Every spring, for the past fifteen years, I’ve hopped on a plane and flown to New York.  It’s a trip I look forward to each year, with excitement.  Being a somewhat self-absorbed individual, a certain amount of that excitement is in anticipation of the annual birthday celebration thrown in my honor – first at Lot 61, then Bungalow 8 and Bette, and now No.8 – by my sister-from-another-mister, Amy Sacco

But eleven years ago, Amy bestowed an extra special gift upon me; and introduced me to the organization Free Arts for Abused Children (which became Free Arts for Kids, and is now Free Arts NYC), and the incredible art auction they have, each year, where all proceeds benefit the non-profit’s  educational arts mentoring programs for underserved youth and families.

After a few years, I began coordinating my birthday party to coincide with the Free Arts benefit; and after a few more years, the two just seemed to become inexorably linked – which was fine by me, since I was usually inviting the same group(s) of people to join me, at both events (that for the past however-many-years have transpired one-after-the-other on the same night).

And while the benefit has always been a fabulous affair (Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Christian Dior, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, and David Yurman are just some of the event’s presenting sponsors, over these past ten years); the combination of artist Scott Campbell as the honoree, and designer Marc Jacobs as both presenting sponsor and host, seemed to have lit an especially bright spark amongst New York’s social set.

The week of the auction, New York saw rain so heavy that you could just about see Noah navigating his ark down Madison!  Thank heaven for Uber (which, at 3x fares, was no bargain, to be sure).  Anyhow, I was sure the event was done-for, but it was SLAMMED!  As someone who always looks like a sweaty mess, ten minutes after arriving at any affair, I was not-so-secretly delighted that the crowd was nuts-to-butts, full of glamorous guests, who were all as damp and frizzy as me.      

And best of all, they bought.  They bought big!  Under the thoughtful gavel of Alexander Gilkes, many hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised, on the purchase of artwork donated by Scott Campbell, Todd DiCiurcio, Hugo Guinness, Jenny Holzer, Mick Rock, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and me.  And while  the warm-fuzzy feeling that comes from helping others is one that I can’t quantify, I can tell you that I’d do it, just for the privilege of being able to write a sentence that ends with the words “…Mick Rock, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and me.”  (Seriously.  I mean, how awesome is that???)

Free Arts NYC
2014 Art Auction Benefit
Click HERE for info

Get into it!

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