CHARITY ART
Auction aids in medical bills for artists
The Artists’ Charitable Fund, a roughly 30-year-old project meant to help artists facing unexpected financial hardship, primarily medical and dental expenses but going so far as helping with mortgage payments or rent, is hosting its annual auction Saturday, Aug. 12.
Founded by a collection of Loveland artists after a worker at the Lundeen Gallery, operated by the influential Lundeen family, developed cancer, the fund has since paid out around $500,000 to artists struggling with bills.
George Lundeen, the patriarch of the Lundeen family, one of the founders of the fund and the auctioneer at the auction, said that the life of an artist can be precarious, and incidental expenses can break the bank.
Nobody embodies that fact greater than Greta Balzer, a painter living in Ward and a recent beneficiary of the fund.
Balzer, who owns Glass Tipi Gallery in Ward with her mother, a fellow artist, was struck in the head by a tree branch during a winter storm last year.
“I had a huge tree fall on my head, like a 400-year-old tree,” Balzer said with a laugh. “It was wild. It was a super windy day, like 15 below, 80 mile per hour winds, and the whole tree came crashing down in my mom’s yard. And a pretty goodsized tree branch hit me, I had a 4-inch laceration. The whole emergency room visit (was) on my head, and it was going to be probably more than I was ready to spend at that particular moment. And my mom remembered the artist fund that she donated to for years. And they were just wonderful. They saved my ass this winter for sure.”
According to Judy Archibald who manages the fund, solicits donations from artists and finds and verifies its recipients, the fund’s annual auction typically nets between $40,000 and $50,000.
The sources of the artwork to be auctioned vary widely, and according to Lundeen, the sources of the donated art often result from the close-knit relationships between artists themselves. Oftentimes the previous owner of an auctioned piece is an older collector, perhaps downsizing a home and looking to offload sculptures or paintings that they no longer have room for.
Relatedly, the artists who receive help are often reluctant to ask for it themselves, Lundeen
said.
“Rarely does an artist come to us,” he said. “It’s almost always a friend of the artist, or a relative of the artist, or somebody that knows they’re in trouble. Artists have a hard time asking for help. And when they need it, they usually need it.”
The fund accepts donations and pays bills regionally, said Archibald, focused largely on Colorado because of the word of mouth nature of the project, but also accepting donations and helping artists from Wyoming, Arizona, Nebraska and New Mexico.
This year’s Artists’ Charitable Fund Auction will be held Saturday, Aug. 12, at the Hammond Amphitheater in North Lake Park at 6-9:30 p.m.
To learn more, visit artistscharitablefund.org.