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GOCA fundraising project takes flight with cranes
What: Purchase a Mark Wong platter from the "1,000 Crane Platters" project. View them at craneplatters1000.blogspot.com.
When: Through Feb. 8, after that prices will then go up to $50.
Where: GOCA 121, 121 S. Tejon St., or GOCA 1420 at UCCS, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway; uccs.edu/~goca or wongwares.com.
Something else: "1,000 Crane Platters" is part of a bigger exhibit, "Ceramica: Contemporary Clay Exhibit," that features installations by Daniel Bare and Valerie Zimany, Jerry Morris and Elaine K. Ng. It opens Feb. 8 and runs through April 12 at GOCA 121.
Everybody wins in the “pottery lottery,” a fundraising facet of GOCA 121's upcoming exhibition, “Ceramica: Contemporary Clay."
The “1,000 Platters Project" offers a chance to take home one (or more) of 1,000 Mark Wong plates and for a good cause: Proceeds go to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs' contemporary art galleries.
The inspiration, Wong says, is the story that folding 1,000 origami cranes will earn one wish. Instead, Wong will carve 12-20 images of cranes on 1,000 platters. Some of them have two cranes. All will be slightly different. By the exhibit opening on Feb. 8, the group of plates will cover the walls of GOCA 121. "Ceramica," which runs through April 12, also features installations by Jerry Morris, Elaine K. Ng, Corie Cole and Del Harrow.
You can buy a platter, which run from 12 to 20 inches in diameter, for $40. That's a deal, Wong says, because the same high-fire, stoneware platter would normally run as much as $200. That's one without any decoration.
In order to avoid any favoritism, Wong says, the process of platter distribution must be the luck of the draw. You can purchase them through the exhibit opening on Feb. 8, and then the bill will go up to an as yet undetermined price, he says.
“When the show comes down, each person gets assigned a number and we send them a mini platter - a piece of paper that tells them the number of their platter,” says Jessie Pocock, development and events director at GOCA.
By mid-January, more than 400 were purchased by buyers from around the state, country and as far away as Hong Kong and Norwich, England.
Twenty-five percent of the proceeds will fund "Ceramica" as well as two other exhibits yet to be determined, says Pocock, A percentage may be funneled into a special fund set aside for interesting events that pop up. That's events like 2012's Lunch Beat, a dance party held during the lunch hour in the GOCA 121.