My Perfect Sketches

I wanted to embark on a pan-America painting trip. You know - build my own camper van, live on electricity generated from solar panels, and most importantly - staying a little off the grid to paint my heart out. Though I previously lived in America for close to a decade, this dream was never fulfilled and it is becoming more distant as time goes by.

Recently, I decided to take action and contacted corporations, art foundations and various other organizations for sponsorship. Unfortunately, none of the companies that I contacted could envision the potential of my trip, and all declined to offer assistance.

At the brink of giving up, my collaborator from a previous project, Bynd Artisan, sent me a prototype of the finest watercolor sketchbook that I have designed. I thought about doing what I can with what I have, and decided to paint the places that I could have visited and painted if I could have gone on this dream road trip.



Every Artist has within them a desire to fill their sketchbook with only perfect sketches.
These are my Perfect Sketches.

It took me more than a month to complete this entire sketchbook.

Planning for a Cross-America Painting Trip - Part One (3) America, nomad, painting, roadtrip2015

The Hustle

This week. I decided to step up the hustle and began writing a proposal for the roadtrip.

After a few iterations, the budget quickly grew to the sum of S$25,254. My feeling is that I am still missing items here,  I also have in mind publishing my own book after the trip. Self publication will cost me about $9000, Altogether, I will need a total S$34,254 to accomplish my goal.

Lets consider the options available for the hustle :

1) National Art Councils of Singapore offers Art grants for creation, production and presentation.
2) I have also heard that a few notable Foundations in Singapore offer grants to Artists.
3) Notable Charitable Foundation overseas that gives out grant.( The Pollock-Kranser Foundation)
4) Writing to related businesses for sponsorship. (Airlines/ Travel Agencies/ Art Suppliers and etc)
5) Crowd sourcing for the require amount. Think kickstarter or Indiegogo

US Dollar against SGD. The next big problem that I foresee  is the inflation of American Dollars against Sing Dollars.

Here are some issues to consider with the hustle.

1) The NAC states that its grants are peg to 50% of total require amount. Being fairly unknown to the council, my odds of getting the grant is frankly very weak. I started the application but may be too late to receive the grant with my proposed date ( Aug-Oct 2015). The grant cycle starts from Oct 2015.

Chairman of Lee Foundation. Top Philanthropist. Real Hero   

2) The only one that came to my mind is the Lee Foundation. They funded just about every Art show in town... Interestingly, the foundation does not maintain a website. After much digging around, I found their mailing address:


Dr Lee Seng Gee Chairman
Lee Foundation 

65 Chulia Street
#44-01 OCBC Centre
Singapore 049513

3) The Pollock Kranser Foundation states that it won't fund personal travels. I wonder if En Plein-air paintings can be an exception. I will try

4) It may be foolish to invest in the hustle for sponsorship because time spent writing to businesses may never be justified. Experiences have taught me that businesses are usually the least prospective. Think about it, businesses evaluate potential gain for a living. Unless you are a mega celebrity (because of visibility), there is little reason for them to give you anything.  I will still try but I won't invest too much time here. Here are some companies that I will write into:
Airlines, Car Rental and the biggest hotel chain in the United States. Unless I can miraculously get onto the Ellen DeGeneres show. This method of hustle is most futile.

5) A quick look up kickstarter.
Most Artists fail in raising funds on crowd funding platform. More so on indiegogo it seems.
Those successfully funded also seem to raised fairly insignificant amount. (usually below USD$3,000) Having successfully raised money on kickstarter, I personally know how hard it will be to gather support for the Arts. It is also significantly harder if you are not rewarding something tangible. Technically speaking, I can offer paintings as reward. However, considering the time and effort needed to produce them versus the potential buyers and payout? I am also concerned that my supporter may suffer from fatigue if I keep asking them for help. It will be an intense uphill battle. None the less, crowd sourcing is a viable outlet to raise this fund and I will have to consider it as well.

Planning for a Cross-America Painting Trip - Part One (1)

I spent the past one week, trying to put together a plan and budget for an all America Painting road trip. Alex Honnold's van really inspired me and I thought to myself .. wow, it is actually possible to live off the grid for a while.

 
Background
I spent almost a decade in America and completed my Bachelors and Masters from Columbus, Ohio. Despite having spent so much time in America, I never had the money or time to travel when I was there. When I first saw what these guys were doing with their van ? Modifying it into liveable space with solar generators and etc ? I immediately approached my friend Scott Stewart,who is an expert in car remodeling, and asked about the feasibility of converting a cargo van into a mobile painting vehicle.

Mind Mapping the a Painting Vehicle

The mission is simple.. To travel from coast to coast and to paint every single beautiful scenery that passes me. (en plein-air) Of course, it doesn't take long before I uncovered both the problems and solutions that lie ahead of me. Though I may never fulfill this dream ? I reckon that the effort I put into moving forward should not be wasted. Here is why I decided to blog about this....Hopefully, someone else can scaffold from what I did and complete a mission that I may otherwise fail.

Research work:

Sleep + Shower :
The first concern would be where to spend the night at inside a Van. Living in a Van is actually illegal in the U.S. and most parking lots would not allowed you to spend the night at their lots. I did some research and read that many homeless people actually live in their vehicle at 24 hours Walmart parking lots and etc. Though this seems viable for the most part, I have also read that more and more Wal-marts are against this. There are also various safety issues that people have sounded out. The next step up from that would be Truck rest stops. These are great for shower facilities and they usually charges a fees (about USD12) with clean towers and etc. I have also read that they charges lower gas than gas station and the prostitutes hustle for business at these places.
The camp site are the other alternatives with shower amenities but when you account for all the fees, the cost of the road trip quickly escalate to a budget equivalent to  car rental and motels.

Truck Stop Rest point

Truck Stop Chains:
Pilot
Campsite
http://koa.com/

Insurance and road side assistance
Since I am not an American. Acquiring a vehicle in the US will be a problem. I can defiantly get my friend to purchase the vehicle on my behalf but the liabilities and insurance coverages are things I am concerned about. Almost no auto insurance, apart from the auto rental will not cover foreign visitors and I have not yet been able to get them to provide a qoutation. I will also have to check if my friends' insurance could cover 3rd party usage on their vehicle. As for road-side assistance ? That's another issue that I have to look into.

Budget:
At this juncture, Scott informed me that I will need to set aside USD6,000 to convert a used van into a great, liveable space with these factors
1) ventilation and insulation from the cold.
2) Stealth from public so I can park anywhere and not get caught.
3) A bed to sleep.
4) Storage for Art supplies, clean clothing & dry food.
5) Solar generator for electric power.
6) Heat when its cold and detection from Carbon monoxide poisoning.
7) A portable potty system.
8) Minimum cooking but electric supply to boil water.