SHARON ARTS NEARS DEC. 13 $10,000 GOAL IN “BRING JIMMY BACK” KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN ~ MORE SPONSORS SOUGHT TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!

The problem was, how to raise the $10,000 needed to bring Grashow to Peterborough, especially with the usual channels of private donations and arts council grants drying up in a difficult economy? New Executive Director Keri Wiederspahn, an artist herself, decided to try an solution that had begun gaining popularity among fellow artists faced with the same financial dilemma: Kickstarter.com, an online site that has rapidly become, according to Kickstarter’s own definition, “the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects.”

Once the Kickstarter campaign was set up, a 60-day time clock began running, as every project on this site must reach its funding goal before a certain amount of time expires or no money changes hands. Kickstarter feels this protects everyone involved: “creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds,” they explain, “and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.”

To date, Sharon Arts has raised nearly $9,000 and has until Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 5:47 pm to raise the last $1000+. At every level of donation, a “perk” is given to the donor–for the “Bring Jimmy Back” campaign the perks range from a signed cardboard emblem at a $15 level to a limited edition print of a Grashow woodblock plus a “I Brought Jimmy Back” T-shirt for $100 to a real bonanza for $5,000: a gourmet five-course dinner for the donor and 10 friends at the Sharon Arts Gallery with Grashow as a guest of honor, plus a choice of an original Grashow cardboard bug or flower from the exhibit, plus a personalized original Grashow Wood-cut print for $5,000.

“We’re hoping the community will come out strong on this home stretch to make it happen,” says Wiederspahn. “What Grashow has planned for us, should the project be funded as we certainly hope it will, is a Garden of the Imagination–the whole gallery will be taken over with larger-than-life flowers, bugs,and other inhabitants that will open up the creative process and the imagination.”

Grashow, a graduate of Pratt Institute and a Fulbright scholar, is convinced that “magical art can be made from the most mundane of materials.” His work was recently shown work at MassMOCA, one of the nation’s preeminent contemporary art museums.