Million Dollar Painting to benefit Feed The Children Be apart of Internet history Start Price USD 1,000,000.00 Current Price USD 1,000,000.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Tuesday, December 02, 2008 End Time Friday, December 12, 2008 Location Reston, VA See more about 'Million Dollar Painting to benefit Feed The Children' Description Million Dollar Painting   I am selling my original piece of artwork for $1 million to benefit Feed The Children.  I am not a famous artist nor is my work even close to worth the amount of one million dollars but with the horrific starvation that is taking place around the world, I had to do something to raise money for those who need it most.  I am looking for a very generous donor whether it be an individual or large corporation who is willing to purchase all one million pixels to “uncover the painting” by fully populating the pixels it will take to finish the viewing of the artwork at www.pixdonation.com.  Each pixel is currently selling for one dollar to achieve the million dollar goal.  I will not make a dime off the purchase and 100% of the donation will go directly to Feed The Children.   If you are looking to purchase the one million pixels you will receive the piece of original artwork, as well as recognition for making such a large investment for the lives you will be saving.  But more importantly for every dollar given you will help feed 3 malnourished children for a full day.  Since this is the first time a painting has been sold pixel by pixel you will be making internet history thus creating a tremendous amount of press and buzz around the such a generous purchase.   If interested please contact me at pixdonation@gmail.com prior to placing a bid to discuss specifics on setting up the donation with Feed The Children to receive the full tax write off etc.  If bid upon the buyer will need to pay all associated Ebay fees.   For those who may not be able to spend the million dollars to purchase every single pixel you can still help by going to www.pixdonation.com and clicking on the Feed The Children banner or links on my site.  This will take you straight to FTC’s landing page to donate to the cause ($5 and beyond).  Feed The Children is keeping a record on the donations so that we can uncover the appropriate amount of pixels to ultimately uncover the painting.     Background on the web site and the painting     The overall premise of the PIXdonation concept came from Alex Tew who created The Million Dollar Homepage www.themilliondollarhomepage.com.  Alex developed a way to sell pixels to companies for online advertising on his website.  Companies would buy a block of 50-5,000 pixels to display their logo on the site due to the exposure they would receive.    With www.pixdonation.com we have enabled individuals and corporations alike to be apart of buying pixels for a good cause.  For the first project we will help raise $1 million with 100% going to Feed The Children.  Much like the Million Dollar Homepage, PIXdonation is be the first, innovative website to raise money per pixel based on a piece of original artwork.  This has never been done before which will undoubtedly bring attention and press to whoever purchases the painting for a good cause.   I chose Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer prize winning photograph to make a statement in the fight against famine in third world countries.  As you can see the picture is a very visceral, gut-wrenching scene which tells the story of not just one little girl but of millions of innocent souls who slowly suffer from malnourishment and hunger.  In 1993 the photographer who shot the nightmarish occurrence received the attention of millions of horrified onlookers who could not imagine this happening to another human being.   The story behind this surreal photograph is a very chilling and intriguing one.  Many people may recognize the Pulitzer prize-winning photograph but most do not know the details of this scene and the immense aftershock it had on the photographer who took the shot of the little Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture.  Below is the story behind the photographer.   In March of 1993, Kevin Carter, a South Africa photojournalist, made a trip to southern Sudan with intentions of documenting a local rebel movement.  However, upon arriving and witnessing the horror of the famine, Carter began to take photographs of the starving victims.  The sound of a soft, high pitched whimpering near the village of Ayod caught Carter’s attention towards an emaciated Sudanese toddler.  The girl had stopped to rest while struggling to make it to a feeding center, wherein a vulture had landed nearby.    Carter waited 20 minutes or so for the vulture to eventually spread its wings and fly off but the bird kept stalking the weak, vulnerable child.  Carter then proceeded to take the haunting photograph and chased the vulture away.  To this day no one knows the fate of the child.   The photo eventually made it to New York Times on March 26th 1993 and literally overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the little girl survived.  Many people also criticized the photographer for not helping the starving child.  Carter later confided in friends that he wished he had intervened and helped the little girl but at the time journalists were told not to touch the famine victims due to the risk of contracting diseases.   On May 23rd, 14 months after capturing that horrific scene, Carter walked up to the dais in the classical rotunda of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library and received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.  Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter would be dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33. His red pickup truck was parked near a small river where he used to play as a child; a green garden hose attached to the vehicle's exhaust funneled the fumes inside. "I'm really, really sorry," he explained in a note left on the passenger seat beneath a knapsack. "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist…  I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain . . . of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners . . . "   The painting tries to capture the emotions of watching hunger in slow motion.  I attempted to encapsulate, thru the use of oil on canvas, the horror of an innocent child barely holding on to dear life trying to make it to a food center.  The dimension of the painting is 24”X 20”.    If you are interested in purchasing the one million pixels to ultimately benefit Feed The Children then please contact me at pixdonation@gmail.com to go over payment information, tax write off details and to discuss how we will move forward with a press release with the charity.  Also if there is interest in commissioning me for another painting I will gladly entertain the request so long as all the money will go to a good cause.   Thank you for your consideration.   Brian Baker Place a Bid!