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Les Arts! Publié! – The Arts! Posted!

Art, Prizes, Decorations, & Supplies
Art, Prizes, Decorations, & Supplies staging at The Country Inn.

Three days out and we’re closing on on Art & Elegance 2018 – An Evening in Paris! – Une Soirée à Paris! We transported art, prizes, decorations and supplies to The Country Inn in preparation for Saturday Night. There are 1001 details to finish off, but we’re ticking off our lists so all our guests can have an  entertaining and fabulous evening – soirée amusante et fabuleuse!

We also have our programs back from the Morgan Messenger’s Printing service and they are gorgeous.  Todd and the staff there are straight up awesome. And we now have our Raffles, Silent Auction Items and Prizes posted here on the site.

Enchère Silencieuse
Silent Auction

Please take the time to view this evening’s excellent array
of Silent Auction items and place your bids on the
accompanying sheets. The auction will close at 8:30 p.m. and
winners will be announced shortly after.

Artiste en Vedette Vente  aux Enchères en Direct
Featured Artist Live Auction

This year’s Live Auction will feature “A MAC Evening in Paris” – an original painting by local artist Jonathan Heath specifically commissioned by MAC to commemorate this year’s event. Bid vigorously to take home this one-of-a-kind keepsake!

Le Premier Tombala
Prime Raffle

Frames print of our signature image

Take a look at our trio of Premier Raffle Items  and purchase as many raffle tickets as you like from our volunteers for your chance to win one (or more) of these three outstanding Art & Experiences Raffle items.

Please be sure to write your name on the reverse of each ticket
and give them to the attendant at the raffle table.

Les Prix de “Pop” Ballons d’art
“Pop” Art Balloon Prizes!

Buy a balloon ticket, pop a balloon, and collect the art or experience prize inside! Guaranteed value of $25 or greater. Tickets are $20 per balloon.

See you Saturday Night!

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Pulling the Catalog Together

Building the AE 2018 Program Screen shot
Screen shot of the AE 2018 Program in progress in Adobe Indesign.

One of the high points of the event, and often a treasured keepsake is the Art and Elegance Event Program. The central feature of the program is the Raffle, Auction and Prize catalog – featuring all of the amazing Artwork and fabulous Experience Prizes donated by regional artists and local businesses.

Tired A&E Committee hard at work.
A tired A&E Committee – hard at work.

We’ve just finished cataloging the haul, and finished Art and Prize photography this past Thursday, and the committee took on the finicky work of assigning Art and Prizes to the Raffle, Silent Auction and our “Pop” Art Balloon Prizes. Captive graphic designer (and webmaster) Kurt Griffith has been squirreling away over the weekend putting the Program and Catalog together to get it to press in time for the event on Saturday. Adobe Indesign – a truly professional tool – makes it easier to pull together, but there are 1001 details to hunt down, verify, and proof, but it’s almost ready to go. We also have to compose ads, touch-up lists, gather acknowledgements, and all the things. By necessity, this publication has to be pulled together at nearly the last possible second to get everything in.

But the hard work and hustling has paid off brilliantly. This year we have an amazing “surprise” painting by Featured Artist Jonathan Heath for the live auction that we’re sure will surprise, delight, and even startle some of our patrons, and three very awesome Prime Raffle Items, incluing a delicious print of our stunning 2018 signature image. We have an additional 66 Items available in the Silent Auction, and still another 52 “Pop” Art Balloon Prizes. So we’re looking forward to a fun night of getting a lot of art out there!

Once we get the Program out to press, and working around Kurt’s actual day job of being a Professional Designer, we’ll try to get the Catalog of Art and Prizes posted online here!

 

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Gathering the Art & Prizes

Collecting the Art and Prizes for photography and cataloging at MAC.

The Committee has been busy! Among all the other 1001 things, we’ve been collecting artwork and prizes. Over the past two weeks, we’ve been photographing and cataloging the wonderful stuff people have been donating to this year’s event. Among the tasks for the “jury” is deciding what will be Raffles, go into the Silent Auction, or become delightful Art & Experience Prizes.

We also have a couple of nifty surprises that we can’t quite talk about yet. But we can say that it’s very fun, very Paris, and very Berkley Springs. But we can say that it involved this yea’s featured artist Jonathan Heath of Heath Studios.

Frames print of our signature image
Parisian Night – 16×20 framed print by Aja Trier.

However, we can talk about this. Just back from the framers is a gorgeous print of our signature image for 2018,  Parisan Night by Aja Trier of Sagittarius Gallery in Scotia, NY. Much of her work is inspired by modern interpretations of quintessential impressionist Vincent Van Gogh. This lovely piece, will either be a raffle or silent auction item. It can be yours!

We‘re hoping to post the entire collection of Art and Prizes online as we get everything catalogued!

 

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Online Sponsorships Available

You can now purchase A&E Sponsorships Online as well as buy tickets using MAC’s secure PayPal service.

