WorkOf and Shinola Raise $4,300 to Benefit Detroit Museum

To help kick off the holiday season, online furnishings marketplace WorkOf teamed up with Detroit-based manufacturer Shinola to raise money through the sale of a collection of holiday ornaments. Proceeds of the 13-day auction, which raised $4,300 in sales, will benefit the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD).

The two companies, which strive to support independent crafters and markers based in the United States, enlisted the help of more than 40 New York-based designers and commissioned them to each create an ornament, which were then sold via online auction on Paddle8 from December 4 through 16.

“We gave the designers little guidance other than that each ornament had to have a holiday theme, but otherwise it was very open ended,” says Charlie Miner, co-founder of WorkOf. “The result was a collection of objects that were representations of each maker’s personality, all distilled down into one little ornament.”

Designers included Asher Israelow, a furniture designer who created a wooden spherical ornament with small circular brass inlays, a nod to the Serenade table collection he created for the New York City Ballet, and Elaine Tian of Studio Joo, who made a porcelain, tumbler-shaped piece in the Japanese wabi-sabi tradition similar to her ceramic bowls.

John Neamontis, co-founder of WorkOf, said that the public’s reception of the auction was great. “Many of the makers had been sharing their ornaments on social media to get the word out, which was awesome,” he says. “It’s nice that the proceeds are going to a good cause.”