Auction to Benefit AIDS Patients

Forty-five artists from three counties have donated works of art for the third annual AIDS Care of Ventura County fund-raising benefit Saturday at Art Illusions Gallery in Camarillo.

The highlight of the evening will be an auction of those works by artists from Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties.

“The body of work that is here is very professional and is of a caliber one would find in a gallery,” said Donna Talent, who is the fund-raiser chair and co-owner of the gallery.

The 67 art pieces consist mainly of flat work, she said, and include some three-dimensional works.

A silent auction will begin at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a live auction at 9 p.m. “It’s like a huge cocktail party with entertainment and other things going on the whole time,” Talent said.

The South Coast Sax Quartet will perform throughout the evening and several area businesses will cater food, wine and other refreshments.

AIDS Care is a nonprofit corporation providing a variety of support and educational services to AIDS patients and their families.

According to AIDS Care Executive Director Edie Brown, using art to raise money for AIDS makes a lot of sense. “The art community,” she said, “has been devastated by this disease. So many of our artists all over the world have died with AIDS.”

Contributing artists include Girard Louis Drouillard, Linda Taylor, Omar d’Leon, Len Steele, Richard Peterson, Ryder Hanson and Carol Rosenak.

The purpose of the event--which Talent called “a highly improved, thought-out version of our past events”--is to do more than simply raise money. “The disease has truly been ignored in the past and put on the back burner,” she said. “It’s time the community at large realize that it affects all of us all.”

Admission is $20; attire is semiformal. Art Illusions Gallery is at 540 N. Las Posas Road. For more information, call 484-9181.