[Acidburn]

Hi guys,

About two weeks ago, we placed an hand embellished "En Pointe" by Martin on Ebay and it ended around $3,500. After the Ebay fees and shipping, all of the money was sent over to the ABA school in Kenya which was Martin's charity of choice.

It felt pretty amazing to hear from the director that with the generous bid, we ended up funding 4 months of the schools expenses. Not sure if the bidder is on the forum but thank you for everything.

Thought maybe we could add more to the pot.

Some of you might have attended the Different Strokes show in NYC and saw the Angel statue. Last night, we put it up on Ebay as well.


www.ebay.com/itm/Martin-Whatson-ANGEL-Statue-Charity-Auction-/121407498165?pt=Art_Sculpture&hash=item1c447367b5

A portion of the auction will goto the charity too. 

I know I dont post here often but thank you for the continued support.

[Zippy]

Great news re the Charity and that the money was well received.

On this statue, you say 'a portion of the auction will go to the charity too'. Please can I ask for clarity on exactly what % that will be?

Thanks in advance.

[Acidburn]

Aug 11, 2014 19:37:00 GMT 1 Zippy said:

Great news re the Charity and that the money was well received.

On this statue, you say 'a portion of the auction will go to the charity too'. Please can I ask for clarity on exactly what % that will be?

Thanks in advance.

Yea of course. 1/3. 

The statue was originally supposed to be sold through us with a regular split but we decided on bringing ABA into the mix too. I plan on doing probably all of our UTB charities with them.

The En Pointe was 100% to ABA after any fees and shipping.

[nacional]

What a wonderful gesture...extremely well done both Martin and you..hats off to ya Sirs..

[Acidburn]

Aug 11, 2014 21:51:10 GMT 1 nacional said:

What a wonderful gesture...extremely well done both Martin and you..hats off to ya Sirs..

Thank you man. Since we opened our main gallery, we have raised over $35,000 for various charities.

This is probably one of the only times where we know exactly how the money is being allocated so it feels great.

[mmmike]

Always nice to do something for charity. Mind sharing what the retail price was for one of these? Just curious. 

[Acidburn]

Aug 12, 2014 1:25:08 GMT 1 mmmike said:

Always nice to do something for charity. Mind sharing what the retail price was for one of these? Just curious. 

Didn't really get to that point of discussion. We purchased the statue and then decided the night after the show to give a portion as well on top of the full for the print.

Was just on display at the time for ppl to see

[met]

Aug 11, 2014 18:15:57 GMT 1 Acidburn said:

Hi guys,

About two weeks ago, we placed an hand embellished "En Pointe" by Martin on Ebay and it ended around $3,500. After the Ebay fees and shipping, all of the money was sent over to the ABA school in Kenya which was Martin's charity of choice.

It felt pretty amazing to hear from the director that with the generous bid, we ended up funding 4 months of the schools expenses. Not sure if the bidder is on the forum but thank you for everything.

Thought maybe we could add more to the pot.

Some of you might have attended the Different Strokes show in NYC and saw the Angel statue. Last night, we put it up on Ebay as well.


www.ebay.com/itm/Martin-Whatson-ANGEL-Statue-Charity-Auction-/121407498165?pt=Art_Sculpture&hash=item1c447367b5

A portion of the auction will goto the charity too. 

I know I dont post here often but thank you for the continued support.

[...]

Well done on the money raised from the Martin Whatson print.

Separately, a few questions and comments regarding your thread and the eBay auction for the Whatson Angel statue:

1. When you refer to "we" above, could you clarify who you are? I can make an educated guess about the "nyc" of your username, but to my shame I have no idea what "utb" means.

2. Thanks for the confirmation about how much is going to charity. Consider adding this information to the eBay listing description as well, for full disclosure on that platform.

