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Support to the Max for local art education

By Times Staff
Published November 27, 2005

Pop art icon Peter Max was the star at a series of fundraising events for children's art education throughout the Tampa Bay area last weekend. The draw: Wendy LaTorre's "Imagine for Kids" benefits for St. Petersburg's Museum of Fine Arts, the Arts Center and Soulful Arts Dance Academy.

LaTorre co-directed a gala for art education programs last year in connection with the Dale Chihuly glass exhibition at the museum and met Max through Big3 Records project manager Johnny Green, who has been friends with him since the1970s. The artist supported that effort and suggested something bigger next time. His work is being shown at the Arts Center and the museum. He was the featured guest at a Nov. 18 Tampa party, a Nov. 19 museum gala and a Nov. 20 gallery talk.

Contributions totaled nearly $390,000 early last week, LaTorre said. That doesn't count income arts organizations hope to raise in January, when Max returns to St. Petersburg for a sale of his work.

Speaking of imagination, "Party to the Max" at the museum inspired many attendees to dress in 1960s attire, appropriate because the museum is celebrating its 40th anniversary and because some of Max's art - and "Art, Love and Life in the Village: Weegee's Wild New York," an exhibition of black-and-white photographs - hark back to that era.

Bouffant hair, bell-bottoms, beads, peace signs, tie-dye shirts and colored eyeglasses were de rigueur for the evening.

Kathryn Howd wore her mother's vintage Marimekko, and Roger Zeh wore a remarkable brown plaid suit he admitted having purchased all those years ago.

Paulette Walker Johnson, Soulful Arts' co-founder and artistic director, was amazing in an acid-green vinyl mini-dress and a cloudlike Afro wig. Her students Michelle Methot, Courtney Corrica, Christina Perez, Rosie Stovall, Amanda Saylor, Lauren Hamilton and Alexis Williams wore DayGlo costumes and danced the Twist, the Pony and other favorites of the era.

Gary and Gail Damkoehler and Stuart and Kelly Lasher bid $25,000 per couple to commission personal portraits from Max; and the Damkoehlers' and Beth Ann Morean's $14,000 winning bids will pay for big dinners prepared by celebrity chef Robert Irvine.

Bars and serving stations were set up in the museum's gardens, where guests sampled food from Bella Brava, the Blue Heron, Bonefish Grill, Cafe Ponte and Capital Grille.

St. Petersburg's Concept Bait designed the decor, which included colored spotlights, tall fabric columns in an array of patterns and the huge flowers attached to the trees outdoors.

The crowd included the Arts Center's executive director, Evelyn Craft; the Museum of Fine Arts director, John Schloder; Bill LaTorre; Steve and Sonia Raymund; Tim and Anje Bogott; Tom and Darlene Grayson; David and Harriet Dyer; Dr. Lawrence and Carole Merritt; Phil and Michele Farley; Kevin Harrington and Crystal Williams; Court and April James; Edward Rucks; Sally Zeh; Dr. George and Jane Stovall; Louise Weaver; Ray and Joanne Nickel; Ron and Lenne Nicklaus Ball; Winston Ball; Beverly Nicklaus; Joe and Kathy Saunders, with their son, Joey; and Tom and Mary James.

Tom James wowed the crowd with vocals on Johnny B. Goode, joining the New Tropics on stage.

The night before, Stuart and Kelly Lasher hosted sponsors and other patrons at their home in Tampa's Culbreath Isles. Their extensive art collection already contains some Peter Max work. Portraits he painted of Monica and William Raymund and Mary and Tom James were unveiled. Mise en Place catered.

On Sunday, Max gave a gallery talk at the museum, remembering his days at the Art Students League of New York, where he started out as a realist and became friends with Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. In 1964, the Beatles appeared on television's The Ed Sullivan Show; in 1967, Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft starred in The Graduate; and in 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

By then, Max had become known for his pop art, copies of which were ubiquitous in college dorm rooms. By 1971, his extensive product lines included clocks and bed sheets.

The recognition he received was as vast as his product line. "The awards got so big that people knew me more for my product than for my art," he said.

Max took a break from licensing and went into retreat until 1988, continuing to paint and pursue his artistic career.

"Creativity has become the art form for me," he said. "I look at the universe as creation, and all of us as little creators."

"Imagine for Kids" co-directors are Beth Ann Morean and Anje Bogott, helped by Phoebe Ezell, Will Ezell, Tom Gribbin, Darlene Grayson, Kevin Harrington, Jen Holloway, Joanne Leverone, David Newton Dunn, Lenne Nicklaus-Ball, Lyn Orns, Sonia Raymund, Monica Sinclair-Taylor and Carol Upham.

Primary sponsors with the Raymunds and Morean are Bill and Kelly Morean and Raymond James.

A VICTORIAN YULE FEAST: -annual madrigal dinner benefits the Eckerd College concert choir's spring tour. Dining, music, entertainment. 6:15 p.m. Marly Room, Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg. $70. 864-7979. Continues Friday and Saturday.

CHRISTMAS BELLES: Benefits Christmas Toy Shop. 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Rutland-Farley estate. Invitation only.

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL: Special ticket sales to Varekai to benefit Family Resources. Show begins 8 p.m. at Tropicana Field, 1 Tropicana Drive, St. Petersburg, under the blue and yellow Chapiteau. $85. 521-5213.

LIVING LA VIDA LOCA: 14th annual World AIDS Day dinner presented by AIDS Association of Pinellas (ASAP) For AIDS Care Today (F.A.C.T.) Hilton St. Petersburg, 333 First St. S. $90 includes gift bag, VIP pass to party afterward at Suncoast Resort. 328-3268.

--Times staff writer Amy Scherzer contributed to this report. Mary Jane Park can be reached at 727 893-8267; fax (727) 893-8675; e-mail park@sptimes.com P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

[Last modified November 27, 2005, 01:18:21]