Art with heart
PAA’S ‘A Night to Remember’ gala thrills, raises funds for youth art programs
As the sun began to set and the sky turned a golden orange, ‘A Night to Remember’ hosted by the Porterville Art Association began at Nuckols Ranch on Saturday night.
The gala fundraiser event brought in nearly 150 people, who gathered around tables for dinner and to take in the art that surrounded them.
Trees wrapped in small white lights welcomed guests as they handed their tickets in to the ticket table near the entrance. Round tables that sat eight people were buzzing with excited conversation as guests ate their dinners.
Traditional Aztec dancers started the night’s entertainment. Adorned in long feather headpieces and golden tassels that rang out as the dancers moved, the traditional dance captivated audience members. Once the performance was over, the dancers huddled together in prayer.
As guests finished their plates of food, many strolled over to the silent auction tables to see the items up for auction. Art pieces sat among jewelry and clothing, and
even everyday household items such as a trash can and tiki torches were being auctioned off for reasonable prices.
A hand sewn winter quilt started at $30. A hand painted picture of a fairy with giant white wings started at $10.
As guests walked the auction tables, conversations about the evening took place.
“This is our first experience with respects to something like this,” said Kevin Roach as he stood by the side of his wife, Cathie Roach. “My ticket was bought as a gift for me, and I wasn’t sure if Cathie was going to be in town, so I got her a ticket yesterday to come to this because I don’t get in to much community mixers. This provided an opportunity to be able to get to know different people within the community and I’ve enjoyed that.”
Cathie Roach was enjoying the artwork just as much as her husband was enjoying the community.
“The artwork is beautiful, and being able to meet some of the artists is really cool,” Mrs. Roach stated as she signed her name on the bid sheet for a beautiful acrylic painting titled Emotion Ocean.
Wine artist Kirby Banta sat towards the back of the lush green lawn, where he had some of his pieces on display. A painting of a world map created with nothing more than a paperclip and a Q-tip sat under a bright light. All of his work had been painted with wine as his medium.
“I’ve been in the wine business for 35 years, and my wine representative would come in writing a wine list so we could taste it ,and I would press the cork in order to refer back to body and color,” explained Banta. “The more I pressed the cork, I started to create a palette of color, and so I thought, ‘There’s something to this.’ So I started to use that palette in my art.”
Banta stated that he’s been painting with wine for a year and a half and has no formal training in art.
“I don’t sketch anything, I don’t draw anything,” expressed Banta about his creative process. ”There’s is no pencil in my work. It either hits the canvas or the trash.”
As Banta explained about his journey as an artist, another live performance began. Jonell Mauck stood in front of a baby blue canvas and slipped on two pairs of gloves. It was announced that she would be creating a piece in just four minutes.
As the music began, Mauck began brushing light pink streaks on the contrasting canvas. As the background music built, Mauck abandoned the brushes for her gloved hands and started throwing dark blues lines around her pink streaks. Soon, to the surprise of the audience, a horse began to emerge on the canvas. After her four minutes was complete, Mauck had created a stunning piece of colorful and intriguing artwork.
The Porterville Art Association is working towards creating youth art programs and is hoping fundraisers like A Night to Remember will help them.
“The art association has for a period of a few years not gone through the trouble to do a major fundraiser, but we want to spend money on youth programs,” stated Bill Tungate, a member of the Porterville Art Association.
Tungate also expressed that a percentage of the money raised will go towards bills, but ultimately they want funding for programs that involve the youth around the community.
“This is the first one in a progression of fundraisers that we are looking at doing,” stated Tungate. “It’s an ongoing thing so hopefully we can get ourselves into a groove of doing this to continue to bring in money.”