"Appeals for Art"
Donation Advice for Artists and Charities

I'm thrilled to announce a project that has been in the works for two years is finally live! "Appeals for Art" is a collaboration with artist colleague, Gayle Rappaport-Weiland. We've compiled our personal experiences regarding art donations to create a web site and document with guidelines for requesting and making donations. Our goal for this project is to empower both artists and charitable organizations to create mutually beneficial relationships.

For those of you in the Sacramento, CA area, we're having a launch party for this project on November 15th, at K St. Collective. Click on the image below for details.

Earlier this year, I received an e-mail from Jasmina Cibic, a Slovenian artist. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first, but after some e-mail discussions with her, I decided to get on board. What she had proposed was part of a very interesting and unique art installation.

Her request of me was to contribute an illustration of an endangered beetle with a very unfortunate scientific name: Anophthalmus hitleri. She had been in touch with a number of other illustrators and she was asking us to draw our interpretation of this beetle without doing any research on it. Our drawings were to be based on our knowledge of beetles, scientific nomenclature, whatever information she provided and nothing else.

If you'd like to read more of the information Jasmina provided and see a photo of the actual beetle, please read my blog post. The short story, based on our instructions, is that I was able to determine that this beetle is a blind (Anophthalmus = without eyes) cave beetle. For my illustration, I used a reference photo of one of our local beetles, slimmed it down, made it less spiky and tried to make it look eyeless. This is the result:

I mailed the finished drawing to London, and after I knew Jasmina had received it, I found some images of the beetle on the internet and learned that my version of it wasn't terribly far off. In this listing for the exhibit, you can see "my" beetle in the lower left corner.

Available Art
Find it on Facebook

If you're ever wondering which of my original drawings or paintings are available, now you can find them all in one album on my Facebook page. I have them listed in various on-line shops and on my web site, but I thought it would be helpful to have all of them corralled in one place. You'll find an image and brief description of each work, along with a link to more information. If originals aren't in your budget, most of the pieces are available as reproduction prints and/or note cards. Gift items featuring my art are available on Zazzle and CafePress, where you'll find t-shirts, mugs, magnets, tote bags and more.

This drawing is one of many scratchboard works available.
"Destiny" was awarded second place in the art show at the "Calling Back the Salmon" festival.

Original art. Reproductions on note cards, prints, magnets & earrings.

- Ann