Dear 30,

I love it when things come together. (Don't we all?!) I love that feeling of a vision coming to life and that out-of-body moment where you think "whoa. we did this."

Friday night we celebrated the first pick up party for the new CSA DSM. And it was awesome.

Back in August, shareholders and artists and pick up parties were little ideas dancing around email conversations after we read this NY Times article about Springboard for the Arts' Community Supported Art program. Cat and I talked about jurors and packaging and just how many artists might be interested. With help from Springboard's how-to kit, we launched in the fall and sold 11 shares in our first few sale days. (And celebrated each and every sale.)

What is CSA DSM, you ask?
(A good question. It's new, so you might not know the details.)

For $300, 50 Des Moines art lovers can buy a share. That share buys you 9 (can you believe that? NINE) pieces of diverse art! These works are passed out at three pick up parties. The 9 artists were selected from a pool of over 50 applicants by a talented panel of jurors. Artists win. Shareholders win. DSM wins. Awesome.

We sold 44 shares to all kinds of cool people. On Friday night, inside the lovely EDEN, we got to hand out our first boxes of fresh art- and it was, as I mentioned, awesome. 

Thank you to Stephanie, Scott and Anna for joining us and sharing your art with the party goers. Thanks to Jen and Eden for having the most beautiful shop and black bean brownies and sharing your space and joy with us. Thanks to all who joined us to celebrate Cat's birthday, the first share pick-up party and a cool project coming to life. 

Can't wait to hang my share in our new home. Ah man. It feels good to see a plan come together.

xo-LP