[I was surprised and wary about the original reference to "a portion" because that expression doesn't actually mean anything. Vagueness on percentages for charity comes across as dodgy, whether the absence of clarity is intentional or not. It's the pattern that chancers follow when using charities mainly for cynical promotional purposes, i.e. exploiting the goodwill factor of gestures perceived as altruistic, but donating only token proceeds of a sale, like 15%, 5% or even 0.5%]

3. Can you provide some details about the charity in question? At the very least, a link to a website would be helpful. It would allow those taking the charitable element into account (when deciding on their auction bid levels) to look further into the cause and the entity supporting that cause.

Offering this basic information seems obvious and fundamental. It's the very minimum I'd expect to see when someone is operating under the banner of charity. That's why the lack of details here is a little troubling. Appearance-wise, it's less than ideal.

4. Could you confirm the ABA school in Kenya has official charity status, that it is in fact a registered charity? This isn't clear to me. And it's a critical point if you use a term like "Charity" in the thread and refer to "Charity Auction" in the title of your eBay listing.

I am not claiming the work of non-charities is less valid than what charities do, or that the relevant causes are less genuine.

What I am saying, however, is that registered charities have a degree of supervision carried out by independent government bodies. These will be charity commissions or the equivalent, whose role is to keep an eye on charities.

Such oversight (which other kinds of entities also supporting causes are not subject to) is a key factor for many donors in their decisions on to whom to give money. Unsurprisingly, financial irregularities and improprieties are not as common with charities as they are with other entities that accept public and private donations.
​

[Acidburn]

Aug 12, 2014 3:03:25 GMT 1 met said:

Aug 11, 2014 18:15:57 GMT 1 Acidburn said:

Hi guys,

About two weeks ago, we placed an hand embellished "En Pointe" by Martin on Ebay and it ended around $3,500. After the Ebay fees and shipping, all of the money was sent over to the ABA school in Kenya which was Martin's charity of choice.

It felt pretty amazing to hear from the director that with the generous bid, we ended up funding 4 months of the schools expenses. Not sure if the bidder is on the forum but thank you for everything.

Thought maybe we could add more to the pot.

Some of you might have attended the Different Strokes show in NYC and saw the Angel statue. Last night, we put it up on Ebay as well.


www.ebay.com/itm/Martin-Whatson-ANGEL-Statue-Charity-Auction-/121407498165?pt=Art_Sculpture&hash=item1c447367b5

A portion of the auction will goto the charity too. 

I know I dont post here often but thank you for the continued support.

[...]

Well done on the money raised from the Martin Whatson print.

Separately, a few questions and comments regarding your thread and the eBay auction for the Whatson Angel statue:

1. When you refer to "we" above, could you clarify who you are? I can make an educated guess about the "nyc" of your username, but to my shame I have no idea what "utb" means.

2. Thanks for the confirmation about how much is going to charity. Consider adding this information to the eBay listing description as well, for full disclosure on that platform.

[I was surprised and wary about the original reference to "a portion" because that expression doesn't actually mean anything. Vagueness on percentages for charity comes across as dodgy, whether the absence of clarity is intentional or not. It's the pattern that chancers follow when using charities mainly for cynical promotional purposes, i.e. exploiting the goodwill factor of gestures perceived as altruistic, but donating only token proceeds of a sale, like 15%, 5% or even 0.5%]

3. Can you provide some details about the charity in question? At the very least, a link to a website would be helpful. It would allow those taking the charitable element into account (when deciding on their auction bid levels) to look further into the cause and the entity supporting that cause.

Offering this basic information seems obvious and fundamental. It's the very minimum I'd expect to see when someone is operating under the banner of charity. That's why the lack of details here is a little troubling. Appearance-wise, it's less than ideal.

4. Could you confirm the ABA school in Kenya has official charity status, that it is in fact a registered charity? This isn't clear to me. And it's a critical point if you use a term like "Charity" in the thread and refer to "Charity Auction" in the title of your eBay listing.

I am not claiming the work of non-charities is less valid than what charities do, or that the relevant causes are less genuine.

What I am saying, however, is that registered charities have a degree of supervision carried out by independent government bodies. These will be charity commissions or the equivalent, whose role is to keep an eye on charities.

