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| After talking with multiple-award-winning bartender Chris Hannah about your tastes and preferences, you'll receive personalized cocktails for four. Enjoy the cocktail for you and three friends in person at his New Orleans bar and restaurant, Jewel of the South, that writer Ian McNulty calls "a cross between private event, speakeasy and cocktail-based performance art.” Or, enjoy at home - we'll ship the ingredients and cocktail-making directions to you. A classical bartender and obsessive historian, Hannah has revived long-forgotten recipes and won many industry awards. For many years Hannah ran Arnaud’s iconic French 75 Bar which was twice awarded the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Bar Program award under his leadership. He opened Cuban-themed Manolito in 2018 and Jewel of the South in 2019. Learn more about how Hannah and Jewel of the South are adapting during COVID-19 in this recent New York Times article. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Chris Hannah for donating this experience. Images courtesy Jewel of the South. |
$510Highest Bid
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Marlon Blackwell
Highest Bidder
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| Spuyten Duyvil (2020, 24 x 18 inches, Ed. 1/2) is part of a series of Cyanotype prints that trace the original trajectory and later permutations of Tibbetts Brook, a buried waterway in the North West Bronx, as well as the changing topography of the area. The winning bidder will have the opportunity to meet with artist Maya Ciarrocchi over zoom to learn more about her process and the background behind this work. Maya is part of City as Living Laboratory’s Rescuing Tibbetts Brook project, a constellation of artist and designer- led initiatives that seek to reimagine Tibbetts Brook in the Bronx, a formerly thriving wetland paved over a century ago to accommodate increasing development in the area. City as Living Laboratory is calling attention to the solution: unearthing this buried stream and channeling it along an abandoned railroad line directly into the Harlem River through a process called daylighting. This will allow the clean, fresh water of Tibbetts Brook to bypass the sewer system, collect excess rainwater, and create a beautiful new linear park with walking trails and bike paths that will join the new greenway planned to connect Van Cortlandt Park to the High Bridge. Maya Ciarrocchi is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist working across media in drawing, printmaking, performance, video, installation, and social practice. Through personal narrative, storytelling and embodied mapmaking her projects excavate disappeared histories as in Mosholu, a series of drawings and prints that map the history of Tibbetts Brook, a Bronx waterway that has been buried, renamed and rerouted over time, and Site: Yizkor, where architectural renderings of destroyed buildings, maps of vanished places, historical Yizkor books and audience contributed writings become sources for exploring the physical and emotional documentation of loss. The work will be shipped directly to the buyer or can be collected from Ciarrocchi’s studio; the corresponding conversation will be scheduled at a mutually convenient date within one year of purchase. Thank you to Maya Ciarrocchi for contributing this artwork. Image courtesy of the artist. |
$510Highest Bid
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8Bids
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Beverly Hyman
Highest Bidder
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| Join Claire Weisz, FAIA, founding partner of WXY, Jeanne DuPont, Founder and Executive Director of Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity (RISE), and Steven N. Handel, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers University for a private tour of the far Rockaways boardwalk and dunescape. Starting at RISE and then proceeding down the boardwalk, the tour will outline the results of an extraordinary planning, design, and community engagement to not only rebuild the 8-mile Rockaway boardwalk since Hurricane Sandy, but also to re-envision the connections between the neighborhood, the vast public space of the beach, and how to be both a great place for recreation and part of a system to protect the community from future storms. This one of a kind tour will allow participants to gain insight into the collaborative process behind the boardwalk and dunescape design, and understand the various ways in which Claire, Jeanne, and Steven approached the project. The tour will include an insider’s view of the restored boardwalk and a visit to the PlaNYC Far Rockaway Park designed by WXY, first finished months before Sandy hit, and providing lessons in climate resilient design. This experience is for up to six people - transportation to the Far Rockaways is not provided, but traveling by ferry from Lower Manhattan’s Pier 11 to the Rockaways (a one-hour trip) is recommended. Claire Weisz, FAIA, Founding Partner of WXY Claire Weisz is a founder of WXY Studio, whose work as an architect and urbanist focuses on innovative approaches to public space, structures, and cities. Claire was awarded the Medal of Honor from AIANY in 2018 and was honored with the Women in Architecture Award by Architectural Record in 2019. In 2019 Fast Company named WXY one of the World’s Most Innovative Architecture Firms. WXY’s work from small scale architecture to large scale urban design and planning, has include such iconic projects such as the colorful SeaGlass Carousel at Battery Park to open space master plans for waterfronts, to community neighborhood plans to the generation of innovation hubs on former industrial sites. Throughout, the firm works to develop a robust system of resilient, shared spaces in their work, based in New York and international in its scope of projects and impact. Jeanne DuPont, Founder and Executive Director of Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity (RISE) As Founder & Executive Director of RISE, Jeanne has worked closely with the Rockaway community and city agencies over the past 15 years, developing strategies to redevelop large stretches of underutilized public land for the good of the community. Much of her work has involved organizing community members and youth in utilizing outdoor space for programming focused on social equity, health and environmental justice. Jeanne has a Masters Degree in Design from Yale University. Steven N. Handel is Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Rutgers University and was Visiting Professor of Ecology at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design for the past four years. He is a plant ecologist studying restoration of habitats and has collaborated broadly with landscape architects on urban park design. Handel serves as the Editor of the journal Ecological Restoration. Honors include being a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America and an Honorary Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects for “nationally or internationally significant achievements.” He was given the Theodore Sperry Award by the Society for Ecological Restoration for “pioneering work in the restoration of urban areas.” He received his B.A. in biology from Columbia University and Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from Cornell University. He is a proud graduate of Far Rockaway High School. Thank you to Claire Weisz, Jeanne DuPont and Steven N. Handel for donating this experience. |
$400Highest Bid
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Charles McKinney
Highest Bidder
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| Dr. Eric Dorfman, biologist and head of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, invites you to join him for a visit to the research laboratories at the heart of the museum. Renowned for the architecture of its iconic globe and its extraordinary collections from dinosaurs to minerals, the museum also houses the Nature Research Center, an exhibition space surrounded by three storeys of labs, where the public can see science happening in real time. Director Dorfman, a global thought leader in the future of museums of natural science, will visit the labs and their researchers working in fields from astrophysics to wildlife tracking, animal behavior, and paleontology, including the study of the remarkable dueling dinosaur fossils, a Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops horridus seemingly frozen in battle 67 million years ago. In this tour, Dorfman will introduce you to how he and his colleagues work to make a connection between science at the highest level and the public, a critical issue for our society and our time. As the head of a museum in Raleigh, one of the leading cities of North Carolina’s “Research Triangle,” Dr. Eric Dorfman works to support the connection between people, science, and nature, as in his Biophilia: Loving Nature podcast. He is Director and CEO of North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, a member of the Executive Board of the International National Council of Museums (ICOM), and an adjunct faculty member of North Carolina State University in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences. He is an author of several popular books on New Zealand natural history and climate change, as well as scholarly papers on museum education, public programming, Egyptology and the ecology of wetland birds. His most recent book is The Future of Natural History Museums (Routledge 2018), and he’s published numerous other books on natural heritage, short fiction for children, and scholarly articles on the ecology of waterbirds. Experience for up to six guests. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Eric Dorfman for contributing this experience. Image courtesy Eric Dorfman. |
$380Highest Bid
