Karla Bloem, executive director of the International Owl Center at Houston, was flabbergasted as she watched the ending of the recent online auction of 59 pieces of owl art created by Ukrainian children.
“It was like high drama and every time I refreshed the total would go up thousands of dollars!” Bloem exclaimed. Bloem would have been happy to raise $6,000; at the end of the auction, proceeds were at a mind-boggling $100,052 including donations. $95,152 of the total was from winning bids on the art.
A piece by Sofia, age 14, went for $8,005; another by Anna, age 15, brought in $7,660; a third by Anna, age 9, earned $7,505. Over 600 bidders had registered for the auction. Several bidders had winning bids on more than one item; 35 people were able to purchase art from this auction. One bidder who had heard about the auction on MPR spent $25,000 on the auction. Two local buyers from Brownsville and Homer picked up their purchases Monday; the rest were carefully packaged and mailed out by priority mail on Tuesday.
As a non-profit, the Owl Center can only contribute to 501C3s based in the U.S. They chose to give it to UNICEF and earmarked it for the children of Ukraine.
How did this auction come about? When the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out, Karla posted on social media some of the art the Owl Center had received through the years as part of a children’s art competition for Owl Fest. The art from the innocent children affected people tremendously; they responded and some asked if they could purchase the art. When Karla shared the art in an e-newsletter, the art got the same response. People connected with the art, wondering if the artist was okay and wanting to help.
Staff at the Owl Center went through the thousands of stored art entries and found over 300 pieces created by Ukrainian children. Rather than keep them in storage, Karla pursued the idea of an auction to benefit Ukraine. Because her husband is on the Houston Area Community Foundation, Karla knew that SMIF had purchased an online license for auction software for all of its communities to use during COVID. SMIF, the Foundation and the Owl Center gave their blessings to create an online auction using that software.
Joyce Overstreet, an employee of SMIF, volunteered her time to photograph the art and put it up for sale. Since some people had commented that they wanted to purchase art, but couldn’t afford thousands, it was decided that some limited prints would be made for the next auction. Overstreet chose three of the next offerings to make limited edition prints — 25 of each — these will have a set price on the auction. The pieces chosen for the prints feature the yellows and blues of the Ukrainian flag. A set of cards will also be printed and available both at the Owl Center and their online store for $15.95 + tax.
One might wonder how and why the Owl Center has so many pieces of art. Ever since the first Owl Festival in 2003, a children’s art competition has been included. Originally a local coloring contest, the completion quickly morphed into an international one. When a prize was offered for art from the farthest away and the Owl Center began using Google Ad Words, the number of entries exploded. Last year over 2,800 pieces of art were submitted from 39 countries. Art schools from all over the world have found the competition and entered.
Currently, only 18-year-olds and younger can enter. The Center does have one adult entry from earlier when adults were allowed to enter if they shared their age; Bloem speculated the gorgeous piece was from an art teacher.
Owl Center educator Andie Harveaux is the competition coordinator. She has compiled a database of the art and will be attempting to contact the art schools of the artists to tell them about the auction.
The simple, fun art contest has proven to be a geography lesson for the Owl Center staff. They’ve received entries from countries they never knew existed. It’s also been a lesson in global politics; Ethiopia asked permission to send entries digitally since their civil war made it unsafe to go to the post office. Iran entries had to be taken to other countries by their teacher since Iran can’t mail to the U.S. and a shipment of T-shirts featuring artwork from an Iranian boy took nine months to reach his school.
The One BidPal website had some limitations for the first auction. Addresses were originally required for bidders; as a result bidders outside the U.S. were shut out. The address requirement was removed so people around the world could successfully bid. The site wouldn’t accept South African credit cards or PayPal from there. Bloem commented, “We’re pushing the bounds of what the software can do. How many people are looking for software that accepts bids from anywhere on the planet?”
Houston will still have plenty of children’s owl art on display. Three banners located around town display Ukrainian children’s art. Barista’s has a piece that includes coffee; the library has three with books; H&R Block has one from a window display advertising the Owl Fest right before COVID.
The Owl Center will also be keeping several pieces to display there permanently; the images, however, will probably be included in the card set they will sell.
The second auction closed Sunday night, March 27, and brought in another $70,989 with the high bids of $4,100 on one painting, $3,600, three more for over $2,000 each , and seven in the $1,000. With a total of $172,000 already raised for UNICEF for the children of Ukraine, the International Owl Center scheduled a third and final auction from March 31-April 3 on the same website. Their goal is to reach $250,000!
The auction events have gotten a lot of media coverage (radio, TV, and various papers) during this past week. Bloem, who was “utterly blown away by the interest and generosity of the people who participated” in the auctions.
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