Town Talk: An ill wind eventually blew Arts Umbrella much good

HIGHER AND DRIER: Arts Umbrella took a $125,000 bath when wind warnings forced the rescheduling of its annual art auction, fittingly named Splash. The arts organization for youngsters didn’t want 600 supporters to contribute $430,000 in a tent that might blow away. Three weeks later, Splash occupied a windproof Hotel Vancouver ballroom, leaving event chairs Jeffrey Merrick and Beverley Steinhoff, AU chair Michael Lee and president-CEO Paul Larocque to mop up that six-figure puddle. That done, they reported a record net of $430,000. Hank Bull and Bruce Munro auctioneered in the refreshingly professional and profitable style of longtime predecessor Barry Scott, who was recognized in a bursary-providing $70,000 legacy fund. As usual, Splash welcomed and respected many of the artists and galleries who donated auctionable works.

Arts Umbrella chair Michael Lee and president Paul Larocque opened the Splash art auction backed by a $17,000 Bobbie Burgers painting.

DOG’S LIFE: One Splash artist, Kendal Kendrick, accompanied personal partner Dr. Mike Higgins. He’s a neuro-surgeon at a local private health care facility with 100 staff, its own CT-scan and MRI equipment, a reference laboratory and pacemaker-placement capability. Nothing to do with Dr. Brian Day’s Cambie Surgery Centre, though. Dr. Higgins practices at Canada West Veterinary Specialists, where our nation’s reportedly first canine open-heart surgery procedure took place recently.

Veterinary neuro-surgeon Mike Higgins feted personal partner Kendal Kendrick on her painting, Vivid, that matched the Splash auction’s theme.

CARE FOR CARING: The VGH UBC Hospital Foundations’s annual Night of a Thousand Stars gala is its own hardest act to follow. Still, it came close to last year’s $3.3-million recently. Co-chairs Devi Sangara and Nancey Nanji welcomed guests to a convention centre ballroom where they contributed $3.05 million to support the hospitals, GF Strong Rehab Centre, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and Vancouver Community Health Services.

Allegra Chamber Orchestra’s Molly MacKinnon and Janna Sailor played as co-chair Devi Sangara and MC Chris Gailus opened VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation’s $3.05-million Night of a Thousand Stars gala.

TURN HER LOOSE: With ecumenical verve, Mennonite singer-violinist Rosemary Siemens performed in Canadian Memorial United Church recently en route to her and pianist Roy Tan’s third appearance in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica. More ecumenically still, she and Tan once performed at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Largo mansion. Back at the church, Siemens belted out the country-charted single Barefoot ‘n’ Bling — “Singing on a tractor, that’s her thing” — and other songs from the Plum Coulee My Home album that honours her Manitoba birthplace. Veteran musicians applauding Siemens included the 1979-founded Loverboy band’s Mike Reno who left early the following day for a gig in Galveston, Texas.

Launching her Plum Coulee My Home album prior to a Vatican gig, Rosemary Siemens received Loverboy singer Mike Reno’s endorsement.

IN HER CLUTCHES: Greeting-card maker and self-proclaimed Paper Queen Annabel St. John has been travelling, too. “But you know I can’t sit still,” she said of a two-month visit to husband Bruce, then on contract in Shanghai. So she designed what she calls the Ultimate Clutch (thepaperqueen.com/products/the-ultimate-clutch) as the $125 Swiss Army Knife of women’s purses. She added fluffy pompoms sourced on a Rome buying trip for her cashmere-totes-and jewelry line, Queen & Grace. St. John should have heeded the Shanghai manufacturers’ advice to order 500 rather than 200 clutches, of which 100 sold on their debut day. At least, she could offer regrets cards to customers left … uh, holding the bag.

TRUMP JUMPERS: Refugee Democrats heading north might feel right at home in Clinton, B.C., where an updated five-bedroom, three-bathroom home with three-car garage on a half-acre would cost them US$171,750.

LUCKY EIGHT: “Let’s bet this gala will play again,” this column noted in 2009 when the South Asian community’s debut Night of Miracles raised $78,606 for the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation. It sure did play again. Founding chair Robin Dhir said the recent running generated $483,000 for an eight-year total of $4.7 million. The latest sum will help fund equipment for respiratory care. Meanwhile, Twin Brook Developments president Dhir will take a breather. “This is my last year as chair,” he said at the always-sold-out event. “But, you know what, I’ll be back again every year.” The foundation may count on that — literally.

After eight times chairing the Night of Miracles gala he founded and that has raised $4.7 million, Robin Dhir told wife Rena he’ll take a break.

MODERN AS TOMORROW: Photographic artist Dina Goldstein opened her Modern Girl exhibition (dinagoldstein.com/modern-girl/) in Paris’s Galerie Virginie Barrou Planquart Nov. 10. By reinterpreting idealized posters of women in 1930s China, it may illustrate the cultural dualism young Asians can face today. The series follows Goldstein’s In The Dollhouse (real-life Barbie and Ken’s marriage crumbles) and Gods of Suburbia (classical religious characters in today’s settings), As for dualism, had she been born Dean rather than Dina, Ms. Goldstein might rank with our town’s globally feted male photo-artists.

Photo-artist Dina Goldstein, here with an earlier work, is showing her new Modern Girl series in Paris’s Galerie Virginie Barrou Planquart.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
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Still mourning wife Elisa, Luigi Aquilini greeted former police chief Jim Chu, now an executive with the development group he founded.

Temporarily tattooed gallerist Jennifer Winsor congratulated Shannon Belkin on the equine paintings to which global collectors gallop.