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Thomas Bishop
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| John Gurda is a Milwaukee-born writer and historian who has been studying his hometown since 1972. He is the author of twenty-two books, including histories of Milwaukee-area neighborhoods, industries, and places of worship. Gurda’s most ambitious efforts are The Making of Milwaukee, the first full-length history of the community published since 1948, which was made into an Emmy Award-winning documentary series by Milwaukee PBS; and Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, a geographic companion that has quickly become the standard work on grassroots Milwaukee. This experiences includes three signed copies of his books: The Making of Milwaukee - the richly illustrated standard history of the city, now in its fourth edition; Cream City Chronicles - a collaction of essays on topics ranging from frontier Valentines to deadly strikes and Socialist mayors in Milwaukee; and Milwaukee: A City Built on Water - tracing the use and abuse of a vital resource, with a recent turn for the better. Books will be shipped directly to winning bidder. Thank you to John Gurda for donating this experience. |
$150Highest Bid
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Marlon Blackwell
Highest Bidder
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| Visit New York’s Pier 26 with the landscape architects who developed this break-through design of a public waterfront. Lucinda R. Sanders, FASLA, Demetrios Staurinos, RLA, and Trevor Lee, RLA of OLIN, will guide a small group through the site, with a focus on the experience of moving from the lowest level of the ecosystem, at the tidal deck, and up through the rising layers of experience, explaining the design and educational ambitions of the project. Generating topography on the tightly defined space of a pier over the Hudson River called for extraordinary creativity and adaptation in the design. The result is an intense, engaging environment demonstrating the ecological complexity immediately adjacent to Manhattan’s dense core of residential, commercial, and institutional activity. The tour will offer an insider’s look at how this remarkable vision, combining science, design, and community, was developed and implemented. The 2.5 acre pier is located within the Hudson River Estuary, a highly sensitive and ecologically productive body of water that contains a hybrid of freshwater runoff and ocean saltwater. The pier has a unique mission, providing a physical and virtual space that brings to life the invisible dynamics of the Hudson River Estuary, reflecting the current technologies and scientific understanding regarding its health, ecological successes, and challenges. The physical design of the park is a dynamic gradient experience from upland to lowland, from land to water. This experience provides opportunities for ecological education and offers recreation and leisure spaces for people of all ages. The tour is for up to six people, to be arranged at a mutually convenient time. The tour will be held outdoors with social distancing. For reasons of weather, the tour will be held no sooner than May or June. Thank you to OLIN for donating this experience. Images courtesy OLIN. |
$410Highest Bid
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Charles McKinney
Highest Bidder
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| Join economic botanist Valerie Imbruce and architect Stephen Fan for a tour and discussion of the unique food systems of Chinatown - from production to distribution to consumption - followed by a dinner at Valerie and Stephen’s favorite dumpling house. Imbruce, author of From Farm to Canal Street: Chinatown’s Alternative Food Network in the Global Market Place, has studied Chinatown’s vibrant and unique food system built on close relationships between vendors, restauranteurs, distributors and farmers. Though seemingly a unique ethnic enclave, Chinatown has been shaped by, and thus reflects broader political, economic and social realities, from free trade to immigration policies. Fan, a designer and researcher working at the intersections of architecture, planning, and art, has proposed design projects aimed at preserving this unique ecosystem, elevating awareness of the unique complexities it embodies, and fostering public dialogues regarding cultural and biological diversity in consumption choices and the food system as a whole. Imbruce and Fan will share insights into how this system operates against all odds, how fruits, vegetables make it to market, where they come from how they are grown and what they believe it will take ensure this system can be sustained in the decades to come. The tour will last approximately one hour, and will end with dinner at their favorite dumpling house. Bridging practice with academia, Stephen Fan has designed and built projects on four continents; his research and teaching spans architecture, planning, and the social sciences. Fan has contributed significantly to research on the experience of the Chinese diaspora and the built environment in the northeast United States. Over the last decade, Economic Botanist Valerie Imbruce has been researching the unique food system that supplies the markets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. She is director of the Undergraduate Research Center at Binghamton University. For up to two people. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Stephen Fan and Valerie Imbruce for donating this experience. |
$785Highest Bid
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23Bids
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Beverly Hyman
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| Join renowned nighttime designer, Leni Schwendinger, for an eclectic Greenwich Village NightSeeing™ LightWalk. Her legendary walks from Prague to Bogota, Sydney to Seattle have raised awareness of life - and light, of the nighttime city. Starting at New York City’s Washington Square and culminating in Union Square, we will observing the luminous vocabulary of night. Leni will highlight quotidian, sparkly and glowing lights as we wend our way slowly through the neighborhood. The hour long group tour will start with a short talk on creative lighting design for urban environments and end, preferably, in a pub discussion about city design for the evening hours. Leni Schwendinger is a published, award-winning authority on issues of city lighting. She has more than 20 years of worldwide experience creating illuminated environments. This work is shared through Leni’s public speaking and envisioning engagements, including the “NightSeeing™, Navigate Your Luminous City” program. She is an expert in light planning, with clients in the U.S. such as Downtown Santa Monica, City of Saratoga Springs, 82nd Street Partnership (Queens), and city councils in Australia. Her projects can be experienced at sites such as parks, subways and bridges. She directs International Nighttime Design Initiative to establish an interdisciplinary profession. Projects for the Initiative include Smart Lighting Guidance for New York State and developing innovative pilots with think-tank, New Urban Mobility. Leni is a Visiting Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, a Design Trust for Public Space Fellow (NYC). Date and time to be arranged when mutually convenient. Experience for up to six people. Thank you to Leni Schwendinger for donating this experience. Image courtesy Leni Schwendinger. |
$350Highest Bid
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8Bids
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Andrea Miller
Highest Bidder
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| Leave South Brooklyn for a guided canoe paddle to a secluded industrial beach accessible only by water. The half-day adventure will include canoeing to and from the NY Harbor beach, but most of the time will be spent relaxing. Up to four people (two canoes) accommodated. Your sea guide will be Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club Captain, poet, and architectural history buff Brad Vogel. Paddling required, sunscreen and picnic recommended. This is not a tour that is otherwise offered - it’s strictly one-of-a-kind, created for this auction. About your Guide Brad Vogel is the Executive Director of the New York Preservation Archive Project. Vogel served as a Fellow with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in post-Katrina New Orleans and was named Louisiana Preservationist of the Year. A graduate of Tulane Law School, Vogel also practiced law in New York City for over six years. Vogel has published a book of poetry, and his writing has appeared in numerous outlets including The New York Times. He currently serves on the board of the Walt Whitman Initiative, the Circumnavigators Club's international board of governors, and as Captain of the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club. He moonlights as sail freight agent for the Schooner Apollonia, a green transport startup. Paddling required, sunscreen and picnic recommended. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient during 2021. Summer recommended. Thank you to Brad Vogel for donating this experience. Images courtesy Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club. |
$610Highest Bid
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12Bids
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deborah evangelakos
Highest Bidder
