Friday, January 7, 2022. Snow has been in the forecast for the past two days. In fact, it’s been in the forecast since New Year’s Day. Or maybe before. Otherwise the weather in New York is cold but not too and sunny during the day and dark at night. The snow forecasts is just a way for the weatherman to get us to look. What we’re all really looking for is some version of “change.”
There’ll be a change in the weather;
And a change in the sea
From now on there’ll be a change in me;
My walk will be different, my talk and my name —
Nothin’ about me gonna be the same
I couldn’t resist it. Sometimes I get a lyric in my head just to change where my head is at (or obsessing about). The lyrics of the last century tell you a lot about where our heads were at. It was often not realistic, but it did the trick to our heads. I don’t know about the 21st century lyrics … are those lyrics? I don’t ask critically; time is change.
So what I’m saying is maybe we won’t see snow this time. And maybe we will. The weatherman is holding out for late late early tomorrow morning 1-2” (was “4” to “6”). It’s all part of the experience of Everything Changes.
The song is ended but the melody lingers on … Then there are the writers and the artists. Artist categories include the arts. Like, for example, photography. Tomorrow down in Palm Beach at TW Fine Art they are hosting a VIP reception for their first show of the season: Rose Hartman: Femme Fatale.
For those unaware, Rose Hartman is a New York based mainly fashion photographer. The TW Fine Art show is a collection of photographs she’s taken over the past four decades. I don’t know Rose although we’ve been in the same rooms at the same time over the years, so in a way I do know her as a presence with a camera. Frankly until I saw part of the collection, I had no idea what a powerful image she manages to capture with her lenses. A love of New York nightlife — again another example of Time and Change.
From Grace Jones to Warhol to Basquiat going back to Studio 54 and Bianca Jagger riding a white horse entering during her birthday celebration there, some of the highlights in this collection include Kate Moss, Jerry Hall, Betsey Johnson, Angeleen, Daphne Guinness; just a handful of never-before-exhibited images. Hartman’s love for photographing nightlife and a “blend of aesthetics and debauchery are a common thread of her work from the 1970s through the 1990s.”
The exhibit opens this coming Sunday, January 9th and will be open to the public through February 12th. If you’re anywhere in the area, don’t miss it because Rose’s work is both beautiful and compelling.
TW Fine Art – Palm Beach Outpost
258 Worth Avenue, Suite 214
Palm Beach 33480
Then a moment just passed in Belvedere, California Gretchen Kimball and Connie Wiley hosted a book party for Jesse Kornbluth and Paige Peterson’s gently abridged, lavishly illustrated edition of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.
This is not the first edition to be abridged. Dickens cut it in half when he performed it … and he performed it 127 times. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print since it was first published 179 years ago in 1843.
Kornbluth and Peterson stand on Dickens’ shoulders in thanks to Gretchen Kimball’s generosity which financed the publishing. The Kornbluth/Peterson version is made to appeal to children hearing their first tales that they will one day read again.
Buy the book here.
Meanwhile; catching up with the calendar, Lighthouse Guild kicked off its 13th season in Palm Beach with an elegant Holiday Tea on December 14th, hosted by Jennifer and The Honorable David Fischer at their lakefront home. The Fischers will be honored at the upcoming Annual Visionary Evening Dinner on February 20th at Club Colette.
At a Lighthouse Guild event, Mrs. Fischer experienced a demonstration of OrCam MyEye Pro, a visual device she said “could change the world for people who are blind or have low vision.”
She then introduced Dr. Calvin Roberts, Lighthouse Guild’s President and CEO and a clinical professor of ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. A proponent of technology and its myriad uses, Dr. Roberts said Lighthouse Guild is the world leader in assisted technology when it comes to visual impairment — and that the small, wireless OrCam camera, which clips onto the arm of any pair of eyeglasses, enables individuals who are blind or have low vision to “read” newspapers, recognize people and even decipher money.
Dr. Roberts fielded audience questions and said he looked forward to seeing everyone at the Visionary Dinner. Festivities will continue on January 18th, at a by-invitation cocktail reception hosted by Findlay Galleries on Worth Avenue.
Harking back to November 17th just as the holidays were taking over the calendar, The Pratt Institute hosted the Pratt 2021 Design Symposium: Reinventing Luxury at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Award-winning fragrance packaging designer Marc Rosen conceived of the annual symposium. The objective was to bring together the brightest minds in the fields of design, fashion, and architecture to address the big topics about the future of design.
The event was part of the year’s edition of NYCxDESIGN’s internationally renowned Annual Design Festival showcase, made possible through the Marc Rosen Education Fund with additional funding by the Terian Foundation.
Moderated by Marc, this year’s explored how to reinvent luxury for a new generation of consumers who seek brands that emphasize diversity accessibility, inclusion, sustainability, environmental responsibility and experiential design.
The evening began with series of presentations from a panel of industry experts including: Chris Bangle, the maverick car designer and former American Chief of Design for BMW Group; Kevin Marshall, Microsoft’s Creative Director of Global Packaging and Content; Christopher Olshan, CEO and CMO of The Luxury Marketing Council, and founder of its Millennial division; and Eleonora Paulsen, President of Gruppo Italia, a consortium of Italian factories producing furnishings and millwork for customized projects within the luxury arena.
Best known as a designer of luxury fragrance packs for big brand names like Karl Lagerfeld, Halston, Fendi, Elizabeth Arden, and Estee Lauder, Rosen is also an alumnus and Trustee Emeritus of Pratt, where he teaches the world’s only course on cosmetics and fragrance packaging design. Not only dedicated to supporting future generations of designers through teaching, but also through philanthropy, he founded the Marc Rosen Scholarship Fund for Packaging by Design at Pratt, which provides two full-tuition scholarships annually to master’s degree-level students looking to pursue careers in cosmetics and packaging design.
And then, an idea from way out West, Guests of the 47th annual Candlelight Concert were whisked away to the Italian countryside sans a long flight on Tuesday, November 30 for the charity gala of the year.
After a year of uncertainty, guests filled the halls with laughter, enjoyed live entertainment, while Tuscany was brought to them. Guests arrived to a red-carpet entrance walking into an Italian villa entrance that warmly welcomed them into the evening complete with Live Italian statues, beautiful florals, and topiary trees.
On stage, screens surrounded by archways inspired by Italian architecture transported guests through different parts of the countryside complete with olive trees to create an intimate space among 450 guests. The evening provided critical funds to benefit Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ artistic programming and education initiatives.
Candlelight Concert Honorary Chair Elizabeth Segerstrom, along with Co-Chairs Britt Meyer and Carol Perry, raised the curtain and brought the tradition, since 1973, back to the Center after a year’s hiatus.
Guests were dazzled by the headliner of the evening, Andrea Bocelli, who stunned guests performing 13 songs including Brindisi, from ‘La Traviata’, Amazing Grace, Can’t Help Falling in Love and more with phenomenal singers Pia Toscano, who sang a special rendition of All By Myself, and opera sensation Maria Aleida. Bocelli brought an incredibly special guest, his nine-year-old daughter Virginia, who accompanied her father onstage and sang Hallelujah dedicated to honorary chair, Elizabeth Segerstrom.
Photographs by Drew Altizer (Dickens); CAPEHART (Lighthouse); Samuel Stuart (Pratt).
