{"id":221087,"date":"2016-02-17T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=221087"},"modified":"2016-02-17T06:00:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T20:00:39","slug":"former-saipan-artists-heart-fetches-50k-before-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/former-saipan-artists-heart-fetches-50k-before-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Saipan artist\u2019s \u2018heart\u2019 fetches $50K before auction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-221087 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/former-saipan-artists-heart-fetches-50k-before-auction\/marconi-pix-1\/'>Marconi-pix-1<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-221088'>\n\t\t\t\tMarconi Calindas prepares to work on his design on the heart sculpture for the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation Hearts in San Francisco fundraising project. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/former-saipan-artists-heart-fetches-50k-before-auction\/marconi-pix-2\/'>Marconi-pix-2<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-221089'>\n\t\t\t\tA worker prepares to load Marconi Calindas\u2019 artwork for the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation Hearts in San Francisco fundraising project. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Former Saipan resident and visual artist Marconi Calindas\u2019 contribution to the Hearts in San Francisco Project by the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation fetched $50,000 even before the start of the live auction of the annual fundraiser.<\/p>\n<p>Calindas previously worked as a reporter with the Saipan Tribune for more than two years before deciding to concentrate in being a visual artist. He is now based in San Francisco where he made a name with the use of sunflowers on his artworks.<\/p>\n<p>The Hearts in San Francisco is a public art project that aims to raise money to fund the programs of the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. The project started in 2004 where Bay Area artists transform large and plain heart sculptures to works of art.<\/p>\n<p>Calindas\u2019 large heart sculpture\u2019s artwork was sold to one of the corporate sponsors of this year\u2019s Heroes &amp; Hearts and Hearts After Dark. All heart sculptures will be on displayed on the fundraising event for SFGHF on Thursday, Feb. 18, at AT&amp;T Park.<\/p>\n<p>Calindas said he has no idea which corporate sponsor bought his artwork but was glad to be part of the project and his design selected to be part of the 19 hearts that will be auctioned. He was elated to learn that his \u201cheartwork\u201d was bought even before bidding started.<\/p>\n<p>He said he always dreamt of being part of the project the first time he saw the huge heart sculptures around the city. \u201cI told myself back then that someday my art would be in one of those hearts as well. Every year they ask local artists to submit designs and they get a lot of submissions from thousands of artists that thrive in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was so happy to have been selected and it is indeed an honor to represent also the Filipino artists who try to make it in this city, if not in the whole country. I just submitted my designs and luckily got selected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Philippine-born Calindas said he wanted to show the free spirit of San Francisco\u2019s diverse community on his artwork. \u201cMy particular theme for the Hearts in San Francisco depicts a playful flower. I wanted to show the free spirit of its people and how this city is indeed magical.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A committee composed of SFGHF staff and board members, and community volunteers select the artworks that will be part of the Hearts of San Francisco project. The hearts, since 2004, has already raised more than $10 million that funded SFGHF\u2019s Hearts Grants Program.<\/p>\n<p>His artworks have been publicly displayed in the San Francisco City Hall, Children\u2019s Creative Museum, SoMARTS Gallery SF, Hotel Triton Mezzanine Gallery, Magnet SF, and Menlo College.<\/p>\n<p>The San Francisco Board of Supervisors also recognized Calindas for advocating equality and understanding that is shown with his artworks.<\/p>\n<p>His biggest accomplishment so far was his design being one of the four that was featured for the Emirates Skywards frequent flyer card for 2016. His design, featuring the Burj Dubai, was used for the Platinum card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Saipan resident and visual artist Marconi Calindas\u2019 contribution to the Hearts in San Francisco&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":221088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9750,9751,9752,9753],"class_list":["post-221087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-bay-area","tag-hearts-grants-program","tag-marconi-calindas","tag-sfghf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}