Providing grants, programs, and services to the artists and audiences of Tompkins County for 30 years

CAP-a-Palooza Art Sale

An annual fundraising SALE of not-new art donated by community members! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let us know if you'd like to donate! We'll send a reminder and details! 
Program Director Robin Schwartz, programs@artspartner.org

2025 Donation Dates: 

Monday to Wed, December 1 to 3, 2pm to 6pm 
Details below. 

2025 Sale Dates: 

Friday, December 5 (Gallery Night) through Saturday, December 13
Every day except Sunday. Times TBA. 
CAP ArtSpace Gallery in the Tompkins Center for History and Culture
110 N. Tioga Street (on the Ithaca Commons).


Click to Go to Section Below: 

What is the CAP-a-Palooza Art Sale? 
Donation Dates and Drop off Information 
What Kind of Art Can We Accept? 
What Can We Not Accept? 
How We Price and Organize Your Donations 

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What is CAP-a-Palooza?

CAP-a-Palooza is an annual fundraiser of the Community Arts Partnership (CAP), held over 9 days each December.  

How CAP-a-Palooza Works:

We collect donations of not-new, pre-owned art from community members who are downsizing or have unused or unloved art that they can part with. We then hold a 9 day sale!

The sale works well on two levels. Hundreds of people find joy in purchasing and coming to see what we have collected, AND community members feel good about donating their downsized art collection to a good cause.  

(Note: We do not ask local artists to donate their own work.)

The art that is donated is vintage and contemporary, professional and amateur, fun and funky, antique and modern: paintings, photography, etchings, prints, small sculpture, pottery, embroidery and more.   

Work is priced low so we can sell as much as possible in 9 days. Prices drop throughout the sale and are slashed on the last couple of days. 

We thank our generous annual sponsor of the ArtSpace Gallery. Thank you so much, Coughlin and Gerhart

 

Donation Dates & Drop Off Information: 

Donation Dates and Times
Mon, Tues, Wed, December 1, 2 and 3
2:00pm - 6:00pm each day
Note: We do not accept work before December 1st unless it is something really amazing... (mostly because we don't have storage space, and staff works remotely). We also can not pick up work.  

Location (Donations and Sale)
CAP ArtSpace Gallery in the Tompkins Center for History and Culture
110 N. Tioga Street (on the Ithaca Commons).

We will have a hand cart and a volunteer available who can help you bring stuff into the building.

Parking:
The closest you can get to the front door of our building is on Seneca Street, pulling up alongside M&T Bank on the Commons. There are a few 15 minute parking spots. Our building, the Tompkins Center for History and Culture, at 110 N. Tioga (on the Commons), is just to the left of M&T. 

We DO have a back door which can be used on Wednesday, Dec. 3. 
Prior arrangments need to be made (door is locked, access needs to be arranged), so Robin above.  
 

What We Can Accept: 

  • Art that you inherited, that you'd like to downsize, that you received as gifts that have been piled in your closets for 20 years, or art that reminds you of people you don't want to be reminded of.  If you are ready to pass it on, donate it to CAP.
  • It can be professional or amateur, old or new. We love cool and funky vintage stuff.
  • paintings, photography, and all other 2D types of work. 
  • Sculptures (small - under 16" tall), embroidery, handmade pottery, fiber art, and other functional art. 
  • 2D work should be matted, framed or stretched canvas on a wood frame.
  • Note: We do not ask working artists to donate their own work. Having said that, some artists like to downsize their stock and give us work that is older. Community members many also donate a local artist's work that they had owned. 

Donation Condition
Please clean frame and glass before donating.
Please donate work that is in good shape (no mold, no broken glass or broken frames).

Information and Stories: (Totally optional, but totally greatI) 
If you can decipher or interpret a hard-to-read signature for us, have interesting stories about the work, or where you purchased it, it would be wonderful if you could write that down and tape it to the work.  One short sentence is good: i.e. "Aunt Ginny made this in her 1963 still life watercolor class;" or "I purchased this in Juneau, Alaska at a gallery in the 80's" or  "This was a gift from a student from Japan."

Donated Work is Tax Exempt
CAP is a not for profit charitable organization and can give you a signed receipt for your donations. Note: The donor fills in the value of the donated work and/or a list of what was donated. We just provide a date and a signature. 
 

What We Can't Accept (and may turn away): 

(Note: There may be exceptions if something is fabulous. Feel free to send images in questions to Robin)

  • Rolled up work, loose papers or posters. (2D work should be matted, framed, or stretched canvas on frame. Exception - work on very heavy watercolor paper)
  • Unframed charcoal drawings 
  • Posters on foam core, unless framed
  • Books - (such as those old masters print portfolios that everyone seemed to have in 1954)
  • Work that has mold, broken glass, or broken frames. (You can try cleaning - sometimes there is mold on the inside of a glass frame that can be cleaned up!) 
  • Work that is disintegrating, peeling or flaking. 
  • Work that weighs over 20 pounds.
  • Work that is larger than 40" wide/high. 
     

How We Price & Organize Your Donations

  • Work is priced low so that we can sell 500 items in 9 days.
  • Prices range from $1 to $65 (mostly - with a few pieces priced from $75 to $400).
  • Prices are determined by CAP staff (with advice from appraisers).
  • If you believe something is of high value that you'd love us to know about, please attach a note! Sometimes we send donated art to auction houses or ebay.
  • We have a couple of art appraisers that come and look over everything before the sale starts to see if there is anything of great value. We also look up many items on ebay as they arrive, to see if similar or the same work by an artist has sold.
  • If you'd like to research ebay or other accessible sites ahead of time, make sure you check on what similar art sold for, not what it is selling for  Check "completed sales."  


AFTER THE SALE:
Work that doesn't sell is either stored for the following year, or we have a free day for local not for profit organizations.

FYI: WE KEEP TRACK OF DONORS, but not DONATIONS
We keep track of the people who donate art, but not what they donated.  Sometimes donors want to know if their work sold and the only way to know that is to stop by at the end of the sale to see!

THANK YOU!