Craigslist Counterfeit Balsa Man Ticket

Looks like our previous post about counterfeit Balsa Man tickets don’t reach out to enough people. We’ve unfortunately found two people on craigslist who didn’t get the message and are looking for Balsa Man tickets.

More alarming we ran across one scammer trying to hoodwink the small minded by selling an obvious counterfeit ticket (see photo).

Also, in our search, we found someone looking for a ride to Balsa Man—we do recommend ride sharing.

Remember folks THERE ARE NO BALSA MAN TICKETS. Balsa Man is purely DONOR SUPPORTED.

Truly Support Tiny Art Through Donations

I know that the utter amazingness of the Balsa Man event can seem unbelievable at times. With all the hucksters online it’s hard to know what to believe these days.

However, know this: we truly do use the proceeds from donations and the sale of patchs, stickers, and engraved x-acto boxes to support tiny artists…

• Every Donor get’s an official letter of donor recognition and a gift depending on their level of donation (see donor award gifts)
• Every Tiny Artist who is awarded a grant is sent a letter of confirmation along with their grant award money and a gift of a Balsa Man sticker (see tiny art grants).
• Donations also pay for materials and supplies for Tiny Art Build Parties.
• The BPAF Art Grant budget relies on you the donor to support tiny art. The more you donate the more tiny art we can support!

Remember last year there was such a high demand for patches that we ran out a couple weeks prior to the event. This year, we made more swank limited edition patches but we still expect to run out and once they run out we won’t make any more. So to get yours donate today!

Tonight, the BPAF will be mailing out all art grant awards and the gift packages to all the donors who’ve given thus far. If you donate today your gift package will be included in this shipment; next shipment won’t be until next week.

• “misc tiny combustables”
• “neighborhood”
• “The Forged City”
• “transformed by fire”

The BPAF grant committee vote was unanimous with most agreeing that the quoted words fit perfectly with the Balsa Man event, and one member who voted yes purely on the quality of the paper stock (Strathmore Imperial Watercolor 140lb Cold Press).

As a result, the Black Pebble Arts Foundation is proud to announce it’s first tiny art grant award of $5 to Nara Brados for her project Tiny Bed of Roses!

*UPDATE TO GRANT GUIDELINES: As a direct result of this proposal, the BPAF has now revised their grant proposal guidelines and the word limit is now 100–150 words in order to reduce eyestrain and work place injuries.

For these reasons and more, Balsa Man has approved it’s first vendor: Polar, the one and only location where you can buy precious ice at Balsa Man! All proceeds of ice will be donated to local charitiable organizations.

Polar will be no boring vendor, Veronica Fetzner and Simon Sutherland’s artistic vision using foam core for Polar is excellent and their detailed postcard encapsulates why the Black Pebble Arts Foundation has chosen to award them a tiny art grant of $15 so they can buy baggies. This is a large grant by the BPAF standards, but we feel it’s justified due to the importance of having ice available at Balsa Man.

[Click to Enlarge]

Congratualations Veronica & Simon!

We had a fabulous donation of $20 from @edrabbit (member of Interpretive Arson and creator of a miniature Dance Dance Immolation for last year’s inaugural Balsa Man). This year, he hopes that his donation might fund an artist to create a miniature version of 2πr.
We have also heard from a few artists already who are interested in creating tiny art, but we have yet to receive any formal grant requests. Participation is what makes Balsa Man grand so send us your art proposals!

Oh, come on. You know you wanna build something. Become inspired and then head on over to Tiny Art & Grants to read our Tiny Art Guidelines on how to apply for a Tiny Art Grant.

Remember, this year’s Balsa Man theme is “Big Dreams Writ Small” — art on a scale manageable to all. Your art project can be a wholely new creation that has never seen the light of day, or it can be based on art already baptised by alkali dust. Above all, your art should inspire YOU; art which you would love create on a grand scale but cannot. Take your inspiration, miniturize it, and bring it to Balsa Man…

and then set it on fire…

or not. While we do enjoy fire, we understand that not all art must be set aflame to be meaningful.

Jeff Ross at the SF Indie Fest (photo by Clody Cates)

Jeff Ross, founder and director of the SF Indie Fest, has promised a $10 matching donation to the  Black Pebble Arts Foundation for the next donor who donates $10 or more! Remember donations are used to fund tiny art grants for our wonderful tiny artists.

Well that was fast! We have already received our $10 donation. Congratulations donor your donation has been doubled!

Be the next donor!

“[BPAF is] actually pretty neat, fund art on an affordable scale” ~ Jeff Ross

The SF Indie Fest is long-time supporter of small budget artists, musicians, and filmmakers. Don’t miss the 8th annual DocFest, October 16 – 28, 2009. Also, submissions for the 2010 SF Independant Film Festival are now being accepted through October 10th, 2009.