“Raise your hand if you’re an artist. Everybody raise your hand,” Mulberry’s Market owner Chad Olcott said as he emceed the 11th annual Bird House Gala PAINTS hosted in the garden of a lovely Sea View Avenue home on the evening of Friday May 30.
“That’s what art teachers do for us,” Olcott continued, addressing all of the raised hands before him. “They inspire us. We all know our kids need to be exposed to art.”
PAINTS (Promote Art in the Schools, Inc.), a non-profit organization that supports the arts in Piedmont schools, hosts the Bird House Gala every year. The event, consisting of appetizers, champagne, and a live and silent auction, serves as PAINTS’ main fundraiser.
From birdhouses crafted by Piedmont elementary school children to artwork crafted by local artists, guests have a range of donated artwork to bid on, with prices starting as low as $25 and rising as high as $1,000.
“I’ve been involved with the Bird House Gala for over five years and I think this is some of the best art we’ve had,” said President of PAINTS Betsy Lalli.
Lalli bought one of the five pieces of work in the live auction, winning the “fire extinguisher birdhouse” at $800. The “paintbrush birdhouse” went for $1,000.
Piedmont resident Eileen Consorti said that she has been supporting PAINTS ever since her 17-year-old was in kindergarten at Havens. She has been attending the Gala for the last seven years, and has gotten something each time. This year she bid on two paintings by Karen Stanton.
“I think it’s important that kids have crafts,” Consorti said.
Olcott said that art is good for the mind and soul, and kids who do it everyday do better in math and science.
“That’s why in Japan art is mandatory,” Olcott said. “Our kids need art. Less fortunate communities have to cut their art programs; PAINTS is ensuring we can get it.”
Along with other students, AP Art student senior Leslie Zhang volunteered to help PAINTS at the Gala. Wearing a green apron, Zhang walked around with trays of food and answered guests’ questions on how to bid on artwork.
“For the past four years, I’ve been pretty involved in the art community at Piedmont High,” Zhang said. “I think [the Gala] is a really good way for community members to contribute their artwork and also for students to donate work that they’ve done and have the community give back to the schools.”
As part of the Bird House Gala festivities, PAINTS invites the winners of the annual Piedmont High School Leonard J. Waxdeck Bird Calling Contest to share their birdcalls with the guests. After juniors Elliot Gordon and Walter Le Duy, who won third place in the 2014 Contest, performed their Snowy Egret call, Piedmont high alumnus Jim Bowman took the microphone.
As first runner up in the 1978 Bird Calling Contest, Bowman recited the same mating call of the Snowy Egret that he had on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the late seventies.
“It was just a ball,” Bowman said, recalling 1978. “I was a senior and had already gotten into Cal. My older brother and sister did [the Bird Calling Contest], so I did it.”
Bowman said that he supports art because he makes his living off of industrial education, making fine furniture and restoring antiques. It is his second year at the Bird House Gala.
“We had one of our premiere events,” Lalli said. “It was a great night, really nice. The community supports it, everyone helps out, and I had three people come up to me saying that they wanted to join PAINTS.”