The first annual Point Suite Ball glittered tonight, a diamond enclosed in a rough shell, and the sheer fantasy of the scene rendered perfect for an artist’s bash. Guests wrapped in liquid satins, tiered silks, gauzy chiffons, glittering brooches and stone-studded sandals danced before the stark white walls like rotating brushstrokes, principal dancers in this evening’s live installation. The Point Suite Art Book, a professionally bound folio of emerging and established artistic talent, was to be born of this evening’s fundraising efforts. Our hostess was a young artist herself, who saw that deserving voices within the community were being lost amidst the more financially-endowed mouthpieces of our creative generation.
Annika Connor is a petite blonde with eyes that betray internal excitement and joie de vivre. Tonight, she was drenched in champagne colored satin and glittering jewelry; her finely beaded train cut a fine line through the tittering crowd. Annika is at once an artist and an entrepreneur, a rare hybrid of creativity and calculation. Both the ball and the book were financed solely from Annika’s art sales and a number of exhaustively sought after, and rather small, private grants. As I scanned the seamless scene, glamorous in its simplicity I decided that only a young woman truly adept at social networking, imbued with clarity of thought and indefatigably constant in conviction could have pulled this off.
“I wanted to showcase new and emerging artistic talent in a professional format,” Annika explained. “For so long, the art world was closed to anyone not looking to make a quick dollar, to anyone not involved in what I call ‘the prostitution of painting.’ Don’t get me wrong, everyone wants to sell their art, but the Point Suite Book is designed to bring variety to the scene. There are about forty international artists showcased in the first edition. I sourced them by word of mouth, people I knew from my time in London; some are represented, some aren’t.”
Go to Scallywag’s Photo Gallery.