If you have any questions about being an  2018 Art & Elegance Sponsor, please Contact Us!

If you are unable to attend the event, please consider making a donation in support of MAC. When you donate $100 or more, you will be listed as a Patron in the event program! Thank you for your continued support- we look forward to seeing you for an evening you won’t soon forget!  Make a Donation to MAC.

For further information, or if you are interested in participating in this year’s event or helping out in any way, please Contact MAC Ice House at 304-258-2300. In is never too soon to bring us Artist Donations and Experience Prizes. We will, as always, have a need for volunteers to help the night of the event.

 Purchase A&E Sponsorships

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Thank You to Our Early Sponsors!

Arc de triomphe

The success of Art & Elegance is truly and mightily propelled by our amazing sponsors. We are particularly grateful to this year’s early Sponsors, many of who generously contribute year after year.  Our Sponsors come through for us, and contribute so much. Thank you so very much, it is deeply appreciated! But we still need your help!  Please consider becoming a patron of the arts and sponsoring Art & Elegance. Or if you know a generous soul or company willing to help, please send them our way!

If you would like to be an 2018 Art & Elegance Sponsor, please Contact Us!

Our most heartfelt gratitude goes out to our early 2018 Sponsors:

Eiffel Tower ($3,000)
Norberta Schoene & Bill Lands

Notre Dame ($2,000)
JC & Judy Fisher
CNB
The Country Inn

Arc de Triomphe ($1,000)
David & Joan Fleming Smith
Jane McCloud
Peter & Karen Brown

Louvre Patron ($100+)
Luella Andrews
James & Denise Selby
Yerner & Brenda Erozan
Sheetz Corporation
Helsey-Johnson funeral Home
Luke Christie
Bob & Pat Marggraf

 

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Jewell Ball Video

Check out the 2017 festivities at the Morgan Arts Council’s annual Art & Elegance fundraiser, The Jewell Ball – featuring the auctioning of a fabulous Ruby Necklace by local artist Abby Porter, fetchingly showcased by Middle Eastern Dancer Jensuya. November 11, 2018. Robert and Jenifer Peak created a fabulous video of the Extravaganza.

If you weren’t there, check out what you’re missing!

Video produced by Robert Peak – www.robert-peak.com

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Art & Elegance 2018 – We’re Off!

Well, we had a wonderful well-earned winter off after the wonderful 2017 event. Now we’re busily brainstorming the next Art&Elegance. And we’ve gotten our date and theme together, we’ll be back on Saturday November, 10, 2018, and with the romantic and evocative theme “An Evening in Paris.”

So save the date, and watch for changes and updates on here on the site, and on Facebook.

Merci, Bonjour!

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A Marvelous Event!

It’s the night after 2017’s Art & Elegance, and I’d like to share with you a few first impressions from A&E Committee Co-Chair Karen Brown.

What a great event!

Thank you all so much for all the hard work you did, and for helping to make the evening not only beautiful with outstanding and glamorous decor but also a resounding success with the fund raising efforts!

We had a sold out house, with over 100 guests, and good support from sponsorships. A huge success by any measure! The contributing artists should be very proud that their donations of original art raised a record breaking amount in support of the Ice House.

All of our wonderful volunteers helped to bring our vision to fruition, and we couldn’t have done it without their generous support – please make sure to thank them personally when you see them!

We have one more party to pull off on December 1 (all our contributing artists stay tuned!) – I hope to see you all there, where we can raise a toast to the success of our efforts. I have included a nice comment from the former A & E chair, Bob Margraff, below.

Thank you, thank you, thank you – fabulous work!! It is amazing what we can do when we pool our energies toward a common goal!

Karen


“Absolutely wonderful event. Please express our thanks to all involved. You continue to raise the bar on a great annual event.”

Bob & Pat Marggraf

A huge Thank You goes out to our Artists, Sponsors, Guests, Performers, Volunteers and the A&E Committee for making the night a success! We are mighty!

More to come!

 

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Home Stretch!

This will be our last news post before the actual event, yes, tomorrow. So a flurry of activity to get everything ready for tomorrow night’s festivities. So here’s a little look “backstage” at what it takes to get an event as complex as Art & Elegance together. Two days out and we’re busy preparing decorations, seating, gathering the prizes and artwork, coordinating with the Country Inn, prepping the program and updating this website.  The thousand and One things that will make a fabulous event! And of course – what will we wear???

Have a last look at out Auction and Raffle artwork and prizes – and we have some surprises for you too!

We hope to have an update right after the event – and we expect to have some fun stuff that we’re putting together to share with you all. That’s all for now, have to nick off and help out with the preparations.

See you Saturday!

Images: Top–What it takes to keeping the… ideas… flowing. Center Left–putting together last items. Center Right–the Committee pulls together all the final details. Bottom–Our captive designer (that would be me) working on the Web Site and Program. Click any image to make biggy!.