Elena Maslova-Levin

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Home › Gift of painting

Art is a gift, not a commodity

If you would like to have one of my available paintings on your wall, please read this.

I am writing this on November 17, 2015, and this is the day when I am pulling all my available paintings out of the conventional transaction economy, and switching completely to the newly emerging gift economy, also known as generosity-based economy.

You see, in my ideal world, art is not a commodity. And I believe deeply that the only possible path to change the world is to be the change. Thus my paintings are offered to you as gifts — as freely as they come to me.

This way of sharing paintings is both new and old. It works organically and easily in real life, when people visit my studio, but it takes a somewhat more formalized system to make it work in the reality of internet. Here is the system I am using now:

First, please write me a letter: a few words from you about the painting you have chosen: what does this painting mean for you? Why do you want it on your wall? If you have chosen a painting from "Gifts of the Month", please use the link below the painting for this. If it is the "Available" link from another gallery that lead you here, you will need to include the title of the painting (or a link to it) in your letter.

I am using my Patreon account to organize this, which means you will have to make at least a nominal pledge of support to participate in this program (I believe $1 per month is the minimum), and leave your mailing address there. In case you haven't heard about Patreon before, it's a micro-patronage website, which helps you support artists (musicians, writers, visual artists) who share their work freely with the world. As a patron, you will be always the first to learn when new paintings become available.

I will also ask you to pay for shipping and handling (I'll need your address to calculate this).

If you want to support my work, and this way of sharing paintings, that's easy: Several possibilities are listed here.

If you have any additional questions, I'll be happy to answer them by e-mail.