Elsewhere We Go to Bid: Talking with Elsewhere Editions About Their Singular Auction

It’s tough out there for a little press. News, attention, and maybe even publicity has a tendency to center on the big guys. Your Macmillans and Scholastics. Your Penguin Random Houses and Simon and Schusters. Your Harper Collins and Hachettes. If you’re small, select, beautiful, and unique, getting librarians and booksellers to notice you can be a smidge on the tricky side of things. So how do you go about raising money for your crucial funds? It’s not like you can auction off your office furniture, right? Maybe not, but there are things you can auction off. Art, for example. And if you publish children’s books, it’s possible that you might have some illustrators interested in helping you out.

Each year, Elsewhere Editions hosts an art auction in which people from our community bid online on works of art to support the press. This year, they’ve tightened up the auction’s theme, bringing the focus to books and art for kids. So who are the artists who have contributed works? Perhaps you’re familiar with some of these names: Peter Sís, Dasha Tolstikova, Amanda Mijangos, Micha Archer, Rocío Araya, Charlotte Ager, Marika Maijala, Rowboat Watkins, Fumi Aizawa, and Aleksandra Zając. Each one unique. Each one donating original artworks. 

Now like I say, auctions to benefit small publishers aren’t exactly common. So I sat down with Emma Raddatz of Elsewhere Editions to figure out precisely what was going on here:

---

Betsy Bird: Hi Emma! Thanks for joining me. So tell me a little bit about the Elsewhere Editions auction. Is this the first or have you done it before? And how did you solicit pieces to auction off?

Emma Raddatz: Hello Betsy! Thank you for having me. Seven years ago, we launched Elsewhere Editions, our imprint devoted to luminous picture books in translation. And in 2019, we held our first art auction with a print gallery in Chelsea (C.G. Boerner). I recall laying all of the art on the gallery floor with my colleagues and playing curator for the day. That night, we had a live, rambunctious auction and sold many beautiful works, handing the pieces to the winning bidders as we unclipped them from the walls.

In 2020, our auction was entirely online and we found that we were able to reach more international artists, collectors, and readers as a result. We auctioned such memorable works that year – a photo-collage of red, curving limbs by Carmen Winant, and a four-legged tennis player by Cassi Namoda. We were moved and inspired by the artists participating that year.

Each year, our team of five makes a list of artists we admire, and then we send letters and our books to the artists. Even if an artist is unable to participate (it is asking a lot of an artist to donate a work), it gives us a thrill to email an artist and tell them about a book they might like. Last year, the artist Joeun Kim Aatchim donated a remarkable portrait on silk, and as we spoke to her, we learned that her poetic and artistic practice has been inspired by Robert Musil (whose works we have published). The auction is a chance to follow threads between our work and the work of artists in different mediums.  

BB: And an auction seems to me a clever way to raise funds for smaller publishing presses. Honestly, it’s not something I’ve seen other folks think to do. Where did you get the idea?

Emma: I don’t think too many small presses fundraise in this way, but we saw art organizations we admire (Printed Matter, Bomb Magazine) and galleries hosting similar benefits. We see our children’s books as works of art, filled with careful and stunning spreads that can awe and amaze both children and adults, so an art auction felt like a natural fit for fundraising.

BB: That makes sense. So what are some of the challenges when conducting an auction of this sort? Has anything surprised you along the way?

Emma: We care very much about the community of artists donating works, and sometimes it can be challenging to sell every piece. People often get competitive around a smaller number of works, with bidding wars cropping up. It’s our job to find the right collector or admirer for each work, and as we enter our sixth year of the auction, it feels like this is getting a little easier.

I’ve been surprised by and grateful for how involved artists have been with the press long after donating a work to our auction in a given year. Joeun, who I mentioned earlier, held a launch party for the artist of Rosie Runs, Marika Maijala, who traveled to Brooklyn from Finland. Joeun’s and Marika’s work were celebrated side-by-side in Joeun’s studio. Photographer Dona Ann McAdams and painter Cassi Namoda both joined the imprint’s advisory committee. Painter and ceramicist Em Kettner told us that her mother is a librarian in Pennsylvania, and in junior high, Em used to help shelve picture books there. (Now we have the pleasure of sending Em’s mom advance reader copies in the mail.)

BB: Can you tell us a little bit about the art pieces that were donated this year? And I don’t know if you can say, but do you have a particular favorite yourself?

Emma: This year, we have seventeen stunning works of picture book art by many beloved illustrators. The auction features original art from Elsewhere Editions artists: Marika Maijala, Roger Mello, Rocío Araya, and Aleksandra Zając; along with artists whose work we deeply admire: Peter Sís, Dasha Tolstikova, Micha Archer, Charlotte Ager, Rowboat Watkins, Claire Nivola, Sophie Gilmore, Yuliya Gwilym, Igor Karash, Corinna Lukyen, and Fumi Aizawa.

The author and illustrator Peter Sís donated two drawings from his Freedom Riders project. Sís has collaborated with Art for Amnesty on a series of monumental tapestries and murals created in support of human rights, and these drawings were early visions for the project.

Aleksandra Zając, whose whimsical What Feelings Do When No One’s Looking Elsewhere published in 2021, created an original artwork. She told me that she has had bunny stories on the brain this month because she tells them to her son in the evening (and her surname in Polish simply means “hare”). You can see her “ Reading Hare” here.

Rowboat Watkins donated the beginnings of a future book. His email to my colleague Jillian about the piece was so beautiful, I’d like to quote him: “The piece is untitled. To me it is a grown-up comforting (or explaining something to) a child, but I’d rather the viewer decide for themself what they see. My rule at the time of making the picture was I could only use what I found on the way to the studio that morning. I was very strict about this rule. And originally I only photographed what I’d found, texted the picture to my friend Matthea, and threw it away. It was all about discovery, transformation, and impermanence. Which is at the heart of playing . . . The texts I sent Matthea with each picture always said the same thing: this morning’s trash. That’s it. So that is how I have come to think of these pictures. this morning’s trash: untitled. With the date stamped on each of the glued pictures. Like how books used to be checked out of the library when I was little.”

It’s impossible for me to select a favorite! The five of us get really excited about all of the donated works and ping each other back-and-forth when artists send their selections. When Sophie Gilmore sent “thursday lions,” my colleague Cameron wrote me an email that just said “Speechless.”

BB: Finally, is there somewhere people can go online to see what’s available? And where should they go for the auction itself?

Emma: Please visit auction.archipelagobooks.org! Bidding for all pieces is open from May 28th to June 7th at 9 pm EST. This year, each person who places the starting bid of $500 will receive a full collection of Elsewhere Editions books (valued together at $425), regardless of whether or not the bidder wins an artwork. And finally, if we can raise $5,000, the Flora Family Foundation has generously come forward with a matching grant challenge of $5,000. We’re grateful to the Foundation, to the artists, and to everyone who will look at these pieces with us.

---

Incredible thanks to both Emma Raddatz for answering my questions and to Cameron Saltsman for connecting us. As Emma said, the auction is scheduled to begin on May 28th, so be sure to take a look at the offerings and select your favorites early.

Filed under: Uncategorized