Retired artist seeks your help in funding a new Limited Giclee Edition
Being retired is always all it’s cracked up to be — especially if you’re looking for something to do. Although coming up with a plan to raise nearly $1,000 in 30 days for a new project may not be an appealing adventure to most seniors, it’s something that’s given a recently retired artist in Kansas City a new goal. In addition, it’s allowing a new audience to view some of his award-winning wildlife art for the first time ever.
During his professional life, Michael Broadway spent his free time painting wildlife art and entering his work in numerous state competitions for conservation stamps. It was more or less a hobby, and would have probably remained so, if a representative from Leanin’ Tree hadn’t spotted one of his paintings at the National Wildlife Art Show in Kansas City and commissioned it for a new greeting card in their Heart of the West line.
For Broadway, art has been a lifelong love affair. “I’ve been a painter for as long as I can remember,” Broadway said. “Now that I’ve joined the retirement crowd, I’m looking for something to fill my time and get my work out into the world. Kickstarter is allowing me to realize both of those objectives, and it’s giving me a new reason to wake up every morning. It’s exciting to check my email first thing and see how many new backers I’ve gained overnight for my project. I look forward to it every day.”
Broadway admits that he’s always wanted to produce limited edition prints of his wildlife art, but the traditional offset lithography is a very expensive process. “When I discovered the new giclee prints, I thought, hey, this is the way to go.”
After making the decision to produce the edition, Broadway spent some time deciding on which of his many wildlife art painting to produce first. He finally settled on the Night Watchman. After that decision was made, he came up with a name for his limited edition wildlife art production company—Wildheart Editions—and purchased the domain name. Having a long history in graphic design, he decided to create the logo himself, as well as the website.
When all the pieces were in place and everything was ready, he launched his new project on Kickstarter. Kickstarter campaigns operate under an “all-or-nothing” funding model so if the Night Watchman project doesn’t reach its goal at the end of 30 days it will die on the vine and nothing happens. Broadway is hoping he can use his social media connections to help promote the project and deliver the prints to their new owners.
If you’re a wildlife art lover, check out the Night Watchman, and be sure to follow @sixties on Twitter and Don Diego Vega on Facebook to follow the progress on this project. Also, feel free to spread the word. If you’d like to become a backer of the project, you can do so for as little as $1, and you can be a part of the team that helps this project come to life. If you decide to donate more, you might be among the few people in the world to have a signed and numbered copy of the Night Watchman hanging on your wall.
If you’d like to visit the Kickstarter project site to see the original art and the backer rewards, click HERE. You can also view a short video and see some a few more of Broadway’s original wildlife art paintings.
To view his website and see which edition is coming next, or to contact him directly, click HERE.
