Explanation of Fee

Regarding asking artists to pay the $150 cost of printing the banner bearing an image of their artwork, here’s our thinking:

We are very aware that not all artists who would want to participate in this art banner project can pay the $150.  We don’t even think we could come up with the volunteers that would be needed to install the hundreds and hundreds of art banners we could have!

We see that the devastated landscape is depressing the community and that some little surprises out in the landscape could really help lift spirits.  Yet, we just didn’t feel right creating a whole project that would require us to raise a lot of money at this time. We see that money is needed for bigger things right now, like houses, cars, furniture, health care, etc.  The money that has been donated for tornado relief can go toward that.

Nonetheless, we do strongly believe these art banners will fill a critical need.  So rather than trying to raise the $150 it’s going to take to print each banner, we thought we’d just install banners donated by artists that are able and willing to pay the $150 for their banner production.  We don’t imagine we will get hundreds and hundreds, but we’re truly hoping we will be able to install a large enough number that the community will be uplifted by the images and by the compassion of these strangers.  We know there are lots of artists across the country with hearts in Tuscaloosa and expect many will want to contribute and will welcome the opportunity to use their art to help with the healing and recovering process.  In fact, it was some of these artists that encouraged us to create this little project!