Such oversight (which other kinds of entities also supporting causes are not subject to) is a key factor for many donors in their decisions on to whom to give money. Unsurprisingly, financial irregularities and improprieties are not as common with charities as they are with other entities that accept public and private donations.
​

Yea sorry about that. I usually tend to post more in Expressobeans. 

I co-own Bottleneck Gallery and UTBNYC (Utbnyc.com) in New York. I used to co-own MECKA Gallery as well but that closed its doors a month ago.

We opened up Bottleneck in 2013 and have been pretty big on finding fun ways to donate funds whether its exclusive prints or lower numbers. Usually we let the artist pick the charity and for group shows we do it. Bottleneck alone has raised about $28k.

About a year into Bottleneck, we opened up UTBNYC and work with an amazing group of artists like Roamcouch, who we just had a sold out show for, ZED1, PEZ, David De La Mano,  and soon to be, Icy and Sot, Sonni, Fintan Magee, Penny, Jerkface and couple other surprises. Board member AFRIKA curated the charity benefit last year that raised close to $10k which was raised for Hour Children. Not sure if you saw that one.

The statue is from the Different Strokes show we just hosted with Graffiti Prints. Martin flew in for the exhibition and did both pieces while he was here. 

Our facebook page for Bottleneck is Facebook.com/Bottleneckgallery and Facebook.com/UTBNYC if youre interested in following us.

Usually when we do it on Ebay, most of the major US charities are affiliated with Ebay so whatever is raised, is automatically taken out and donated. All auctions on our ebay account are charity based. When we list an auction, we don't have to pay ebay fees and you get to choose the percentage. 99% of the time its 100% going to the charity.

Sometimes, some of the organizations aren't listed in the directory. Usually its charities outside the US. For instance, PEZ just did a charity for children in Brazil. 50% of his original went to that and $2 from every print in his timed release. His charity, like the ABA school, isn't affiliated so unfortunately it doesn't get the Ebay tag.

I just revised the auction to state how much the percentage is and the link to the 501 (c) (3) affiliated organization, ABA School, which one of Martin's friends from Norway helped create. The reason why he chose it.

Here is a link to the section for proof of 501:

www.abaschoolkenya.com/#!usa/cy3z

Here is also their newest newsletter with all information on the program and if you press find Bottleneck, both Martin and the gallery are there and the donation:

media.wix.com/ugd/f5cb61_52e611131b3e41bcbc651f7340926f75.pdf


Thanks for bringing all of this up. Ill make sure whenever we do something like this with a charity not ebay affiliated, its more detailed. Most of the charities artists choose have the Ebay official tag so I usually dont need to put it into the details. Sorry about that. 

[met]

Acidburn: Thanks for setting out all of that helpful information.

[Acidburn]

Aug 12, 2014 5:20:39 GMT 1 met said:

Acidburn: Thanks for setting out all of that helpful information.

thanks for pointing it out.

[neopzz]

why the auction end ? I was on it...

[mikehaspey]

Bids cancelled, auction ended?!! Why?

[ToonKiller]

Who broke it?

[Acidburn]

Unfortunately its no longer for sale.

We will do something else special for the charity in the future.

[neopzz]

not really fair for bidder...

[Art Fan 2011]

Shame that

[nacional]

Why is it not for sale anymore....?

Not good form to big it up and then drift off without any explanation....

Better to answer with a bit of detail or I think trust for you guys may cease to exist on this forum....

[Acidburn]

Aug 13, 2014 19:33:09 GMT 1 nacional said:

Why is it not for sale anymore....?

Not good form to big it up and then drift off without any explanation....

Better to answer with a bit of detail or I think trust for you guys may cease to exist on this forum....

ah i put an explanation into the other forum.

There was miscommunication on who had the rights to the statue unfortunately. And after advertising it for a week and being on auction for a few days, we were informed this morning about it.

I think we have earned enough trust in the poster community in the last two years of being in business but thanks for your concern.

You can email Gian Carlo at Graffitiprints for any other explanation. 

[Acidburn]

Aug 13, 2014 18:12:35 GMT 1 neopzz said:

not really fair for bidder...

Just saw this.

We will be sending the high bidder something for free