ARTS UMBRELLA MAKES BIGGEST SPLASH EVER
Gala-auction event attracts 100 first-rate art donations that helped set new record
BEST OF TIME: The recent Gift of Time gala for the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice reportedly raised a record $1.24 million and pushed its 13-year total beyond $10 million. The funds will go toward the $12 million needed every year to support 715 children and their families at the hospice’s Vancouver and Abbotsford locations. Third-time co-chair Emily Lazare and second-timer Shanni Eckford said tickets sold out in two weeks and $107,000 had been received before 600 guests filled the Bayshore hotel ballroom. Dr. Hal Siden, medical director for 18 years, once mused upon an early career “caring for a lot of kids that I couldn’t cure, but I realized I could still make a difference in their lives.” Canuck Place’s life-threatened youngsters later made a difference in his. “Shooting pucks or baskets with one of the kids, it just feels like a normal kid on a normal day,” he said.
HERE’S CHEERS: Marquis Wine Cellars principal John Clerides helped Gift of Time participants do themselves some good along with Canuck Place. His Enjoy It Now program “gets better wines at the tables without the hotel taking the risk.” He offered attendees 62 bottles ranging from a $60 Nebbiolo 2014 to $625 for 1.5 litres of Il Caberlot Toscana 2008. Thirteen champagnes ran to $375 for a magnum of Philipponnat Royale Reserve. We’ll likely see more of this.
WE NIGHT: One night before We Day festivities occupied Rogers Arena’s usual ice rink, founders Craig and Mark Kielburger dined with local supporters above Lorne and Melita Segal’s swimming pool. Son Matthew Segal knew longer bodies of water as a stroke oarsman at Yale University, where he developed the anonymous messaging app Lipsi. Following Craig’s fundamentalist-preacher-style speech, Matthew thanked the brothers as “the finest exemplars of contemporary leadership.” Pause. “Sorry, Dad.”
In a tête-à-tête with Segal pere, actor-guest Martin Sheen recited a prayer learned from New York Fire Department chaplain Mychal Judge. Sage beyond its religious context, it goes: “Take me where you want me to go, Let me meet who you want me to meet, Tell me what you want me to say and Keep me out of your way.” Four days later, Sheen said, the priest got in harm’s way, perishing in the 9/11 terrorist attack.
GOT YOUR NUMBER: RBC regional president Graham MacLachlan, whose bank partners We Day efforts, pointed to wife Sylvie while addressing Segal event guests. “We’re over at Table 6 with Telus,” he said. “So, if you want an iPhone X, come and see us. And if you can’t afford it, we can help.”
MAKING ONE: Arts Umbrella’s Splash gala-auction has run for 35 of the children’s arts organization’s 38 years. Held in the Hotel Vancouver recently with AU cofounder Carol Henriquez present, Splash reportedly netted a record $540,000. Bruce Munro Wright, partner at MLT Atkins LLP, and Christie Darbyshire, the glamorous-as-ever former Paragon Events principal, co-chaired the TD Bank Group-sponsored event. Known for respecting contributing artists, Splash again drew 100 first-rate donations. Senior artist Hank Bull conducted the 38-lot live auction with the calm authority that non-pros seldom master.
THE NEW BLACK: Splash contributor Marie Khouri’s works — from huge concrete sculptures to delicate lost-wax gold castings — have been all over the artistic map for a decade. Now the petite Lebanon-born artist has actually made a map — of charcoal. Somewhat redolent of the PNE’s longgone Challenger relief model of British Columbia, her 96-by-48by-12-inch work fetched $41,000 — $7,000 above estimate — at the Splash auction.
HORSE SENSE: Shannon Belkin’s 48-by-72-inch painting, Standing Horse, sold for $8,500 at Splash. It was one of the virtual menagerie of works her Southlands homestudio produces. Past paintings included pet bulldog Stinky, while one of an exotic rooster closely echoed then-gallerist Diane Farris’s explosive coif. Still, with global collectors finding her thoroughbred portraits a safe bet, there’ll doubtless be more.
RENEWED: The 30th-annual Vancouver Writers Festival opened with new artistic director Leslie Hurtig, 12-year predecessor Hal Wake and founder Alma Lee all present. “We’re very rich in this city with our literary talent,” said Hurtig, who expects to liaise with other cultural organizations and possibly appoint program guest curators.
TRUER GRIT: Vancouver Sun reporter Kim Bolan likely was bemused when honoured for work that is its own greatest reward. Still, she received her sixth professional recognition at the Jack Webster Foundation’s recent banquet, namely its Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award. Readers and the real and alleged malefactors Bolan covers respect her tenacity and fearlessness that the late Webster would doubtless applaud. She’s also principled, fair and optimistic, the latter despite death threats and an endangered-industry job. Three-decades of trade union convictions didn’t quell her “pride that (reporters) took a pay cut earlier this year to save journalists-tobe.” When five such beginners received $2,000 tuition awards at the banquet, Bolan congratulated them “for choosing this profession; it is honourable.” Like her.