More on art auction

A couple of weekends ago, I was one of the over five hundred artists at the annual Toronto outdoor art exhibition (TOAE).as soon as the show over, I been hit with emails come on by many wanted to make money from us. There are the usual some unknown internet galleries offer to promote me if I paid. There are the costly art shows with little promotion all looking for artists to enter (paid) their shows.
One nervy person even emailed me and requested me to donate not one but a couple of my paintings to a silent art auction for a charity I had not heard of!

As an artist, I often had been ask to donated art for different charities art auction, I had donated my share in the past to charities I support until recently.
Many artists do not make much of living by selling their art. Some of my work it take anywhere from days to months to produce, most of the ones I donated were my best. Not only had I paid for the framing with my own expense I often have to pay for my ticket to attend those gala. Some might think it is a good way for the artists to get the exposure and attracts the well-heeled patrons with their donated art.

However, with all my years of donation I had not had one person ever contact me after one of those art auctions. At many of those occasions they publicly thanked the person who brought the art and give out a tax receipt for the buyer.

Artists seldom been publicly acknowledged and with no tax receipt. And the worst of all, most of the art sold were often below their truth value normally sold at the gallery showing. I attended many of those auctions often seen other artists’ work sold for a faction of the truth value. Many of the experience art buyers would only purchase at those auctions in order to pick up some under-price art.
This way for artists donated to art auction not only are not helping their career in fact it damaged their reputation as an artist!