Fund-Raiser Issues Passports to Paradise

The Pacific Club in Newport Beach was transformed into a South Pacific island Saturday for the Exhibitionists Council’s gala to benefit the Laguna Art Museum.

Calling their soiree “Passport to the Pacific,” the Exhibitionists issued passports in lieu of invitations and asked guests to wear “island dress.” The gala attracted 150 guests and raised about $25,000 for the museum. Proceeds will underwrite the museum’s William Wiley exhibit in July.

Bon Voyage

Leave it to artist-types to exhibit their creativity when throwing a party.

“We’d already chosen the passport theme and later decided on South Pacific as our destination. It’s a spin that hasn’t been done frequently,” said Elyse Miller, gala chairwoman.

Gifford Myers, an art professor at UC Irvine and the evening’s emcee, honored the island dress code by sporting a Hawaiian shirt with his black tuxedo.

“They said to dress black tie or Bali Hai. I couldn’t decide, so I did both,” Myers said.

Men were seen in everything from tuxedos with tropical-print bow ties to Hawaiian shirts and straw hats. Most of the women wore short sparkling dresses, although artist Nancy Luster opted for a floral muumuu and lei. “When you get the opportunity to go to a fund-raiser and not wear high heels and stockings, you take it,” Luster explained, showing off feet clad only in flip-flops.

Tropical Night

The Pacific Club was decked out for the party in fishing nets, tikis and large papier-mache parrots.

Throughout the evening, guests could bid on prizes at a silent auction or try their luck at the gaming tables in an island casino.

They wandered about the restaurant eating from food stations well stocked with coral-reef cuisine. The tropical fare included baby lamb chops, pork and shrimp with peanut sauce, rice with macadamia nut sauce, opaka paka (a Hawaiian fish), sea scallop salad and a tropical dessert of pineapple caramelized with pina colada sorbet and raspberry sauce.

Wild Bunch

The Exhibitionists are so named because they underwrite one major art exhibit at the Laguna Art Museum each year and not “just because we’re wild women,” joked Anne Weiler, president of the group.

“Our other main function is what we call ‘art and eat,’ ” she said. “Every month we visit an art collection in Southern California. We go to private showings, then we eat.”

The council includes artists, art lovers and collectors. This party was the group’s third annual fund-raiser. Guests paid $100 per person to attend.

“Our credo is that we work hard for the museum, yet we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” Miller said.

Other faces in the crowd: Mitzi Gaynor, star of the movie classic “South Pacific,” and KNBC-TV news anchor Jess Marlow, both guests of Arlie and Paula Sherman, museum director Charles Desmarais, Donald and Dorothy Bendetti, Marla Bird, Debi Bremner, Bob Ehrlich, Bob and Nadine Hall, Joni Harvey, Barbara Miles, Dolores Milhous, Ed and Karin Souza and Ann Summers.