Artist in focus: Obi Kaufmann

An avid conservationist and intrepid explorer of California ecology and the natural world, Obi Kaufmann is a native Californian, based in Oakland. Growing up in the East Bay as the son of an astrophysicist and a psychologist, Obi Kaufmann spent most of high school practicing calculus and breaking away on weekends to scramble around Mount Diablo and map its creeks, oak forests, and sage mazes. Into adulthood, he would regularly journey into the mountains, spending more summer nights without a roof than with one. His first book, The California Field Atlas (Heyday/2017) became a #1 San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller and was awarded the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco’s Gold Medal for Significant Contribution to Publishing, and the 2018 Book of the Year by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.

Kaufmann’s second book, The State of Water: Understanding California’s
Most Precious Resource (Heyday/2019), examined the Golden State’s most complex and controversial resource: water.

Kaufmann presents his work and vision of ecological preservation and restoration to environmental centers and groups across the state, including the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Mojave Desert Land Trust, The Anza Borrego Foundation, The Mono Lake Committee, Peninsula Open Space Trust, The California Native Plant Society, The Wilderness Society, and The National Audubon Society.

Kaufmann’s artistry, research, and reverence for the natural world have been covered such publications as the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Review of Books, Sunset Magazine, Alta Magazine, Entropy, and Western Art and Architecture. Kaufmann will be featured in an upcoming episode of OpenRoad with Doug McConnell on location in Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California for NBC Bay Area this fall. When he is not backpacking, you can find the painter-poet at home in Oakland.

Find Obi Kafumann posting @coyotethunder #trailpaintings on Instagram. 

His website is coyoteandthunder.com

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california lion print                          $40

forests of california book               $55

coyote print                                       $40

raptor notecards                              $20

mammals notecards                        $20

bee print                                             $40

burrowing owl print                         $40

california field atlas book               $45

bear print                                            $40

IRS Guidelines for Gifts from Donor Advised Funds to Support MAGC Events

Thank you for your interest in giving to the Marin Art & Garden Center events from your Donor Advised Fund (DAF) or Family Foundation.

We sincerely appreciate your generosity and support!

To ensure your gift follows the current IRS guidelines for DAF/Family Foundation support of an event, we would like to share the below guidelines with you.

  • Raffle tickets, tickets to galas and other special events, auction items, and benefits conferred in connection with a DAF/foundation grant are not permitted.
    • IRS has specifically ruled that fair market value associated with fundraising events cannot be separated, a practice known as “bifurcation.”
      • For example, with Edible Garden, if the price of the ticket is $200 and the FMV fair market value (non-tax-deductible amount) is designated to be $50, the donor must pay from sources other than her DAF/foundation for the full value of the ticket ($200) and not just for the non-tax-deductible amount ($50).
    • We recommend you confer with your financial advisor to confirm if any of these examples of how donors may still use their DAF to support an event would work for you:
      • A donor could sponsor the event, and not attend, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event using DAF/foundation funds and attend by purchasing an individual ticket through non-DAF/foundation funds.
      • A donor could sponsor the event, join the event as a guest of another donor/table guest, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event and host the afforded number of people at their chosen level as long as they pay for the seats at the lowest ticket price ($200 for Edible Garden) outside of their DAF.
        • As an example, a $1,500 sponsor that covers 2 guests, could pay for their sponsorship with $400 from a different source of funds, and then give an additional gift of $1,100 out of their DAF.

 

Please email Tod Thorpe, Director of Development at tod.thorpe@maringarden.org to discuss your gift to Marin Art and Garden Center