Indian Artists to Be Showcased at Benefit

The “legendary Southwestern spirit” is promised Sept. 14 when the Southwest Museum celebrates the talents of eight contemporary native American artists at a fund-raising dinner.

The innovative work of noted artists Joe Baker, David Bradley, Harry Fonseca, G. Peter Jemison, Dan Namingha, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Randy Lee White and Emmi Whitehorse will be unveiled.

According to benefit chairman Charmay Allred, 15 committee members are putting the finishing touches on the festivities. Opening night guests ($100 per person) will have the opportunity to meet the artists, as well as purchase their work. Later they’ll dine on the museum’s patio under the stars.

Proceeds go to the museum’s general operating fund.

The Hollywood Arts Council and Stephen J. Cannell Productions have joined to co-sponsor A Children’s Festival of the Arts with the Junior Arts Center at Barnsdall Park from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and next Sunday.

The two-day celebration features free arts activities and music, magic, art, drama and film.

Children and their parents will join in the making of an experimental film. Stephen J. Cannell, whose company produces the prime-time TV series “The A-Team,” “Hardcastle and McCormick,” and “Riptide,” will make an appearance. So will film star Billy Dee Williams (“Return of the Jedi”).

Don Preston is writing original music for musical performances. Banjo-man Bill Knoff will be there, and so will the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Engine Hook and Ladder Team.

It’s all part of the fourth annual “Discover Hollywood: A Summer Festival of the Arts” campaign.

Italy’s leading contemporary sculptor, Arnaldo Pomodora, will be honored at a cocktail party by the Fisher Gallery at USC on Sept. 8.

The exhibition is organized by the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. The USC Friends of Fine Arts are helping to support the reception.

The exhibition runs from Sept. 4-Oct. 19.

Some doodle, some don’t. But Katharine Hepburn, Dustin Hoffman and Paul Newman do, and they are among celebrities whose doodles will be auctioned Sept. 14 at a benefit for the Back Alley Theater.

The “Doodle Do on the Green” will be held in Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Berns’ garden at their Spanish Revival estate in Sherman Oaks. It’s a Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Landmark.

Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and Dixieland music precede the auction.

Each original doodle will be framed in lucite. Some are abstracts, some self-caricatures. Doodlers who have contributed their creations include Desi Arnaz, Mayor Tom Bradley, Tim Conway, Dom DeLuise, Phyllis Diller, Terry Donahue, Anthony Franciosa, Jeff Goldblum, Ed Harris, Julie Harris, Chick Hearn, Charlton Heston, Jack Klugman, Ron Liebman, Jessica Walter, Leonard Nimoy, Estelle and Carl Reiner and Lesley Ann Warren.

Doodles chair is Vivian Forbes, and Stanley Lavine is co-chair.

The Back Alley Theater was started in 1979 to produce original plays and works new to Los Angeles.

The gala preview reception Sept. 5 for “Maya--Treasures of an Ancient Civilization” is shaping up at the Natural History Museum.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico John Gavin and his wife, actress Constance Powers, along with Charlton and Lydia Heston have agreed to shine on the host committee.

Craig C. Black, museum director, calls it “the most spectacular exhibition of Mayan art ever assembled.” It will be at the museum Sept. 7-Nov. 10.

The result of historic lending agreements with Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, “Maya” is reported to be equal in artistic importance and cultural significance to the King Tut exhibition. It includes national treasures which have never before left their countries of origin. Acclaimed in April when it opened in New York, the exhibit will have its only West Coast showing at the museum.

On the gala host committee are the Robert S. Attiyehs, the Otis Chandlers, the H. Frederick Christies, the Warren Christophers, the Ed Harrisons, the Joseph J. Pinolas and Mrs. Justin Dart. John Sedlar of St. Estephe restaurant in Manhattan Beach, described by Town and Country as the “best new chef in California,” will create new dishes based on his gourmet expertise and Maya research.

McKinsey & Co., Inc., the international management consulting firm, is helping to sponsor the exhibit.

In celebration of its new home and to kick off its $750,000 capital campaign, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Inc.) invited donors for a lunch-time Mexican fund-raiser. Amidst the asphalt, exposed beams, artists’ banners, compressors and shovels, LACE president Robert Walker and LACE director Joy Silverman greeted more than 30 philanthropic leaders at the warehouse, currently being renovated. They lunched over hand-painted tablecloths on Border Grill fare.

Elizabeth Freeman and Robert Walker, co-chairmen of the campaign, gave the building pitch, enticing guests with funding items available including four artist-designed bathrooms, an artist-designed video screening room, a performance gallery, donors’ names on the earthquake support plates and donors’ names permanently displayed in lights on a digital unit in the entrance lobby of the new LACE.

LACE’s final multi-media show at 240 S. Broadway (third floor), “A Farewell to the Bridal District,” runs through Sept. 7.