The fun-filled evening featured fine wine, mixed cocktails by Ketel One and delectables prepared and served by local eateries and caterers like Girabaldi’s, Tommy Toys, and the Precita Park Café. Among the evening’s top-selling lots sold during the live-auction session was “Pier Module #16,” a collage, acrylic and oil on wood panel by Catherine Mackey, which exceeded its pre-auction expectation to sell for $3,600. Bidder competition also pushed up the price for an oil-on-canvas painting by Martine Jardel. Her abstract “Site #67” sold for $1,200. That same price was paid for Brian McDonald’s whimsical acrylic and collage on wood panel titled “Blow and Go.”
Eric Zener’s dreamy “Treading Water, Series VII,” a photograph on gold leaf, was of interest to the assembled art collectors. With bidding opening at $800, the work sold for $2,200. An image used as the auction catalog’s cover shot, Ken Probst’s black and white photograph “Tattooed Twins” earned a top bid of $3,300.
Alliance Health Project Director Lori Thoemmes said, “This year we have renamed our organization and expanded our focus to provide mental health services to the broader LGBTQ community, and moved Art for AIDS to a new and larger venue. We’re thrilled to have filled the room with gorgeous art and both new and continuing supporters, resulting in one of the best Art for AIDS auctions ever.”
The event’s silent auction featured paintings, photographs, prints and sculpture, with several garnering stiff bidder competition. The collage and paint cityscape “Modern Ruins – Architecture 6” by Bay Area native Jylian Gustlin brought $1,000; while a comical depiction of robots at play on the Golden Gate Bridge by Eric Joyner sold to a bidder using the “Buy it Now” feature for $900. Another determined bidder, paying $910, also used the “Buy it Now” feature to win a Trish Tunney photo on canvas titled “Hotel.”
Those in attendance also bid on certificates for restaurants, spa treatments, luxury hotels, vineyard tours and other services, all donated by local businesses and individuals. Overheard during the evening, a bidder exclaimed that “Art for AIDS is the only charity auction we regularly attend, always a fantastic event in support of a very good cause.”
Art for AIDS began 16-years ago when several local artists got together in a Noe Valley kitchen and decided to sell their own art to help support friends living with HIV/AIDS. The event has grown over the years and now benefits UCSF’s Alliance Health Project (formerly the AIDS Health Project), serving the community for more than 27-years with free HIV testing, education, counseling, and mental health services. In that time AHP has counseled more than 240,000 people, trained more than 81,000 health professionals, educators and students. Funds raised at Art for AIDS support this important work.
To learn more about the Alliance Health Project, visit www.ucsf-ahp.org.
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