Art Through Vintage
Art Through Vintage was an online auction that ran during April 2020, in the thick of the COVID-19 mandated retail shutdown. The idea was formulated between Maegan of East Village Vintage Collective and Lecrue Eyebrows, and involved artists choosing vintage pieces from the shop and reworking/modifying/embellishing them as artwork for sale.
As soon as Maegan & Lecrue put their idea into action, the project gained momentum quickly, and ultimately involved 75 artists and 115 individual artworks. Each artwork was measured, photographed and listed for auction online in April 2020. The project raised much-needed financial assistance for both the store and the artists, and left us all with long-lasting friendships.
The Artists
The artists involved in Art Through Vintage were:
Elena Wolfe
@turnipsuniteed
@from_old_school_to_new
Dame One
...and we are thankful to each and every one of you!
The Pieces
Here is a sample of some of the amazing pieces made for Art Through Vintage:
The Backstory
Read below for a little history on how this project originally came about!
Maegan Hayward, owner of East Village Vintage Collective, often walks around her East Village neighborhood and appreciates the wonderful art that appears on the streets. One day while walking around she came across a mural (pictured above) that she absolutely loved, snapped a pic and posted it on Instagram tagging the artist Lecrue Eyebrows. Much to her surprise, Eyebrows wrote back thanking her for posting and tagging, which struck up a conversation about a possible collaboration. Time passed by quickly, as it often does, with lots of plans between Eyebrows and Maegan to do a collaboration with her store and his art. They talked art shows, denim jackets and more, but life kept getting in the way of something actually coming to fruition. Fast forward to COVID-19: The two checked in on each other to see how the other was doing, and started talking collabs again. "Maybe we could do something after this is all over," "maybe we could do something sooner," "could we really even do anything with all this mess going on around us??"
We needed to do something big to help the store, which by then had to close its doors, and to also help NYC artists who were struggling due to the pandemic. This brought about the idea for Art Through Vintage. Art Through Vintage was the collaborative project of EVVC and Eyebrows's collective thefl00d, and was launched to help our small business and NYC artists stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also to facilitate an expressive outlet for us all during this scary time. Vintage items from the shop were contactless-ly delivered to artists who then added their mark before offering their pieces up for auction off with 50% going to the artists and 50% to the store in the hopes of giving some financial relief to both parties as well as a distraction from where the world was at that time through the outlet of vintage and art.
Funny side note: even after the auction Maegan and Eyebrows still hadn't met in person. They eventually did meet and gave each other a hug!
We needed to do something big to help the store, which by then had to close its doors, and to also help NYC artists who were struggling due to the pandemic. This brought about the idea for Art Through Vintage. Art Through Vintage was the collaborative project of EVVC and Eyebrows's collective thefl00d, and was launched to help our small business and NYC artists stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also to facilitate an expressive outlet for us all during this scary time. Vintage items from the shop were contactless-ly delivered to artists who then added their mark before offering their pieces up for auction off with 50% going to the artists and 50% to the store in the hopes of giving some financial relief to both parties as well as a distraction from where the world was at that time through the outlet of vintage and art.
Funny side note: even after the auction Maegan and Eyebrows still hadn't met in person. They eventually did meet and gave each other a hug!
And finally...
...memories. Here's a little video documenting our final promo push!