Art Conspiracy, 6/21

The art conspiracy group does it again. At 8pm, Saturday 6/21 at Sons of Hermann Hall they will feature another iteration of SEED with several bands and artists participating. For $5 you can listen to the sounds of Matthew and The Arrogant Sea, Beauxregard, Spector 45 and Pet Hospital.

There will be an artwork auction including some one-0f-a-kind moleskine journals. Since the end of May, 15 artists including Kim Cadmus Owens, Marcus Striplin, David Hopkins, Diane Sikes and Tina Medina have been filling up page after page of Moleskine journals with drawings, paintings, photography, lyrics, observations and more. During the SEED event, the journals will be auctioned along with original work from additional Dallas artists.

Upcoming: Slocum Street

The SLOCUM STREET ANTIQUES AND DESIGN ASSOCIATION and D Home kick-off the 9th annual October Slocum Street Night Walk on Thursday October 4th, beginning at 6pm.

Free to the public, more than 30 showrooms open their doors to share beautiful treasures and indulge guests with food, spirits and live music. Silent auctions at various showrooms and a vacation giveaway all benefit the Dallas County Medical Society Alliance Foundation philanthropies.

Valet parking is available at the entrance to Slocum Street at Hi Line Drive. Guests stroll up and down Slocum Street, which will be closed to vehicle traffic for the evening. Trolley service is also available.

Last year's event was a fabulous time. More details at D Home.

Color for a Cause

While shopping online for those last few holiday accessories and gifts, I found that web shopping search site TheFind is making a donation to Doctors Without Borders of $1 per day for each person who searches for something red. There's over 36,000 items in the search results for "red chair" available and each item's pricing information from many online sellers is included in the results. As a bonus, I've discovered several new selling sites while hunting for a few nifty finds.

Red refrigerators, red lamps, red pillows. The pictured lamp is by Murray Feiss and has a red amber finish to its mod teardrop design. The chairs are both models, one a Vitra miniature of a 1918 Rietveld piece, the other a resin dollhouse version.

TheFind has committed to a $10,000 donation to the humanitarian organization this holiday season as a way of announcing its new "seach by color" option. Don't like red? After you click to donate, try "charcoal modern" on for size.

Art Conspiracy

I'm not sure what it is about artists and crime-themed benefits. First the Art Heist (see prior entry) and now the Art Conspiracy. December 1st marks the second annual fundraiser event at the Longhorn Ballroom.

For at $10 admission price, one can enjoy the works of local artists and 6 featured bands (The Happy Bullets, Fishboy, Salim Nourallah, John Holiday, and Peter Schmidt and His Gentlemen Scholars) while benefitting La Reunion, an artists' residency program in Oak Cliff. There will be an auction of the original art pieces while the bands rock the historic Longhorn Ballroom (see details).

Where does the artwork come from? At 7 a.m. November 30th, 150 empty canvases will be placed throughout the historic Longhorn Ballroom. Dallas artists will take shifts filling as many of the canvases as possible in a 24 hour period. At 7 p.m. December 1st, 2006, doors will open to the public and pieces will be auctioned off with starting prices of $20 per canvas. The event was staged for the first time last year. 850 people attended and the auction of 100 canvases raised more than $10,000 for The Children's Health Fund. The Conspiracy has additional details of the event on their MySpace page.

"Goods to Go' Benefit Sample Sale

Borrowed from the Frontburner blog....

Holiday shopping or need a new rug for your home? The Dallas Market Center will host Goods to Go this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Market Hall. Translation: current designer goods at wholesale prices.

The sale will feature over 300 booths and offers the public merchandise including apparel, toys, gifts, home décor and jewelry -- all at wholesale savings. Admission to the sale is $8.00 and is valid for all three days. Hours are 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Noon – 5 p.m. Sunday. Added bonus: a portion of the proceeds from Goods to Go will benefit Gift for Life and DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS). Shop for less and do some good. Sounds good to us.

The official press release is here, and the ad is here.

