In connection with yesterday’s rattling of the tin cup, I should mention that I’ve lately been told that there are a number of arts professionals in my core audience who would love to support the blog, but would want to do so anonymously, so as not to appear to be trying to buy favorable coverage by clicking my “Donate” button. It’s conflict-of-interest in reverse.
You KNOW that CultureGrrl can’t be bought! And “favorable coverage” (i.e., puff pieces) is not exactly what I’m known for: I was reminded of this when, at yesterday’s press reception, I innocently asked a Metropolitan Museum PR official about the lights hanging from Big
Bambú. He snapped back, “You don’t like the lights either?” (I assured him I thought they were fine.)
In any event, unless you lack friends or relatives, there’s an easy way to conceal your illustrious artworld identity while donating to curmudgeonly CultureGrrl: Launder the money through someone unknown to me, and have THEM click the “Donate” button. (As most of you know, PayPal identifies the payor to the payee.) If your surrogate doesn’t want to receive the e-mailed links to posts that I provide as a service to donors, he should reply to my initial e-mail and I’ll immediately remove him from that list.
Miss my posts? Then please rise to the CultureGrrl Challenge: Five donors (any amount) and/or classified ads get me back to being a blogger, not a beggar. With another visual-arts ArtsJournal writer now moving on to what he believes to be bigger and better (and certainly more remunerative) things, I’m feeling unusually under-appreciated today.