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| Join Kevin Shafer, Executive Director, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, for a private tour of the district’s Deep Water Tunnel pump room. An essential part of the city’s waste water management system, the 28.5 mile long tunnel system prevents sewage from being discharged into Lake Michigan during storms. Located about 300 feet below ground, the tunnels have prevented more than 125 billion gallons of pollution from overflowing into the Lake since their construction began in stages in 1993, 2006, and 2010. The tunnels are part of the region’s $4 billion investment in infrastructure that will help reduce sewer overflows, with $1.5 billion in clean water infrastructure, flood management, and debt financing to help protect public health and Lake Michigan. The Milwaukee Waste Water Treatment facility is a pioneer of modern wastewater treatment technology, and cleans billions of gallons of wastewater every year from over 1.1 million people in 28 communities. The facility is also on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Closed-toed shoes are required. Hard hats and protective eye gear will be provided. Maximum 4 people. Suitable for adults and students grades 5 and above. Thank you to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District for donating this experience. Image courtesy Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. |
$300Highest Bid
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MARSHA SEHLER
Highest Bidder
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| Ever wished you could achieve a great watercolor painting? Here is your chance! Meet artist Tattfoo Tan in his Staten Island studio, where he will teach you to make your own watercolor paints from raw materials. After your paintmaking session, Tattfoo will take you to a local park for an individualized plein air watercolor painting lesson, where you will learn how to paint the seasonal plants growing and blooming around you using the paints you have made. Up to two people can attend this four-hour experience. Timing: To be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Tattfoo Tan for donating this experience. Image courtesy Tattfoo Tan. |
$340Highest Bid
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9Bids
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Jennifer McGregor
Highest Bidder
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| Be among the first to tour the iconic house that belonged to songwriter, artist, and digital world explorer Allee Willis. Willis is known for such classics as September, Boogie Wonderland, the theme song to Friends, and the musical The Color Purple! She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018 and died a year later. She left her home to the city of Los Angeles; the City and it has applied to open the house as an extension to the Grammy Museum to be used as an artist residency and private visits. For this package, famed tour guide, storyteller, and Americana expert Charles Phoenix will create a special tour for you and up to four guests. Located in LA, the house was originally built as a party house for MGM in the modern style of Schindler. Lovingly restored by Willis as both a recording studio and home to her extensive collection of kitsch, it became a gathering place for artists – White, Black, LGBTQ and just plain crazy. While some may see the home as a monument to the detritus of society – giveaways, advertising, Black power images -- the collections raise questions about the roots of our modern desire for efficiency, comfort, equality, and most importantly self-expression. The collector’s unusual sensibility and prescience imbue every room. Learn more about the home in this New York Times article, and on the home’s website. House is located in Los Angeles, CA. Tour to be arranged at mutually convenient time. For up to six people. Thank you to Prudence Fenton for donating this experience. Images courtesy of Allee Willis house. |
$590Highest Bid
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19Bids
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Spafford Robbins
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| Join landscape ecologist Dr. Eric Sanderson for a private walking tour of a natural area in New York City of the winning bidder’s choosing. After selecting a location - from Staten Island to the North Woods of Central Park to Hunter to Twin Islands in Pelham Bay Park, or anywhere in between - Sanderson will craft a unique tour that will delve into the historical and contemporary ecology of New York’s landscape. Sanderson is Senior Conservation Ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, author of Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City (Abrams, 2009), an ecological analysis of Manhattan in 1609. He is an expert in species and landscape conservation planning, including in cities, with a particular interest in geographic and historic contexts for restoration and conservation. His most recent book, Terra Nova, which surveys a path toward a sustainable future for the United States through rearrangement of the interconnections between energy, transportation, and land use policy. He continues the Welikia Project, on the historical ecology of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, and Mannahatta 2409, an online forum to help the public envision climate-resilient designs for Manhattan. He is an expert in species and landscape conservation planning, including in cities, with a particular interest in geographic and historic contexts for restoration and conservation. Previously he helped create the human footprint map of anthropogenic impact globally, the landscape species approach to conservation, and range-wide priority-setting for wide-ranging wildlife species. Sanderson holds a PhD in ecology, with an emphasis in ecosystem and landscape ecology, from the University of California-Davis. He works out of WCS headquarters at the Bronx Zoo. The tour will be approximately three hours long, and is for up to six people. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Eric Sanderson for donating this tour. Image courtesy Eric Sanderson. |
$270Highest Bid
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7Bids
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Christine Mondor
Highest Bidder
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| Join a behind-the-scenes tour of the world-renowned Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility located on the shores of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee. Built in 1926, the facility is a pioneer of modern wastewater treatment technology, and cleans billions of gallons of wastewater every year from over 1.1 million people in 28 communities. The facility was one of the first in the world to produce a fertilizer as the by-product of the water reclamation, “Milorganite”. A portmanteau of Milwaukee + Organic + Nitrogen, the fertilizer is composed of heat-dried microbes that have digested the organic matter in wastewater and has been sold to farmers across the country since the mid 1920s. The facility is also on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Come and learn about the processes behind how the facility screens, clarifies, treats and disinfects its wastewater, and how it is part of Milwaukee’s broader water management system. This tour lasts approximately 1 ½ - 2 hours, and closed-toed shoes are required. Hard hats and protective eye gear will be provided. Maximum 6 people. Suitable for adults and students grades 5 and above. Thank you to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District for donating this experience. Images courtesy Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility. |
$150Highest Bid
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Ray Gastil
Highest Bidder
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| Spend a day exploring sustainable living on Long Island, with a tour of Ryall Sheridan’s Orient House V with architect Bill Ryall and ecological artist Lillian Ball, a farm visit to Michael Chuisano’s pioneering Naked Farm, and ending the day in the home of Bill Ryall and Barry Bergdoll for cocktails. Ryall is one of the world’s leading proponents of the Passive House, a set of standards that reduces energy consumption and a building’s ecological footprint. Orient House V is an exemplar of the firm’s approach to creating an efficient, low-energy building whose design is responsive to and and connected to its surrounding landscape. Built amongst 15 acres of restored tidal wetlands, Lillian Ball, an ecological artist who creates native habits, removed invasive plantings and replaced them with indigenous landscaping, and the property is now a haven for birds, butterflies, and other wildlife. Farmer Michael Chuisano started Naked Farm in 2019, and uses a bio-intensive, no-till agricultural method that increases the amount of yield produced in a small area. Free from pesticides and any synthetic fertilizers, Chuisano notes that the method is good for the soil, the planet and it tastes better than anything!” In 2009 Bill Ryall became one of the first Americans certified by the European Passive House Institute (PHIUS), and is now applying the world’s highest energy conservation standards to the design and construction of projects in Orient, on the North Fork of Long Island, a ground-up artists’ residency near Brattleboro, VT, and two structures on Shelter Island, NY. On Long Island, Bill sits on the Board of The Group for the East End, an environmental advocacy organization, which recently organized community education, political support, and legal action to stop a Water Authority’s pipeline from being constructed to undeveloped farmland on the Orient Peninsula. Lillian Ball is an ecological artist/activist who creates native habits, working on water issues with a multidisciplinary background in anthropology, ethnographic film, and sculpture. She has exhibited and lectured internationally, including at the Anchorage Museum, Seville Biennial, and Reina Sofia Museum in Spain. Numerous art awards include: two New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, a John-Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Grant. She was named 2012 Environmentalist of the Year by the North Fork Environmental Council, and awarded a citation by the New York State Assembly for WATERWASH ABC. Since 2006, when Ball was appointed to the Southold, NY Land Preservation Committee, she has worked with this maritime municipality on conservation, land use, and stewardship of their public preserves. Experience is for up to six people. Timing: to be held on a mutually agreed date in September 2021. Thank you to Bill Ryall, Lilian Ball, Francine Monaco, and Michael Chuisano for donating this experience. |
