GM FYI Blog: ImaginAide 2008

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ImaginAide 2008

Cal Navin
GM Design Staff, Design Sculptor

This year’s 2008 ImaginAide event was held at the MGM Grand Detroit ballroom. Featured were live and silent auctions of the artwork that designers, sculptors from GM, Ford, Chrysler and artists from around Detroit had donated for the cause. The ballroom was really beautiful, very classy and yet casual and comfortable at the same time. There was plenty of space to browse the art work, and the food was pretty good too.

The theme of the show this year was “Everyone Deserves a Home”. This is my sixth year with the Coalition on Temporary Shelter (COTS) as a donating artist. It seems to me that with each year the caliber of work seems to improve. Here at GM the artists take this event very seriously, and look forward to the opportunity to be involved with COTS. I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with other artists and patrons that continually support the event. It’s also nice to meet the folks that purchase your work and to understand how the piece spoke to them.

One year I received a letter from one of the patrons in which he stated that his life was spent making the almighty dollar. He said he was a slave to the corporate structure, and that he had recently had an epiphany that life is what you give and not what you make. Although, he found work a means to his end, his end had changed. He indicated to me that my work supported that vision. He said, if he could have created a picture of what motivates him and what he wanted his life to be, it would be my art. He said it now sits on his desk as a reminder of why he does what he does and why his philanthropic efforts are so very important.

This is an image of that piece:

I couldn’t possibly know the same experience as being homeless, but by creating work that might just remind us about homelessness is one step in the right direction of viewing the world from their point of view. I think in the future we will see a new face to homelessness, real and intelligent people, as our economic picture gets bleaker. My works often deal with the human aspects of life. I touch on human frailty, suffering and redemption. Art has become for me a kind of psychological language I create to express and open a dialog into that language. If by creating a piece changes someone’s mindset, I as an artist, have achieved something great and achieved my goal. The letter I received from the gentleman is really a treasure to me.

All in all I thought the event was a success, it was a pleasant evening and I enjoyed myself immensely.

Posted by Editor on May 2, 2008 10:26 AM