Twentytwenty! Twenty-four hours to go!
Hi everyone, just wanted to share with you all a new painting fresh off the easel, and easily one of my favorite paintings I've done in a long time. It gets at something true, finding a beautiful moment in a dark time...
"Twentytwenty"
Acrylic on Canvas
36" x 18"
Painted live @ the Dune House with the Spindrifters on September 24, 2020
Twentytwenty doesn't need much introduction. We've all been caught in this storm. That's what this painting is about.
But there is a bit more backstory to it that some of you might not be aware of. This piece was started live on location at the Dunehouse in Manila, CA as a benefit for Friends of the Dunes. Unable to host their annual event on site due to it being 2020 and all, they were still able to manage to have the Spindrifters come belt out some live tunes for an hour and a half last week while I set up outside and painted to their rhythms. After so many months of not hearing live music in person, let alone being able to paint along, it was a heavy experience and another reminder of just how much this thief called 2020 has attempted to steal from us.
I was a bit rusty during the live portion of this painting out there, so I took it home and did quite a bit of work finishing it up in the studio. I had a vision for this one, and really wanted to bring it through. Generally the only large paintings I work on the studio these days are commissions from collectors and are never available for outright purchase, let alone in an auction. This is a truly rare opportunity to score an original painting like this, it just doesn't happen very often. Someone's gonna be stoked. But that's just business, let's get back to what this painting is all about...
The peninsula in all of its duneful wonder is a beautiful place and its been fun to paint there every year for the last 6 or so years at their annual event, but to be honest there's always been something a little odd about being out there in a social setting. The glory of the dunes are best experienced in solitude. And ironically, I don't think I'm alone in this opinion. We don't have a desert here in Humboldt- out on the peninsula in these dunes is one of the few places with open sky and empty space. It's our desert. Our place to face the heavens and scream and cry and laugh and pour out our lives to whoever listens up there. We dream up ideas, we're captured by visions, confronted by the blank slate of our souls. This alone is a beautiful thing.
But there's another beautiful thing about this coast. Due to the angle it faces, our predominant northwest winds blow howling onshore out here and the lightest breeze can rough up the ocean to a churning frenzy of whitecaps turning quickly great waves into ragged derelict lumps of water marching drunkenly to shore arm in arm like soccer hooligans after a heated match. But once in awhile the pattern is disrupted on those days when a new storm rolls in. The swirling low pressure systems that move in from the North Pacific meet the land first with a blast of wind from the south, grooming the incoming swells into beautiful gems of organized chaos. Standing alone at the water's edge on a day like this can be thing of frightening beauty. And that, more than anything is what this painting is about. Finding some beauty in the middle of the storm that has been twentytwenty.
Ok, yes it's about that, and it's also about trying not to drown.
This Original is Up for Auction Right Now!
Yep. As mentioned earlier, this new one is up for auction to benefit the Friends of the Dunes right now (but they are generously splitting it with me 50/50 so this helps me out in the middle of a rough year too). Here's all the info:
Link to Online Auction:
https://carljohnsonco.hibid.com/lot/74536388/twentytwenty---live-painting-by-matt-beard-?q=31
Bidding Closes: Friday, October 9 @6pm (or shortly after, keep reading for important details)
Important Details: This is the critical piece of fine print from the auction site (I'm not hosting this one)
"This auction is a soft close auction. The auction will begin to close at 6:00 PM Pacific Time and an item will close every 15 seconds. If a bid is made on an item in the last minute of bidding time for that item, one minute will be added to that specific item. Watch the auction till the end! The last item will close around 6:20 PM."
My suggestion: Make sure you have the winning bid at 6pm, and if someone else outbids you, just keep bidding and refreshing that page until you're the last one in the mix and wait until the auction closes and says its closed. As long as the internets are working well, nobody should be able to come and swoop it from you at the last minute, but you have to be vigilant and watch it like a hawk from 6pm until it is officially over. It's not my auction so it's all out of my hands. Best of luck!
Other things to note:
Bid Increments: You can only place the next bid they ask for, there is no option to up the bid any higher than the next increment.
Shipping Options: There is an info section on the auction site for shipping options but it only talks about local pickup which is fine for locals here, but not so helpful if you're out of the area. Don't worry. I have the painting here in my studio, and I can ship almost anywhere in the US for less than $40 (sorry Hawaii and Alaska, you guys might run a bit more). But yeah, we can sort it all out afterwards, no problem.
Framing: The painting is framed in my standard aged redwood lath edge, ready to hang and enjoy.
Value of This Painting: These paintings that are done live for fundraisers are unlike any of my other work, born of a moment's inspiration and letting the imagination fly. You guys follow my work pretty closely so you know I have no problem pricing a typical painting done on location or in the studio, but these live pieces aren't typical. They are almost exclusively painted and sold at the events at which they were created. But 2020 hasn't been a typical year so here we are. Other live paintings I've done for fundraisers have brought in as much as $11,500 and out of the last 6 large pieces that nonprofits have auctioned over the last year, the average auction price has been just over $3,600. Now, if these had been commissioned works or gallery sales, they may well have been priced for less in some cases, but there is a hard-to-get scarcity factor that must be considered here. When left to my own ways, I just paint smaller pieces in plein air and avoid the studio altogether, so the prices at auction reflect an understanding that these works just aren't generally available. The current bid as of this writing is right around the $1000 mark, and no matter how you cut it, that's still in the bargain zone for a piece like this and that's all I have to say about that.
Good luck!
Prints Available:
And one more thing... if the auction is already out of your range but you're really wanting to enjoy this reminder of beauty in the storm...
Prints are Available Here:
https://mattbeardart.com/artwork/twentytwenty/
Use code "much-appreciated" at checkout for 10% off.
And that is all for now.
Holler with any questions and I'll try to get back right away.
I appreciate all of you and your ongoing support.
Cheers!
Matt