Art is our way of life! Please help us keep making art while we keep our family safe and healthy and start our business!
First, we want to thank you for taking the time to read this whether you can help or not – this is a difficult time, and we know we are asking a lot in a short time. We wouldn’t ask if we hadn’t exhausted all our options. Anything you can do to help will be appreciated beyond measure!
This fundraising campaign is in part for emergency living expenses, rent, food, and monthly bills, and part for art business start-up. The more funds we can raise the less this is about survival and COVID recovery and the more it is about manifesting our dream life!
Our Family:
Dave and Tiffany are two emerging artists from Ohio living in Arizona, along with our three-year-old son, Greyson. We met in college as non-traditional art students and two years later, Greyson, aka The Dood, was unleashed upon the world! Dave has an MFA in Sculpture and Expanded Media from Kent State University in 2019; and Tiffany has her BA, with an emphasis in ceramics, from Kent State in 2020. Our son, Greyson, is busy leveling up (too) quickly - his superpowers currently include being ridiculously smart, cute, sweet, goofy, and a sure-footed mountain hiker! He’s also beginning to take an interest in performance art!
The Short Story:
Our priority with this campaign is basic living expenses, rent, food, and monthly bills, for our family for the near future while we develop our art business. We can't safely currently re-enter the public workforce because Dave is very high-risk for COVID complications due to his age, chronic asthma, and recent pneumonia, and Tiffany is high risk due to recovery from severe chronic illness. The safety and survival of our little family is our highest priority! To get through the past year we sold our house, a car, many possessions, used up our savings, as well as receiving help from family, friends and the kindness of strangers.
We also aspire to raise funds for the startup costs of our ceramics arts business for more stable, long-term income. We currently have a strong start, creating an ever-growing inventory of functional ceramics using the tools we had from years of studying and making art. Funds are urgently needed to cover business startup costs: licenses and permits, insurance, graphic design, website, equipment, marketing, shipping, etc.
The Longer Story:
It has been our dream and goal, since a road trip to New Mexico in the summer of 2018, to start a non-profit artist residency program in the beautiful American Southwest. In a remote, high-desert, mountain artist-enclave we saw the potential in an old Route 66-style roadside motel to become the perfect venue for an artist residency program. We immediately began discussions with the owner and local artist community to purchase or rent the motel and an empty grocery store building in town.
On our trip home, however, we encountered a devastating hailstorm at the edge of a tornado driving through eastern Colorado. We were extremely fortunate to have emerged intact, though physically, emotionally, and mentally battered by softball-sized hail that destroyed our car and most of its contents. Greyson was just six months old at the time, but thankfully unharmed! Surviving that storm put things in perspective, emphasizing what was truly most important to us: the well-being of our new little family, and finding a way to manifest our vision of a truly fulfilling life.
Upon returning to Ohio, we began working on a business plan, grant and funding proposals, saving money, preparing our house to sell, and generally figuring out how to bring our vision to fruition. Life, of course, has other plans, as we have all witnessed since 2020. After graduating in May of 2019, Dave began final repairs on our house, but injured himself severely – to recover, repairs on the house were postponed until the following spring of 2020. Just as we were prepared to sell the house, COVID lock-downs began. Unsure if we could sell during the lock-down and pandemic, our agent suggested we list the house and see what happens. To our surprise, the house was sold in less than 24 hours! Just in time, because as the world shut down, so did our income. As everything changed with the pandemic, instead of using the proceeds from the sale of our home to fund our dream, we had to use it to survive over the following year. Despite these setbacks, we were determined to follow through with our move to the southwest because it was where we wanted to build our lives together. Dave had studied painting at Northern Arizona University in the mid-1990s and had always wanted to return to the area. Starting a new adventure together with our 2-year-old child, in July of 2020 we moved cross-country and hunkered down in a small town outside of Flagstaff, AZ.
It has been a stressful, but happy year for our family in the Arizona high desert having spent our time learning, practicing, experimenting, designing, and, generally, preparing to run a ceramics studio and business. We retained most of the tools we needed from our previous years studying and practicing art and were able to acquire two inexpensive used kilns locally. The house we are renting in Arizona includes two small outbuildings on the property we have been using for studio and kiln spaces.
Our progress was slowed once again when, in late November of 2020, Dave contracted a severe case of pneumonia and ended up in the ER despite all our precautions and lengthy time in quarantine. During the first week of illness, his ER doc said it was most likely COVID, though two tests were negative; and the follow-up doc said she had her doubts. They did many tests, but nothing was conclusive. With no insurance, we are also still working on paying off the ER and other medical bills.
This fall (2021) Dave began working towards his second master’s degree, enrolling in the Master of Arts Leadership and Cultural Management (MALCM) program at Colorado State University, attending online. The MALCM program is teaching us everything we need to know about starting and leading a non-profit arts organization. In addition to being a full-time mom, Tiffany continues to create ceramics and crowdfund for other families in need during this difficult time.
Our Goals and Needs:
Our most urgent need is for living expenses and necessities for the near future, so we may continue with our art practice and developing our business. If we meet or exceed our fundraising goal, we will look to expand into commercial space and begin developing our artist residency nonprofit.
Thank you so much to everyone who has helped and supported us in this campaign and in every other way! We appreciate you more than words can say!
Here is Dave's website address, representing most of the (very different from ceramics) sculpture, performance, installation, and virtual reality work he has done up until we moved to AZ. www.davebraunart.com