$525Highest Bid
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Rona Nelson
Highest Bidder
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| Join Pulitzer-prize winning science writer and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert for a 30-minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Kolbert is author of The Sixth Extinction, a book about mass extinctions that weaves intellectual and natural history with reporting in the field that has won numerous awards, including a 2015 Pulitzer prize. Her recently published book, Under a White Sky, returns to humanity’s transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? Elizabeth Kolbert traveled from Alaska to Greenland, and visited top scientists, to get to the heart of the debate over global warming. Her book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, a book about mass extinctions that weaves intellectual and natural history with reporting in the field began as an article in The New Yorker. It was a New York Times 2014 Top Ten Best Book of the Year and is number one on the Guardian's list of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books of all time. The Sixth Extinction also won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in the General Nonfiction category, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle awards for the best books of 2014. In 2019 it was the chosen book for the Chicago Public Library's One Book, One Chicago program, and was named as one of Slate’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years. Her new book is Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future (Random House, February 9, 2021). In Under a White Sky, published in February of 2021, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth. Growing out of a groundbreaking three-part series in The New Yorker (which won the 2005 National Magazine Award in the category Public Interest), Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change brings the environment into the consciousness of the American people and asks what, if anything, can be done, and how we can save our planet. She explains the science and the studies, draws frightening parallels to lost ancient civilizations, unpacks the politics, and presents the personal tales of those who are being affected most—the people who make their homes near the poles and, in an eerie foreshadowing, are watching their worlds disappear. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Elizabeth Kolbert for donating this experience. |
$340Highest Bid
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24Bids
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Lynn Burditt
Highest Bidder
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| Join Mitchell Joachim, sencretizer of technology and ecology and Co-Founder of Terreform ONE, for a walk through of Terreform ONE’s studio in New Lab at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The tour will highlight works in process, shards of creative process, fabrication machines, models and large-scale mockups. These explore the logic of radical design and problem solving ideas to improve waste, food, water, air quality, biodiversity, and transportation technologies in the City of New York and beyond. Terreform ONE is a nonprofit architecture and urban design research group that endeavors to combat the extinction of planetary species through pioneering acts of design. Their work aims to illuminate the environmental possibilities of habitats, cities and landscapes across the globe. They operate as an interdisciplinary lab of specialists advancing the practice of socio-ecological design. The group cultivates resilience through innovations in building, transportation, infrastructure, water, food, waste treatment, air quality, and energy. Our collaborative process includes speculating about the ways in which emerging technologies will impact future urban generations and local biodiversity. We focus on the intersections of ecological planning, biotech architecture, urban systems, and public art. As an organization we strive to develop inclusive spaces and systems that manifest environmental and social justice for all beings. The tour will be approximately one hour long, and is for up to six people. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank You Terreform ONE and New Lab for this experience. Images courtesy Terreform One. |
$250Highest Bid
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5Bids
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Charles McKinney
Highest Bidder
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| Maxi Cohen, an artist and filmmaker, invites you to her Soho studio to see her work, be part of the creative process and have a hydrating lunch for up to 5 people. Maxi is currently designing A Movement in Water™, an interactive, multimedia, mobile museum of water, a public art installation immersing the viewer in the majesty of water. The mission of A Movement in Water™ is to experience ourselves as water beings on a water planet and to instill a greater reverence for water. The project, innovative on every level— from architecture to science to technology to art to education— could make a valued difference regarding our most precious resource. The winning bidder will have an opportunity to “test drive” the piece. Lunch will be artful and based on the new science of water. Takeaways can shift the way you are with yourself and others. A tour of the studio includes photography, multimedia works and video installations. Maxi’s works are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including MoMA, The Met, Israel Museum, National Gallery of Canada. Supported by the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, and others. Her films have played in movie theaters, festivals and television. Learn more about her work here. After graduating from New York University, Cohen directed and produced a weekly television series called Are You There? in Cape May, New Jersey, that was cited as the “first example of community interactive television” by the National Cable Television Association. The project was her first media for social change experiment. Helping reverse the town’s demise and establishing it as one of four landmarked towns in the country, Cohen’s series impacted the social, cultural and economic future of Cape May.

 In New York City, she became the director of the first public access facility in the country, as part of the Alternate Media Center. At the same time, she set up the distribution system of Electronic Arts Intermix, now the largest distributor of video art in the world. She co-founded the Independent Feature Project, representing feature filmmakers nationally, and First Run Features, the first company devoted to distributing American independent films This experience is for up to five people. Note that the studio is not wheelchair accessible. Image: A Movement in Water: Lakes. Video, monitor, silk matt, frame, magnifying glass. View the video within the piece here. Thank you to Maxi Cohen for donating this experience. Images courtesy of Maxi Cohen. |
$270Highest Bid
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7Bids
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Christine Dimmick
Highest Bidder
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| Join Kate Orff, FASLA landscape architect and founder of SCAPE, for a walk through Forest Park, Queens, and lemonade at her house. Kate Orff is an FASLA landscape architect and founder of SCAPE. Kate is also a Professor at Columbia University, co-author of Petrochemical America (Aperture, 2012), and author of Toward an Urban Ecology (Monacelli, 2016). She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017. She is a long time resident of Forest Hills, Queens and an advocate for urban forests. The walk will be approximately one hour long, and is for three to seven people. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient during summer 2021. Thank you to Kate Orff for donating this experience. Image courtesy Kate Orff. |
$310Highest Bid
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8Bids
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Phyllis Urman-Klein
