the shindig they laid on for her, which I somewhat regret, because who wouldn't want to be in a room filled with hunky firemen in boots?

Anyway, if you know of anyone who might be interested in joining the association, or being a sponsor, or buying a painting, you can contact Promo'Arts by emailing: promoarts_france at yahoo.fr (anti-spam measures, sorry).