I was extremely happy with how last nights event went. The cocktail party with all the amazing chefs and food made the packed house very happy, and Ruth Reichl and Art For Animals founder Elizabeth Hess gave a really nice welcome. The gallery of horse portraits drawn from an AFA school sponsored trip to Equine Advocates was hung on beautiful panels donated by Dennis Wedlick Architects studio.
The concert part was as eclectic as you can imagine and was really great. Tom Davis of Saturday Night Live fame hosted and did a fab job in keeping things moving. I started with a folky blues set and even pulled out of my head a silly song about a dog I wrote when I was 12. I screened a 4 minute clip I made of people's inspirations about animals and some farms I visited. Joy Askew performed a lovely set of haunting songs with Ana Milosovljevic accompanying her on the violin. Lolabelle, Laurie's rat terrier came out with trainer Elizabeth Weiss and did a very funny little set-she's quite the performance artist herself although treats did have something to do with it. Still you can't make a dog do something like play a keyboard if she really didn't want to. Then Laurie came out and gave a very intimate solo performance with compelling pieces about humans and animals.
It was a great night. As it is with any benefit with so many volunteers and time spent, it's a joy to know it was a success and we can now start to plan Rock N Roll Rescue 2011! Thanks to my crew:
stage: Jeff Lee, Michele Steckler, Ema Roberts, Zoe Woefeld and Ben Heyman projection. Runaround crew: Susan Grier, Jorge Vargas-makeup, David Wurth, Jamie Dumont, Geraldine Petrovic-photography. Gallery panels: Marc Bailey, Carly Gresh, Michael Furnari, Derek Poole, and Chris of Bill Stratton Building Co. Spencertown Academy and Mary Anne Lee for tables, projector and projection screen.
Contact AFA if you're interested, volunteer or support their program Model Art: Humane Education through Art in schools. They also provide Shelters with needed funding.