Dragon Street Sip and Stroll

Looking for another shot of Design District ambiance? The Dragon Street Association of shops, galleries, and showrooms will give October's Slocom Street Style event a run for its buck. The event, hosted by and Modern Luxury Dallas magazine, will feature works from over fifteen artists in addition to ongoing exhibitions at various galleries.

"Tour 24 of the hottest art, antique and design showrooms in Dallas while sipping Spanish wine from Freixenet and Osborne. Look Good! Strike HD will be on hand creating a documentary of the event in high-definition video. A portion of the evening's sales will benefit the Meadows Museum and the Dallas Architecture Forum"

Twenty-five nationally- and locally-created Art Bulls for Charity wil be featured along the street, which will be closed to traffic to allow for better sauntering and exploation. The bulls are embellished by a mixture of celebrities and local artists, and the sale of the locally-created bulls (here's an example from Sara Hickman) and other commemorative pieces benefits the North Texas Food Bank and Share our Strength. The Art Bulls fundraiser is a venture of the wine and spirits company Gruop Osborne, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of their black bull logo.

The Sip & Stroll is Friday, November 3rd, 6-9pm.
Al*so gallery, 1425 Dragon St, Dallas 214-744-0173
Contact rsvpdallas@modernluxury.com

Visit the Rachofsky House (for charity)

Modern art and design pieces for a good cause? A special "in" to see a famous Dallas modern home? It's time for the next installment of the Two by Two benefit and auction! Since its inception, the event has raised over $10 million. Two by Two is holding its eight-annual fundraiser for amfAR and the Dallas Museum of Art. The gala weekend of events is one of the DFW area's largest AIDS research charitable events. The auction features art and design pieces from a mixture of notorious artists. A fulLed off with an invitation-only preview party on Tuesday October 24th, the week proceeds through to Thursday's First Look, a "fashion forward, music filled and culinary delightful evening." Both events take place in the Rachofsky House, known to most as the eye-catching modern Richard Meier edifice on Preston Road. The $150 per ticket black tie event (tickets still available) features entertainment and the first opportunity to bid on silent auction pieces. There's also an after party at Ghost Bar at the W. The (sold-out) dinner benefit and auction is held on Saturday night. If you'd rather just visit the house, tours are given by appointment on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Or you could keep rubbernecking while driving down Preston.

Slocum Street Style, Oct 5

Let me acknowledge that Slocum Street is known for antiques, and that most of them do not at first glance fit a modern Dallas design aesthetic. But eclectic looks, blending across eras to combine well-loved, aged pieces and crisp modern lines, are being featured more and more. And modern design, in my opinion, should encompass good design elements regardless of age or provenance in order to establish unique and polished, personalized spaces. These carved marble candlesticks by Paul Mathieu (featured at Odegard) would sit nicely next to a Womb chair.

On Thursday October 5th, Slocum Street gets shut down and antique and design-loving Dallasites get the run of the district. The event is sponsored by D Home and and the Slocum Street Antique & Design Association. Between 6pm and 10pm, Slocum Street will be closed to traffic and trolley cars will shuttle event attendees among over 33 showrooms that line the street. Silent auction items will be offered at various stops. The nibbling, sipping and shopping benefits the Dallas County Medical Society Alliance Foundation.

Art Heist, September 30th

The Emergency Artists' Support League (EASL) is sponsoring the Art Heist fundraiser tomorrow night. The evening of cocktails and hors d'oevres and sale of special "loot bags" is capped with a snatch-n-grab. Attendee "thiefs" each get a minute to select one of 150 donated works of art. "Witness" tickets are available for $25, while "thief" tickets that guarantee taking home an original art work are $200. A number of contributing artists will be in attendance.

EASL was founded in 1992 with the mission of providing urgent assistance (both monetary grants and volunteer professional services) to North Texas artists experiencing medical emergencies or other catastrophes. Since its founding, the organization has granted over $250,000 to over 100 individuals in times of dire need and has helped artists negotiate payment schedules for what would be overwhelming medical debt. Examples of aid are varied, but they share the sense of relief and support granted to the artists thanks to EASL's assistance.