While on Facebook tonight I found this wonderful post by World Vision about artists giving back – and seeing Jann Arden’s name, had to follow the link of course! I knew Jann Arden was an avid supporter of World Vision, which is why we asked if she’d participate in our comfort doll project – and I’ve seen Jann do a painting on stage last year in concert and auction it off at the end of the night – so this story was a great thing to find. (I’ve been wondering for months how much the grand total was for her paintings! )
From the Canadian Press:
TORONTO — Jann Arden’s latest philanthropic endeavor raised more than $50,000 for Haiti relief by auctioning off her own paintings.
But the 48-year-old is much less charitable when assessing her own artwork.
“There’s nothing that artistic about what I do,” Arden told The Canadian Press over the line from Nashville.
“I’m not good at it at all. But you’re not supposed to do things in life that you’re good at, you’re just supposed to do things in life that you enjoy doing.”
As her diverse array of cherished causes indicates, Arden enjoys dedicating her time to a multitude of charities.
In this case, though, she stresses that she didn’t really need to donate much of her time.
For years, Arden has closed her shows by spontaneously whipping up a painting onstage while her band plays around her, with her work typically centring on bald angels (“my mom is always begging me to put hair on the people that I paint, which I think is really funny,” she says.)
The paintings are then sold with the funds going to World Vision. After an earthquake ravaged Haiti, she decided to direct the funds there – through World Vision – as she toured behind her eighth studio album, 2009’s gold-certified “Free.”
“It’s a very easy thing,” said Arden, whose hits include “Insensitive” and “Good Mother.” “It’s very visual. It’s very tactile. It’s unique for the audience to see something kind of appear from the blank canvas in a very short time. I just stick to three colors.
“I don’t have a lot of time to paint the Mona Lisa.”
Yes, Arden is typically unpretentious in discussing her artwork.
She reluctantly describes her style as “folk art,” only after first declaring that she doesn’t really have a style. And as far as the inspiration behind her work?
“There’s no big cathartic moment,” explains Arden, who splits her time between Calgary and Nashville. “The guys are playing the song and the band, we’re having fun, you know, it’s the end of the night. I’m just trying not to ruin my shoes.”
“It didn’t require a lot of effort. The paintings weren’t masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination, but we were really amazed by the generosity. People were really philanthropic.”
The highest bid for a single painting came in at $8,500. Arden said that some would-be buyers who were outbid for a painting still decided to donate hundreds of dollars to the cause.
Meanwhile, Arden says she’s in the process of writing a memoir to be published this fall by Random House. She calls the book a “funny account of growing up in the Prairies.”
While some who write memoirs lament the painful process of sorting through the past, Arden says it’s been a positive experience.
“It’s a lot of fun,” she said. “I think things are only as hard as you make them. It’s been fun so far. You kind of hack through things and I’m sure half of what I’m jotting down is kind of superfluous to the story. But they have editors for that, don’t they? Then I won’t worry about it.
“And they have spell checks, so hey, I might even sound like I’m somewhat intelligent.”
Copyright © 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