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| Join Joseph Kunkel, Director of MASS Design Group’s Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab in Santa Fe, for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. A citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, Joseph’s work explores how architecture, planning, and construction can be leveraged to positively impact the built and unbuilt environments within Indian Country. In 2019, Joseph was awarded an Obama Foundation Fellowship for his work exploring transformational change that aligns with Indigenous values and honors the worldviews of Indigenous populations. The Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab’s mission is to close the wealth gap in Indian Country through culturally-responsive housing development and Native home ownership. In 2020, in an effort to improve the quality and condition of Native housing, he’s leading teams working to complete projects in New Mexico and Northern California in less than two months: up to ten 400- to 600-square-foot units for elders in the 225-member Big Valley Rancheria community in Northern California; and four 1,800-square-foot, 4-bedroom houses for the Santa Clara Pueblo Housing Authority in New Mexico. The compressed timeline—from vetting prefab manufacturers in August to delivering move-in ready residences by November 30—is necessary to help those communities access funds under the CARES Act, Congress’s emergency Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security assistance program. Joseph’s early work focused on the research of exemplary Native American Indian housing projects and processes nationwide. This research work has developed into emerging best practices within Indian Country, leading to an online Healthy Homes Road Map for affordable tribal housing development, funded by HUD’s Policy, Development, and Research Office. In 2019 Joseph was awarded an Obama Foundation Fellowship for his work exploring how to create transformational change through design processes that align with indigenous values and honors the worldviews of indigenous populations within North America. Joseph is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Civil Society Fellowship, a partnership of ADL and The Aspen Institute, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Joseph Kunkel for donating this experience. Image courtesy Joseph Kunkel. |
$200Highest Bid
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Carey Lovelace
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| Join essayist, thinker, and prolific walker Garnette Cadogan for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Garnette’s work explores the currents of history, culture, and the arts as they shape how we construct urban life, the structures of inequity in our cities, the relationship between commerce and creativity, and the phenomenology of walking. Garnette Cadogan is the 2020-2021 Harry W. Porter, Jr. Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he is also a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He was a Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Scholar (2017-2018) at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, where’s he’s now a Visiting Scholar, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He’s a Senior Critic in the Sculpture Department at Yale School of Art. Cadogan’s current research and writing explores the promise and perils of urban life, the vitality and inequality of cities, and the challenges of pluralism. In Fall 2017, he was listed among a select group of writers around the world who “represent the future of new writing." He is the editor-at-large of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (co-edited by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro), winner of the 2017 Brendan Gill Prize from the Municipal Art Society of New York, and is at work on a book on walking. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Garnette Cadogan for donating this experience. Image courtesy Garnette Cadogan. |
$240Highest Bid
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6Bids
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Lynn Burditt
Highest Bidder
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| Join architectural historian Gwendolyn Wright for a 30-minute conversation over Zoom about any issues you’d like to discuss. Gwen specializes in US architectural and urban history from the Civil War era to the present, with a special focus on larger cultural issues, including race and gender, as well as specific issues for architects, planners and historians. Gwen has written extensively about the ideals and constraints in housing, both historically and today, in the US and around the world. She has also explored transnational differences and exchanges, both under colonialism and more recent global conditions from Brazil to France to Vietnam. For 10 years Gwen was also a host of PBS’ popular History Detectives which explored how various historians track ideas and weigh conflicting evidence about what happened, why, and history’s implications for the present. Her programs covered issues such as unusual houses (e.g., a Sears house and one made from a former streetcar), film history, race, the Confederacy, and a miniature artwork that may have been smuggled to the moon aboard Apollo 12. She is the author of six books and many articles. Her most recent book is USA: Modern Architectures in History (Reaction Books/University of Chicago Press) which recasts established ideas about changes in modern architecture, showing the impact of new ideas about work, home life and public life from 1865 to the present. Buildings and the entire built environment provide a matrix that interweaves social norms and innovative changes, individual imaginations and regional patterns, high art and popular culture. Gwen is Professor Emerita at Columbia GSAPP where, in 1985, she was the first woman to receive tenure. She received her M.Arch. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. Academic awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Getty Fellowship, and election to the Society of American Historians which honors literary quality. Timing: To be arranged when mutually convenient. Winning bidder will be asked to suggest a few conversation topics in advance. Thank you to Gwen Wright for donating this experience. Image courtesy Gwen Wright. |
$230Highest Bid
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Lynn Burditt
Highest Bidder
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| Join legendary Oscar, Grammy and Emmy-award winning lyricist Alan Bergman for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Alan & Marilyn Bergman have writing the lyrics for iconic songs for over 63 years, songs which have been performed by the greatest artists of the 20th Century, from Frank Sinatra to Barbra Streisand to Ray Charles to Nat King Cole. Alan and Marilyn have also been married for over 63 years (and counting!), and have been nominated for 16 and have won three Oscars. They are inducted into every conceivable Hall of Fame in the area of music and song writing, and have written songs for Broadway, theme songs for hit television shows (with Norman Lear and others) hit songs for film (in collaboration with legendary arrangers & composers such as Quincy Jones, Johnny Williams, Johnny Mercer, Dave Grusin) and many others, including 68 songs recorded by Barbra Streisand. Considered an icon in the world of music and entertainment, Alan is a very private person - enjoy this extremely rare opportunity to talk about song writing, music, legendary performers, life in the world of entertainment, tennis, ping-pong - pretty much anything you want. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Alan Bergman for donating this experience. |
$200Highest Bid
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Anonymous
Highest Bidder
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| Join curator, activist, critic and writer Lucy Lippard for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Lippard has been a leading voice in forwarding discussions of feminism, politics and place in art discourse since the late 60s, and in her interwoven work as author, activist, and curator, has been deeply influential in both deconstructing and expanding the role of what we define as art. Spend 30 minutes with Lippard discussing how artists and artworks can help advance, deepen, and forward political and social causes. Lucy R. Lippard is a curator, writer, activist, and author of over 20 books on contemporary art and cultural criticism, including one novel. She has curated some 50 exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Latin America, and her arts activities have extended into performances, comics, and street theater. For 30 years she has worked with artists’ groups such as the Art Workers' Coalition, Ad Hoc Women Artists, Artists Meeting for Cultural Democracy (for which she served as a coeditor of “How to ‘92: Model Actions for a Post-Columbian World”), and WAC (Women’s Action Coalition). She was a cofounder of Printed Matter; The Heresies Collective and its journal; PADD (Political Art Documentation/Distribution) and its journal Upfront; and Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America. She continues to write and lecture frequently at museums and universities. At home, she has served as a member of the Santa Fe County Open Lane and Trails Planning and Advisory Committee; is a member of the Galisteo Community Planning Committee; edits her community newsletter El Puende de Galisteo; and is on the Santa Fe Railyard Park Design Committee with the Trust for Public Land. Lippard’s book Down Country: The Tano of the Galisteo Basin, 1250 - 1782 won the New Mexico Historical Society book award. Thank you to Lucy Lippard for donating this experience. Image courtesy Lucy Lippard. |
$210Highest Bid
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15Bids
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Peter Coombe
Highest Bidder
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| Join architect and Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Architecture at the University at Buffalo Joyce Hwang for a tour of Silo City, a unique cultural and ecological campus that inspires creativity & community within the historical legacy of Buffalo, NY’s grain silos. A 27 acre site, dotted with the ruins of the grain shipping industry that built Buffalo, the project is a living laboratory of ecological regeneration, and serves as a site to explore new potential ecological relationships. On site, architecture students construct sculptures to host honeybees and fungi; school children plant and tend gardens of native wildflowers to feed insects and birds; unemployed young adults are trained in waterway restoration and stormwater treatment techniques; a nursery constructed on abandoned concrete foundations produces thousands of native plants to repopulate the grounds. Joyce Hwang is Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Architecture at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and the Founder of Ants of the Prairie, an office of architectural practice and research that focuses on confronting contemporary ecological conditions through creative means. She is a recipient of the Architectural League Emerging Voices Award, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and the MacDowell Fellowship. Hwang received a M.Arch degree from Princeton University and a B.Arch degree from Cornell University, where she was awarded the Charles Goodwin Sands Memorial Bronze Medal. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Transportation to Buffalo, NY not provided. Thank you to Joyce Hwang for donating this experience. Images courtesy of Joyce Hwang and Josh Smith. |
