Craftwork Talks to Lisa Congdon, Organizer of the Kim Family Auction.
San Francisco wasn't the only place moved by the Kim family tragedy. People around the world followed the tragic story with bated breath as the events unfolded. For most of us it's hard to feel anything but sadness after such an event. We turn off our computers, talk about how the search should have started earlier, wonder what would have happened if the road the family travelled on was locked as it should have been. But a rare group of us hear stories like the Kims' in the news and do something with the loss they feel.
Lisa Congdon and her family are among that group. Together Lisa, her sister, and her mother have organized a Kim family auction. The auction is entirely online auction. It begins January 3rd and ends the January 7th. All proceeds will go directly to the already existing Kim family fund. There are aver 46 artists from all over the world who have donated some beautiful items, ranging from ceramics to original paintings to small quilts.
After the jump, we speak with Lisa Congdon for her thoughts on the auction.
By SFist Christina
Can you tell us why you were moved to organize this auction?
My mom, Gerrie, and sister, Stephanie, and I are planning and organizing the auction together. All three of us were all deeply touched by what happened to the Kim family. In fact, we all felt very connected as the events unfolded, each in our own way. I know Kati Kim, because I sell my work in her shop, Doe, in the Lower Haight. My sister and I are scheduled to have a joint show of a collection of our work at Doe in May. I'd talked to Kati several times over email and in person since I started selling my work there last year. I had a deep sense, even before this tragedy occurred, what an important force her family is in her life. It's obvious when you meet Kati that she is part of a loving family first, shop owner second. I remember I learned that the family was missing early on before it hit the media. It was like the rest of my life stopped at that moment. I can't imagine what it must have been like for those really close to Kati and James.
My sister had never met Kati, but was really excited about our installation at Doe this spring. Also, she's a mother of two small children herself, married a completely dedicated husband who she could imagine doing the same thing as James did for his family. I think she felt as if she was living the experience with Kati while it was happening.
For my mom, the connection was imagining my sister and her family, traveling as they often do together by car, and the same thing happening to them. I remember when Kati and the girls were found, and my mom learned that she had breast fed the girls to keep them alive. She was so touched by Kati's courage. She weeps every time she talks about it.
Even before James was found, my mother had this idea that we had to do something to both help the family and to show how much we were touched by James' and Kati's courage and their family's plight to bring them home alive. It was actually my mother's idea to hold an online auction. We are all three artists and crafters, and are very well connected to other artists and crafters, and we got this idea to organize something. That next day, James was found. And then organizing the auction became more an outlet for our collective grief for Kati and her two girls and for James' family and friends than a way to defray costs, specifically. Kati and James have been huge supporters of the art and craft community over the past several years. It's our way of saying thank you, to helping Kati and her extended family, to honoring James' life.
How will the money get to the family?
We are donating the money to the already established Kim Family Fund. We feel really importantly that Kati get to decide how the money is used. Like I said, for us, the auction is more about expressing and channeling our grief toward something positive than it is about giving Kati money that will used for a specific purpose. We trust that she can make that decision on her own and that she will do the right thing for herself, for Penelope and for Sabine.
How can people participate?
The auction home base is at www.kimfamilyauction.typepad.com. The auction will take place entirely in cyberspace. It begins the morning of January 3 and ends January 7. Each item will link to Ebay starting on the 3rd and people can start bidding. You must have an Ebay account to participate, so folks who want to bid are advised to set up an account if they don't have one already. My family is donating the cost of setting up the auction so that 100% of the proceeds will go to the Kim Family Fund. Initially, the funds will go to a PayPal account for the auction and then we will transfer them to the Kim Family Fund once all items have been paid for.
In total, there will be well over 50 items for bid. Some of us participating know Kati and have sold work in her shops. Other artists have never met Kati and simply wanted to contribute to the effort. We were so overwhelmed with donations that we had to stop taking them very early on or the auction would have become unmanageable for the three of us. We are so grateful for everyone's interest and generosity.
Any final thoughts?
So many people all over the world have felt an intense connection to the Kims' experience over those two weeks in late November and early December. And I think that's because we could imagine such a thing happening to ourselves or to people we love. Here you are, on a family vacation, innocently trying to get to a hotel for the night and you take a wrong turn and become trapped. And James did what any of us would have done after a week of waiting for help: he went for help. And he traveled along a route that he thought would get him to help most quickly. He was doing the right thing for his family. It's tragic what happened to him and that he wasn't found earlier. And to imagine that could happen to a regular, responsible family like the Kims means that it could happen to anyone. So it touched many people very deeply. We were all reminded how precious life really is.