Art That Gives Back

Last month we had the honor of again participating in the MJM (Mack, Jack & McConaughey) week of giving back. For many Austinites, myself included, it’s a favorite week of spring. A bit of a marathon if you participate in all of the events, it’s everything from rounds of golf to fashion shows (this year being Oscar de la Renta), to incredible live music, and – the bell of the (week’s) ball – the live auction. This year it broke a record in Austin and raised, in this event alone, over twelve million dollars.

As a part of my company’s support for MJM, for two years now, I have created a piece of custom art alongside the children this amazing organization supports: The Rise School in Austin, The JKL Foundation, and Dell Children’s, among others.

This year, however, was the first time KK art was a part of the aforementioned very special, main auction night.

The piece began, months prior to the event, with the chosen color palette, an oversized wooden canvas, and a couple of different ideas that I was between for where the piece would end up. We then had individual foam panels cut for the children to paint on. From age four to graduating high school, some with disabilities, some sick, some healthy, some high risk, they painted their hearts out with no rules or parameters.

It never ceases to amaze me how universal creativity is. And while the youngest children are nearly edible, it is always the teens in the after school programs that I am most enamored with. Many have domestic and socioeconomic aspects of their lives that most of us can’t understand. And they are always the ones, two years in a row now, that want to keep painting, ask if they can do more than just one canvas. They cheer each other on, unabashedly, in what the other is creating. It’s hard to fully put into words.

After all of the panels were completed from an array of adolescents and charismatic kids, I went to my studio to take their art and mine and make it become one. From there the neon words were added – by in-house employees who had never done it, mind you – and in the eleventh hour down to the minutes. The completed piece was then combined with sending two doctors as a part of HeartGift to Bolivia.

It went for $180,000.

I was in the audience as the bidding began, and to say my expectations were low is an understatement. As it rapidly rose in price I tried to play it cool, intentionally slowing my breathing so those at my table couldn’t see my heart pounding. Putting this art at this event had felt vulnerable all along.  From the start to “sold!”, it was one of the cooler things I’ve experienced in a while.

In total, we have donated $230,000 in custom art and I am thrilled to say that we are just getting started.