$210Highest Bid
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Alain Groenendaal
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| Join Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at Goddard Institute for Space Studies, for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Engage with one of the leading climate scientists and deepen your understanding of how the interactions of climate (both variability and change) impact systems and sectors important to human well-being and how we can address climate change challenges. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She is a recent Co-Chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), a body of experts convened by the mayor to advise the city on adaptation for its critical infrastructure. She has been a supporter of the role the arts can have in addressing climate change and has been an important advisor to CALL. Dr. Rosenzweig has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation in rural and urban settings. She is co-director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and co-editor of the UCCRN Assessment Reports on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3), the first-ever global, interdisciplinary, cross-regional, science-based assessment series to address climate risks, adaptation, mitigation, and policy mechanisms relevant to cities. She co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, sponsored by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Cynthia Rosenzweig for donating this experience. Image courtesy Cynthia Rosenzweig. |
$170Highest Bid
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Mary Pelletier
Highest Bidder
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| Join Scott Mauvais, the Director of Artificial Intelligence and Global Partnerships for Microsoft Philanthropies, for a 30-minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Mauvais works with local leaders to infuse technology into existing systems to make cities better places to live, learn, work, and innovate. Spend some time speaking with Scott about the role of technology in making cities more sustainable and livable for all. Mauvais leads a new initiative at Microsoft Philanthropies to identify and jointly invest in social impact projects with Microsoft’s largest customers and partners. Scott has been at Microsoft for 20 years. Most recently, he was the Director of Microsoft Cities where he worked with city leaders to apply the global resources and expertise of Microsoft to foster the civic tech ecosystem and create opportunities for economic growth. Scott serves on the national boards of Upwardly Global, City Innovate Foundation, and the Urban Age Institute and co-owns The WELL, the groundbreaking online community founded in 1985. A resident of San Francisco, when not working, he enjoys skiing in the winter, backpacking in the summer, and seeing—and photographing—as much live music as possible year-round. Thank you to Scott Mauvais for donating this experience. Image courtesy Scott Mauvais. |
$496Highest Bid
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Patricia Aluisi
Highest Bidder
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| Spend a long dream weekend (up to six nights) in this picture-perfect cottage on a farm in the “almost remote” Berkshire town of Otis, MA, contributed by the benevolent farmer Susan Oygard. Pick blueberries, walk with the little horses Betty & Sugar, or take a private miniature Goat Yoga class with Billy, Bolt, Max, Rosie, and Cosmo. Dive into the refreshing waters of Hayes Pond – just up the road a piece – or hike the picturesque trails of neighboring Tyringham. Combine these nature experiences with free passes to world-class arts and culture experiences curated by concierge services of the neighboring, Institute for Contemporary Twigs (owned and operated by CALL Executive Director, Olivia Georgia, and her mountain mogul husband, Steve Oakes.) Visit the gardens of the Mount and Naumkeg; Chesterwood, or the Berkshire Museum; see a performance at Jacob’s Pillow and/or Shakespeare & Company, Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theater Group. The experience will include several passes to some of these fantastic local cultural venues. The cottage sleeps 4 people, has one bath, is not handicap accessible. Dates of stay to be agreed upon when mutually convenient. Thank you to Susan Ogyard for donating this experience. Images courtesy Susan Ogyard and Steve Oakes. |
$1,300Highest Bid
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don lessem
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| Join Marquise Stillwell - founder of Openbox design consultancy, co-founder of Opendox - an art & design-oriented documentary filmmaking company, and co-founder of Deem Journal – a print magazine and online platform that centers design as a social practice, for a 30-minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Stillwell’s most recent film, The New Bauhaus, investigates the life and legacy of pioneering artist and educator László Moholy-Nagy, and reflects on the role of artists in integrating art, technology, education and design to better society at large. Join Stillwell for a conversation on the film and his thoughts on how lessons from Moholy-Nagy’s life can inform our thinking about the role of artists in our culture today. Marquise Stillwell, the founder and principal of Openbox, created a company that represents a culmination of more than 20 years of experience in designing and implementing fresh models for businesses and cultural organizations. The Openbox vision is, above all, human-centered: focusing on improving the lives of people in the communities its clients serve, whether through a film project, extensive business design work, or deep resources for design research and innovation. Marquise also brings his passion for supporting diverse cultures and bringing about positive change to his many philanthropic and creative activities, from teaching with two Danish design schools: CIID in Copenhagen and the KaosPilot in Aarhus; to co-founding the magazine Deem Journal, focused on design and social practice; and also collaborating with his Openbox colleague Petter Ringbom on various films including Shield and Spear (2014) and The New Bauhaus (2019). Marquise serves as a board member for the Lowline Underground Park, Stae, Artmatr, Urban Ocean Lab, and Pioneer Works. He is also a member of the High Line Advisory Committee. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Marquise Stillwell for donating this experience. Images courtesy Openbox. |
$170Highest Bid
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Erica Cochran Hameen
Highest Bidder
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| Join interdisciplinary artist William Lamson for a 30-minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Lamson’s diverse practice involves working with elemental forces to create durational performative actions. Set in landscapes as varied as New York’s East River and Chile’s Atacama Desert, his projects reveal the invisible systems and forces at play within these sites. In all of his projects, Lamson’s work represents a performative gesture, a collaboration with forces outside of his control to explore systems of knowledge and belief. Lamson’s work has been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, including the Brooklyn Museum, The Moscow Biennial, P.S.1. MOMA, Kunsthalle Erfurt, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, and Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles. In addition he has produced site specific installations for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Center For Land Use Interpretation, and Storm King Art Center. His work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and a number of private collections. He has been awarded grants from the Shifting Foundation, the Experimental Television Center, and most recently he is 2014 Guggenheim Fellow. His work has appeared in ArtForum, Frieze, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New Yorker, Harpers, and the Village Voice. William Lamson was born Arlington, Virginia and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his MFA from Bard College, and he teaches in the Parsons MFA photography program and at the School of Visual Arts. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to William Lamson for donating this experience. Images courtesy William Lamson. Images: A Line Describing the Sun, 13:35 minute 2 channel HD video, 2010; Solarium, commissioned by Storm King for the Light and Landscape show, 2012, Steel, glass, sugar, citrus trees, 10' 10" x 8' 11" x 10' 3 3⁄8 in. |
$150Highest Bid
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Charles McKinney
Highest Bidder
