East Meets West With Extra Zest at ‘Art Alive’

The thousands of lemons on display Tuesday evening at San Diego Museum of Art added up not only to nice sales for the local citrus industry, but to a rather nasty case of sour grapes for the brown-thumbed guests among the 500 attending the gala preview of “East Meets West,” the ninth annual edition of the museum’s popular “Art Alive” fund-raiser.

The Thornton Rotunda, the entry to the two floors of exotic floral interpretations of the museum’s artworks that give Art Alive its name, seemed awash in citrus; thousands of lemons, limes and grapefruit lined the steps of the grand staircase and were jumbled into artsy piles at the base of the Moorish fountain. Hundreds more lemons and limes filled the fountain’s three basins--the water gurgled pointedly and, some thought, rather acidly--and further hundreds of lemons perched on tiny ledges attached to the wooden trees that made the area seem a fragrant and rather fantastic grove. Upstairs, 6-foot-wide baskets of yellow tulips held sway, but on the ground floor, fruit ruled.

Flowers are the focus of the annual Art Alive, but, even if inadvertently, the lemons gave “East Meets West” an undeniable zest. There seemed no intention to suggest that the exhibit had the makings of a lemon; rather, fund-raiser chairwoman Junko Cushman took a sort of civic booster attitude toward her abundance of citrus salad and said, “You can always make lemonade tomorrow.” (Past Art Alive chairwoman Katy Dessent took one look at all the limes and said, “If anyone in this town wants to make a margarita tomorrow, he’ll be out of luck.”)

The Japanese-born Cushman, who by Art Alive tradition sported a boldly floral dress (beaded tulips reached from the waist to the neck), said that the fragrant theme came rather naturally to her and made her think of home.

“All these flowers make me remember my mother, who always fills her house with flowers,” she said. “She and I share just one common thread--we’re very different--and it’s our love of flowers. I’ve become a gardener myself.” Cushman added that she anticipated the event would earn at least $80,000, all of it earmarked for the museum’s conservation and education programs.

Lots of women looked like gardeners, or at least like the kind who wear broad-brimmed straw hats with ribbon ties. Audrey Geisel, who herself resembled a night-blooming, formal English garden, said she supposed that anyone who owned a flowered dress wore it that evening. Notable among the many was Valerie Preiss, who attended with Harry Cooper and was show-stopping in a jacket composed of nothing but tiers of pink silk roses.

Sandra Pay chaired the preview and said that her committee had labored to throw the “East Meets West” theme into sharp relief by juxtaposing such details as the buffets of sushi and beef tenderloin and the live music, which ranged from classical Japanese koto melodies to mannered Renaissance airs.

The gala previewed a two-day exhibit that concludes today and features not only tours of the dozens of floral displays created by leading local and visiting designers and hobbyists, but lectures by celebrated Tokyo floral designer Keita Kawasaki and by Herb Mitchell, senior editor of the leading floral trade publication, “Floriculture Directions.” The schedule for both days also saved room for ramp shows featuring the latest collection by Texas couturier Victor Costa, including an evening gown created especially for the event and trimmed in real flowers preserved in light coatings of wax.

Alice Cramer, who was born in China and understands the fine points of an “East Meets West” theme, served as honorary Art Alive chair and helped welcome a guest list that included Joseph and Ingrid Hibben, Robert and Nancy McLeod, Joan Gregg Palmer, Maurice and Charmaine Kaplan, Victor and Margaret Sell, Judith Harris, Jean Stern, Yolanda Walther-Meade, Robert and Dori Skomer, museum director Steven Brezzo and his wife, Dagmar; Robert and Mary Allan; designer Scott Northcote; Joanne Hutchison; Lanny and Michiko Delaney and Alex and Betty DeBakcsy.

Should tawdry, sequined aprons and hats trimmed with soft drink cups and plastic hamburgers suddenly become the rage along La Jolla’s Girard Avenue, feel free to blame it on the Vuarnettes, a quartet of ‘50s-style singers who temporarily fled their Sun Valley headquarters to headline the show at last Friday’s “Cheers!”

The blame for any sudden increase in the number of local fashion victims also will rest on the shoulders of the St. Germaine Auxiliary to the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, which hired the Vuarnettes to help lure some 560 guests to the Aventine Ballroom at the Golden Triangle’s Hyatt Regency hotel.

The fourth annual “Cheers,” by far the most ambitious given by the fund-raising group, opened with a buffet-cum-wine tasting that featured bottles from a score of leading vintners, some of them poured by celebrity bartenders. Chargers head coach Dan Henning was among those pouring; he said he had had a long day, having spent the afternoon on the golf course in the company of team owner Alex Spanos and Vice President Dan Quayle.

Event chair Elizabeth Nichol said that, thanks to $80,000 in underwriting, “Cheers!” would earn $105,000, an astonishing figure for a party to which tickets cost $75 to $150 per person. “ ‘Cheers!’ is a whole new ballgame now,” said Nichol. “This year, we have a bigger ballroom, more vintners, more guests and entertainment, which all adds up to a lot more money for the children.”

Co-chair Sarah Burton added that she was “thrilled that 560 people would show for something that means so much to the children of our area. With so many functions going on in town this month, it’s really great that so many chose to support something that helps prevent child abuse.”

The Vuarnettes, who together look like survivors of a high school spring prom scripted by horror novelist Stephen King, performed two shows in a ballroom that had been transformed into a rather campy spring-prom milieu through the agency of hundreds of helium-filled balloons and centerpieces of hula hoops filled with crinkled tissue paper and chicken wire frames.

The entertainers said they felt right at home, and in a closing number informed the crowd that “You can’t have too much fun”--a point of view the St. Germaine Auxiliary seemed only too eager to endorse.

Among the guests were Robin and William Chappelow, Barbara and Charles Christensen, Marilyn and Kim Fletcher, Kathryn and Michael Murphy, Norma and Gary Hirsh, Betty and John Mabee, Sandra and Jeff Schafer, Liz and David Armstrong, Sally and Dan Irwin, Nancy Hester, Kimberly and Hal Lewis, Jane and John Murphy, Linda and Chuck Owen, Barbara and Paul Peterson and Marilyn and Sam Young.