BUFFALO, N.Y. — Normally, this time of year, Buffalo Arts Studio would be getting ready for its biggest fundraiser of the year, Live on 5.
They are not hosting the bash they usually have at their location on the fifth floor of Buffalo's Tri-Main building. Instead, they are hosting a live mobile art auction and fundraiser.
"We have 670 of the five inch by five inch artworks that were donated by 200 area artists," said curator Shirley Verrico.
The auction starts Thursday at 6 pm and runs until Saturday at 9 pm.
"And once you register," Verrico explains, "and buy your tickets for $20, we will send you an email or a text and you can bid wherever you are. I'm going to be bidding, probably on my outside patio...and through my phone. I'll get notices when I'm outbid and I can just bid again...I don't have to be sitting in front of a computer. I can be wherever I am. I can work in my garden, I can go pick up a pizza, and it's a mobile auction. It'll be happening in real time over the next three days. And you'll get notifications if you get outbid, and then you can bid again."
They're making it easy to support the studio and add a special work of art with WNY roots to your home.
Verrico and Most Buffalo's Kate Welshofer talked about the added impact of art in the world right now.
"People have seen how important the arts are to lift their spirits and to, I think, feed their souls during this difficult time where we've been isolated, we've not been able to connect and what have we looked at? We've looked to music, we've looked at theater, we've looked at art, because it touches us. That's why it endures. When go into museums, when we learn our history, we really learn a lot of it through objects because they touch people over space and time...I'm also an art historian and you know, the Renaissance followed the plague because people were looking to to repair their souls and, and to repair the damage to their communities that were done by that disaster. And I think it's something we can all look to now."
And you never know what sort of inspiration may come.