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| Join renowned artist Jean Shin for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Shin is nationally recognized for her monumental installations that transform everyday objects into elegant expressions of identity and community. Often working collaboratively with communities to help realize her projects, Shin amasses vast collections of a particular object—prescription pill bottles, sports trophies, sweaters— to interrogate our connection with consumption, environmental impact, and the life cycle of objects. Her recent piece Pause, installed at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in 2020, gathered technological detritus in twisted masses, encouraging viewers to consider the environmental impact of our culture of disposable, ever-upgrading technology. Join Shin for a conversation about her work, and her approach to considering artists’ role in addressing societal issues. Shin’s work has been widely exhibited in over 150 major museums and cultural institutions, including solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona, Crow Collection in Dallas, and Storm King Art Center. Her works have been on view at the New Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Museum of Fine Art Boston, Asia Society Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Museum of Art and Design, Barnes Foundation, among other prestigious museums. As an accomplished artist practicing in the public realm, she also realizes large-scale, permanent installations commissioned by major public agencies on the federal level as well as city and arts for transit programs. She recently completed a landmark commission for the MTA’s Second Ave Subway at the 63rd Street Station in New York City. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Jean Shin for donating this experience. Photograph by Joseph Hu, courtesy Jean Shin. |
$250Highest Bid
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Cindy Kelly
Highest Bidder
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| Learn about the visionary work of Paul Strauss and his Equinox farm and botanical sanctuary in the foothills of Appalachia, and sample a range of Equinox Botanicals’ sustainably-produced herbal products in this gift basket. The basket includes two signed copies of Strauss’ The Big Herbs, The Sanctity of Sanctuary DVD, and a sampling of Equinox Botanicals’ herbal products that were made from plants organically grown or ethically wild harvested on Equinox farm and botanical sanctuary. Herbal products include an Immune boosting Elderberry Syrup, a zesty mouth watering Fire Cider, The Golden Salve, soothing Lip balm, Ginseng, Ginger, and 3 Fungi extract with forest grown American Ginseng, and much more. Located in Southeast Ohio, "Appalachia's herb basket", the 300-acre Farm and Sanctuary is home to some of the largest wild populations of goldenseal, blue and black cohosh, wild ginger, and ramps in the United States as well as vast stands of American ginseng, bloodroot, and countless other native medicinal herbs. Over the past 50 years, Paul has worked to rehabilitate and regenerating forests full of endangered medicinal species that had been left bare by strip mines, reclaiming, restoring, and protecting them through conservation easement. Students, teachers, botanists, and herbalists from far and wide come to the farm each year to study, attend classes, conduct research, and revel in natural wonder. Paul’s vision and transformational leadership have attracted like-minded people to purchase land in the area. These tracts of farms are joined together by over 8 miles of trail called “The Talking Forest Medicine Trail,” which identifies plant species and provides an opportunity for visitors to gain awareness of native plants and their importance to herbal medicine through traditions used by First Nations peoples for thousands of years. The Big Herbs book, signed by Paul Strauss, and The Sanctity of Sanctuary: Paul Strauss and the Equinox Farm film tells the story of Paul’s 50-year journey to develop the farm and sanctuary, and speaks to Paul’s passion for the land, his farm, and his desire to make the world a better place. Thank you to Equinox Farm for donating this experience. Images courtesy Equinox Farm. |
$250Highest Bid
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Ward Mintz
Highest Bidder
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| Spend an afternoon on a kayaking tour of Murderer’s Creek in Athens, NY with ecological artist, and geology and ichthyology enthusiast, Bob Braine. Braine’s work explores and illuminates the intersection between the built world and the natural world, specifically the disconnection between what was and what is in people’s perceptions of the natural (or former) world throughout western capitalistic culture, history and resource usage. Braine is deeply knowledgeable about the history of the Hudson Valley, and how it’s industrial histories have informed the area’s ecology. Murderer’s Creek is a tributary of the Hudson River, and its ecosystems have been shaped by the 19th century factories that dot it’s shores. Enjoy an afternoon with Bob kayaking and examine the layers of history that continue to shape the environment of this part of the Hudson Valley. Bob Braine has traveled extensively in Central and South America, Europe and the US generating photographs, drawings and site-specific interventions based on the fractured utopia of compromised ecosystems. Braine has exhibited in the US at venues such as the Queens Museum of Art (Crossing the Line), Socrates Sculpture Park (Beyond City Limits and Broadway Billboard), The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery at Skidmore College (Brick Row Planter, Mayone Woodland), and MoMA PS1 (Greater NY). In Europe he has worked extensively with the Gallery for Landscape Art in Hamburg, Germany. His exhibitions in Europe include Hamburger Kunsthalle (Fieldwork), Kunstverien in Hamburg (Mapping a City), Al Almere, The Netherlands (From Reality to Fantasy), Kunsthalle Wien, Karlsplatz, Vienna (Get Together, Art as Teamwork), and Villa Medici, Rome (La Memoire-99). For up to four people. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Transportation to Athens, NY not included. Thank you to Bob Braine for donating this experience. Images courtesy Bob Braine. |
$345Highest Bid
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Anonymous
Highest Bidder
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| Spend an hour with artist Ellen Driscoll discussing her course Art and Climate Change at the Bard Campus’ working farm in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The course, which Driscoll is teaching this spring, investigates the ways in which art can, and has, advanced discussion and action around climate change. The course takes a micro lens to the work of the Bard working farm. In 2016, Driscoll and artist Joyce Hwang created Bower, a work for Art Park commissioned by CALL that was designed to promote awareness of local bird species and draw attention to the ever-increasing perils of bird-strike window collisions and deaths. Ellen Driscoll’s teaching and artistic commitments include public art, sculpture and installation, drawing, environmental justice, and civil rights. Her works have had wide exposure through nearly 100 solo and group exhibitions of sculptures, drawings, and installations throughout the country and the world. They include Fastforwardfossil: Part 1 at Frederieke Taylor Gallery, New York; Fastforwardfossil: Part 2 at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn; Revenant and Phantom Limb for Nippon Ginko, Hiroshima, Japan; The Loophole of Retreat at the Whitney Museum at Phillip Morris; As Above, So Below for Grand Central Terminal (20 mosaic and glass images at 45th, 47th, and 48th Streets); Catching the Drift, a restroom for the Smith College Museum of Art; and Wingspun for the International Arrivals Terminal at Raleigh-Durham airport. Driscoll has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Bunting Institute at Harvard University, New York Foundation for the Arts, Massachusetts Council on the Arts, LEF Foundation, and Anonymous Was a Woman. Her works live in the private and public collections at venues such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Experience for up to five people. Transportation not included. Thank you to Ellen Driscoll for donating this experience. Image: photograph of Ellen Driscoll; installation images of Bower, Ellen Driscoll and Joyce Hwang with Matt Hume for Artpark, 2016. |
$160Highest Bid
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rena zurofsky
Highest Bidder
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| Join artist Mary Mattingly for a 30-minute, one-on-one zoom conversation. Mattingly is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work explores issues of sustainability, climate change and displacement. Combining photography, performance, portable architecture and sculptural ecosystems, Mattingly not only warns about environmental neglect, but offers solutions and protypes for more sustainable ways of life. Mattingly founded Swale, a provocative public artwork and floating edible landscape on a reclaimed barge in New York in 2016. Growing or picking food on New York’s public land has been illegal for almost a century for fear that a glut of foragers could destroy an ecosystem. Swale utilizes marine common law in order to be public yet circumvent local public land laws. Swale is a folly, a floating edible landform that provides free food for harvest at the intersection of public art and service. With Swale, we want to reinforce water as a commons, and work towards fresh food as a commons too. Swale came out of learning that in addition to over 100 acres of community garden space in NYC, the city cares for 30,000 acres of public parkland, while access to fresh food is limited. People visit Swale to pick edible and medicinal perennial plants for free. In 2017, due to a confluence of Swale, a NYC Parks commissioner supportive of edible landscapes, and the strength and support of many community groups and stewards, NYC has opened its first "foodway" in Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx. If there continues to be stewardship interest, they could build more. Mattingly recently launched Public Water with More Art and completed a two-part sculpture “Pull” for the International Havana Biennial with the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, two spherical ecosystems that were pulled across Habana to Parque Central and the museum. In 2018 she received a commission from BRIC Arts Media to build "What Happens After" which involved dismantling a military vehicle (LMTV) that had been to Afghanistan and deconstructing its mineral supply chain. In 2016 Mattingly led a similar project at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2014, an artist residency on the water called WetLand launched in Philadelphia and traveled to the Parrish Museum. Mary Mattingly’s work has also been exhibited at Storm King, the International Center of Photography, the Seoul Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and the Palais de Tokyo. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Mary Mattingly for donating this experience. Images courtesy of Mary Mattingly. Images: Swale, 2016 - 2017. |
