Would you buy me a cup of coffee?

In a couple weeks I will be finally starting the very first Changing Woman portrait. It has been such a ride, and it has not even started. There is still so much to do, so much to understand. I have the sweetest plans and enough ADD to get my life significantly messy sometimes, so it has also been an intense exercise on organization and creating structure. It is scary and it is exciting and it has occupied a lot of my head lately.

I have defined a date to start the de facto work, and this date is August 1st. The thing is that I decided to turn this moment into a celebration, and you are invited. I will take that day to do nothing else but draw and paint - excepting, of course, sleeping and taking care of some other basic needs. I will turn on my webcam at noon PT of that day and let people watch my working process whenever I am working. There will be moments of pure “domestic bliss”, a blonde little elf peaking at the camera, possible sounds of crows and seagulls (the seagulls are specially crazy at this time of the year), underground music, eventual city sounds (like noisy trucks that sometimes stop by the alley, exactly under my window), but try not to be distracted by these little sweet details because there will be an artist in full exercise of her sacred labor. I will be tweeting and I will be posting pictures to Instagram for all the 24 hours that the event lasts.

Simultaneously (and this is a VERY important part of this virtual event), consider donating $2 dollars (that's right, TWO. DOLLARS.) to contribute to the current Changing Woman fundraising campaign. This is a regular cup of coffee at Starbucks. With 2,000 fans and counting on Facebook, I thought that, if each one of them donated me a “cup of coffee”, I would easily surpass my goal! How cool that would be?

And this is why I am calling this event “Coffee for art”. It would be like buying me a cup of coffee. Except that that money will go into keeping my project going for the next months, so I can make enough art to lift the spirits of a lot of women that have been battered, exploited, neglected, discriminated. And give more hope to others that depend on a shelter to rebuild their lives.

The broadcasting will happen via justin.tv, on my (under construction) channel http://justin.tv/patriciaariel but I believe I can embed the video on other places. My plan is to create a page specific for this special fundraising so my followers from outside the US can donate. This page will be powered by PayPal. US sponsors that wish to have their much deserved tax deductions can donate right at the USA Projects page (http://usaprojects.org/projects/changing-woman). But this system can also change, and if it does, I will let you know.

Of course you always can consider donating more than a cup of coffee (because, hey, there are some cool prizes to win!), and you don't need to wait the August 1st for that, but even if you cannot donate the coffee or the bigger bucks, you are welcome to peek into what my life is about most of the time and enjoy my art making process, and even chat in real time, ask questions, etc.

See you there!