Patriotism for sale as neckties | Photo by Lauren Girardin

"Will you vote absentee? How does that work?" asked Jennie, five months pregnant, sprawled on her couch in the South Philly row house she shares with her husband Amos.

I explained that, even though we haven't gotten around to canceling our landline phone in San Francisco yet, we are all set to vote absentee by fax. Voting by mail seemed too precarious, with our ballots having to make two perilous overseas journeys. We don't intend to miss this election, even if we are far away from the U.S. in the deserts of Rajasthan, India.

Our polling place will be any internet cafe with a printer and a fax machine. San Francisco's Department of Elections talked me through the whole process of registering to vote remotely.

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Camels as far as the eye can see | Art by Todd Berman

I'm the featured artist on Giwaza.com, a website where you can have your friends and family pitch in to collectively buy you the gift of artwork.

Think birthday. Think wedding registry. Think Christmahanukwanza. Think your walls looking way swanker than they do right now.

Essentially, Giwaza is an online gift registry for art, but one where people can contribute to purchase a portion of the art you want. Several people have already used Giwaza to buy my paintings - it works well for everyone involved.

My Giwaza gallery includes drawings from the global road as well as paintings from my regular collection.

How to get it done:

1. Register with Giwaza and then login.
2. Pick a piece of art from my Giwaza gallery. Below the image of the art, fill out the "Initiate Gift" form and follow the site's instructions. Giwaza will arrange the details with me, and you'll be able to start having people contribute towards getting you the art you want almost immediately. Giwaza's service fee is tiny compared to normal gallery commissions.
3. Invite your friends and family to contribute toward the art gift by using one of Giwaza's email invitations. Giwaza does all the work, from collecting funds to providing a running tally of all contributions and contributors.
4. When your friends pony up the full purchase price, Giwaza pays me and I deliver the artwork to you.

If you want to set up an art registry but don't see exactly what you want on Giwaza, just check out my travel drawings still for sale, then tell me which art you'd like added to the Giwaza gallery by sending an email to

Of course, if you want to buy artwork for yourself or arrange custom art, just let me know.