$150Highest Bid
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Andrea Miller
Highest Bidder
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| Join award-winning oceanic and wildlife filmmaker and adventurer Adam Ravetch for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Ravetch has been an award winning oceanic and wildlife filmmaker for over 35 years, and is one of the most prolific chroniclers of underwater life in the arctic on earth - one of the few who specialize in shooting beneath the Arctic Ice cap. Ravetich films in some of the most dangerous and remote places on the planet - he is one of the few filmmakers to ever observe the elusive Narwhal’s mating, has been stranded on icebergs with hungry Polar Bears, attached by tiger sharks and has swam with killer whales, walruses, sharks, and giant manta rays. Having spent a third of his life underwater, Ravetch is also actively involved in the understanding of and education about the critical destructive impact of climate change on animals, their habitats and the web of life on the planet. Above all, Ravetch is known for his humility, kindness and fresh passion for his work. Speaking of his life and work, Ravetch shares that “You have to be ready for anything, change plans on a dime, willing to live on land for months at a time, sometimes totally alone and be willing to eat just about anything.” Spend a half an hour with one of our world’s greatest adventurers during this one-on-one conversation. Thank you to Adam Ravetch for donating this experience. Image courtesy Adam Ravetch. |
$505Highest Bid
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32Bids
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Lynn Burditt
Highest Bidder
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| Join LA- and NY-based architect and activist critic Joseph Giovaninni, for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. A Pulitzer nominee in criticism trained in architecture at Harvard, talk with Joseph about some of the leading social and urban issues facing Los Angeles today, including increasing homelessness, the past and future of the Los Angeles River, and the current plans for the LA County Museum of Art, and more. Joseph Giovannini has served as the architecture critic for New York Magazine and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and was long a staff writer on design and architecture for The New York Times. On a contractual or freelance basis, he has contributed to many other publications, including The New Yorker, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, Art in America, Art Forum, Architecture Magazine, Architect Magazine, Industrial Design Magazine, and Interior Design. His 800-page book, “Architecture Unbound: A Century of the Avant Garde,” will be published by Rizzoli this fall. A prominent figure in American architecture, he has been an activist critic with a record of discovering emerging talent for major mainstream publications and professional journals. He coined the term Deconstructivism during articles he wrote announcing the movement. Giovannini has written thousands of articles for periodicals, and he has also authored numerous essays for books and monographs. As a critic, he has won awards, grants and honors, from the Art World Magazine/Manufacturer’s Hanover Trust for distinguished newspaper architectural criticism, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, the Los Angeles Chapter of the AIA and the California Council of the AIA. He has put theory into practice in his own architectural practice. Mr. Giovannini heads Giovannini Associates, which has recently completed the conversion of a large trucking warehouse into a community of lofts in Los Angeles, and a 19th-century commercial building, also into lofts. He has taught advanced and graduate design studios at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, UCLA’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture, and at the University of Innsbruck. He holds a Master in Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He did his B.A. in English at Yale University, and an M.A in French Language and Literature from Middlebury College for work done at La Sorbonne, Paris. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Joseph Giovaninni for donating this experience. Image courtesy Joseph Giovaninni. |
$140Highest Bid
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6Bids
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Gwendolyn Wright
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| Join actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr. for a 30 minute, one-on-one conversation over zoom. Ed has appeared in hundreds of films, television shows and stage performances, and was a star on the hit series, St Elsewhere, playing the iconic Dr. Victor Ehrlich (1982-1988.) He was on the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for over 16 years. Ed and his wife Rachelle also hosted their own television show called Green Living Reality Show, which highlighted his lifelong commitment and passionate environmental activism. His show gave viewers an inside look at Ed’s “walking the walk” in his effort to reduce his carbon footprint and live sustainably. He once bet a radio host he could live for a week and produce so little waste that it would fit in the glove compartment of his car! Needless to say, the radio show host took that bet and also needless to say, Ed won the bet! He thoughtfully designed and built his current home in Los Angeles to empower a fully sustainable lifestyle. If the timing permits he might give the winning bidder a personal zoom tour of his environmentally designed home. Ed’s talents, skills and public activism are matched by his kindness and sense of humor. Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Ed Begley Jr. and John Woldenberg for donating this experience. |
$200Highest Bid
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3Bids
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Andrea Miller
Highest Bidder
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| Enjoy this set of watercolors by New York artist Tattfoo Tan, created for Tan's WuXing Oracle Cards, developed as part of CALL's Chinatown project. Tattfoo Tan’s art practice seeks to find an immediate, direct, and effective way of exploring issues related to the individual in society through which to collapse the categories of ‘art’ and ‘life’ into one. Through the employment of multiple forms of media and various platforms of presentation, Tattfoo promotes group participation between himself and an ‘audience’. Within this collaborative practice both minds and bodies are engaged in actions that transform the making of art into a ritualized and shared experience. In keeping with the spirit of this transformative act, Tattfoo prefers to develop projects that are ephemeral and conceptual in nature. Tattfoo’s work has been shown in various venues and institutions including; Queens Museum of Art, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Time Square Alliances, The Fashion Center, The City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Eugene Lang College New School for Liberal Arts, Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, The Center for Book Arts, Bronx River Art Center, Jamaica Center of Arts and Learning, Aljira, DUMBO Improvement District and Redux Contemporary Art Center. He has been recognized for his effort, service and artistic contribution to the community and is proud recipient of Proclamation from The City of New York. Thank you to Tattfoo Tan for donating this experience. |
$1,300Highest Bid
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21Bids
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Thomas Bishop
Highest Bidder
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| Explore the sights and sounds of our beautiful city as you paddle our three rivers right here in downtown Milwaukee. This family pass is valid for four people and can be used towards kayak, canoe or paddleboard rentals. Upon arrival to Milwaukee Kayak Company, we will outfit you with the proper boat, paddle and life jacket. We will review the river map and be sure you're comfortable on-land before venturing out on the water. All rentals are for up to 4 hours. You can stay out for the entire time or come back anytime before then, it's up to you! Thanks for kayaking with us and we look forward to seeing you at MKC and on our rivers soon! Timing to be arranged when mutually convenient. Thank you to Milwaukee Kayak Company for donating this experience. Images courtesy Milwaukee Kayak Company. |
$95Highest Bid
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3Bids
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Ray Gastil
Highest Bidder
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