Pasadena Art Alliance Fundraising

On Saturday evening, May 5, 2012, Pasadena Art Alliance will hold its sixteenth biennial art auction, ARTrageous, and our Honoree is Jay Belloli, retired director of Gallery Programs, Amory for the Arts. This legendary evening, to be held at the historic California Club in downtown Los Angeles, will be filled with wonderful contemporary art and sculpture plus the unexpected. There will be approximately 100 works of art donated by some of southern California’s most electrifying, emerging and established artists.

REASON FOR THE FUNDRAISER:
Since 1955 The Art Alliance has been a major force in supporting contemporary visual arts throughout the greater Southern California area. In our 56 year history of funding projects and institutions that make a difference in our society, PAA has raised almost $4,000,000 to provide grants for non-profit art organizations. Through our grants program we have provided opportunities for artists and art organizations to push their limits and stretch their imaginations. For information, email pasartalliance@sbcglobal.net

From its early beginnings at the Pasadena Art Museum, to later auctions at Rosemont Pavillion, Caltech’s Athenaeum, and the Art Center College of Design, the Biennial Art Auction has been an enormously successful way to raise funds to support the mission of the Art Alliance.

Publishing
Between 1975 and 1994, the Pasadena Art Alliance called upon the publishing world to assist its fund-raising efforts through the creation of six little books. An ardent supporter of this involvement was the late Los Angeles Times columnist, Jack Smith. It seems fitting to let his words describe this Art Alliance venture:

“A couple of years ago the women of the Pasadena Art Alliance brainstormed a collection of household hints and sage quotations, had it printed and bound into a fat little paperback called All Things Wise and Wonderful, and astonished them-selves by selling 70,000 copies. Now, hoping that lightning will strike twice, since they can explain their success only as a miracle, they have brainstormed a sequel called To Talk of Many Things.

As I thumb through the small pages…each with a brief message, I think how entertaining it would be to be married to one of its authors, to come home from a dull day at the office to find her hanging mothballs on the peach tree.

‘To fight aphids in peach trees, hang mothballs from branches, while having a highball.’

Wish You Were Here is a collection of travel hints, with some especially good stuff on what to take and how to pack…’put clothes on bed and money on table – take half the clothes and twice the money.’ This may be the best advice in the book.

From Wives’ Tales: Some Old, Some New, Some Borrowed, Some True, ‘When a friend moves to a new house it is good luck to send a loaf of bread and a new broom before you come to visit.’ This is not identified as an old wives’ tale, so I assume it is a practice current among the young matrons of Pasadena. It seems to me, though, that if I had moved in, and a loaf of bread and a broom were delivered to my door, I’d move right out.

But of course the book isn’t just for Pasadena women. Most of its advice is universal in application. ‘A glass of ice water before meals fills the stomach, quenches the thirst and helps prevent overindulgence.’ (I’ve been doing this for years, though I use white wine instead of water.)”

These six little books, currently out of print, raised over $500,000 for contemporary visual art.

Treasure Sales
Imagine skimming the cream of the crop from everyone’s attic. That’s what happened fifty years ago when Art Alliance womeninitiated the first Treasure Sale to support the Pasadena Art Museum. Touted as “the Tiffany of all garage sales” by a newspaper columnist, the sales added immeasurably to the coffers. Members worked together collecting, appraising, pricing and creatively displaying a vast array of donated items. According to one, “we were our own best customers in those days.”

Antiques, furniture, china, glassware, silver and appliances were the mainstays of the sales. Often, surprising and unusual items surfaced. A 1980 newspaper column began, “You say you’re looking for Haviland china, a water jug, a1902 negligee and a cabinet from a Scottish watch-maker’s shop? And you fear it will be a long search? Fear not. All those treasures will be in the Pasadena Art Alliance Treasure House when it opens for one-stop shopping…”

The first Treasure Sale of things-you-didn’t-know-you-needed- until-you-saw-them was staged in 1955 at the old Pasadena Art Museum. The last to be held there was a three-day event in 1970 which netted $106,845. Later sales have been held in mansions, the Armory Northwest, vacant office spaces and a store front.

The detailed work, the endless efforts, the laughs, were exhausting fun. And the fact that the Treasure Sales over the past 50 years raised over $1,200,000 meant that $1,200,000 was given to contemporary art projects.

Art Auctions
Board minutes before the first auction in 1966 record the appointment of a “Chief Procuress, heading a team of Art Alliance ladies who would approach art dealers for contributions.” The same method works today, as teams of now very experienced “procurers” enlist the support and appeal to the generosity of artists and art dealers who know and love the Art Alliance. They are partners-in-art, and together have created an amazingly successful way to raise money for the arts.