March 31, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, please contact:
Janet Bucciarelli, SAMA-Ligonier Valley Coordinator

(724) 238-6015

Travis Mearns, Public Relations Coordinator
(724) 238-6015

SAMA’S 5^TH ANNUAL GARDEN PARTY CELEBRATES PAST AND PRESENT IN STYLE

        Ligonier – Plans for the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley’s fifth annual Garden Party are underway. This year’s event, titled A Colonial Celebration, is scheduled to take place on the Museum grounds on Saturday, May 20. More than 160 guests attended last year’s Garden Party, a community event designed to benefit the Museum and its beautiful flower gardens. Since the Museum opened its doors in 1997, the facility, its stunning gardens, and its exhibition and education programming have become symbols of the Museum’s presence in the Ligonier Valley community.

A Colonial Celebration will commence at 4 p.m. with a champagne reception with nationally-acclaimed artist and Presidential portrait painter, Chas Fagan, in the Museum gallery. Guests will have an opportunity to meet the artist and view his extraordinary work, which will be on view at the Museum from April 21 through August 13.

Fagan is renowned as a portrait and landscape painter and sculptor. The artist, who holds a degree in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University, spent his early childhood in Brussels, where he had access to visiting public galleries throughout Europe and studied drawing at the age of 10 with Hungarian portrait painter, Ilona Karoly Szechenyi. Fagan’s career as an artist has included several notable commissions, including a life-size portrait of Barbara Bush for the Union League and the White House, a bas-relief sculpted portrait bust of President Ronald Reagan, a life-size bronze statue of Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, and portraits of all 42 U.S. Presidents for C-Span’s 2001 Peabody Award-winning program, “American Presidents.” Fagan’s exhibition at SAMA-Ligonier Valley will showcase approximately 40 still life and landscape paintings and several sculptures.

Following the champagne reception, guests will move under the tent on the Museum grounds. There they will be treated to cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and live entertainment, including a caricaturist from the Oakbridge Academy of Art and music appropriate to the Colonial period.

Silent Auction Co-chairs Bonnie Hoffman and Helen Thorne are acquiring several wonderful items to ensure guests have a spectacular time shopping in the Silent Auction. Guests can expect to find an array of antiques, artwork, collectibles, garden accessories, and jewelry. The Garden Party also will feature a Colonial-themed gourmet dinner, catered by Vallozzi’s Restaurant in Greensburg. To add to the lovely dinner, a Colonial motif will adorn each of the dining tables.

Following dinner, there will be a live auction featuring three special offerings up for bid, including a gourmet dinner for eight, prepared by Eve Novak, at the Japanese-style home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Novak, and a “Brew Your Own Beer” private party for 50 at the Red Star Brewery & Grille in Greensburg, where a special brew of beer is prepared for the party and then named by the host. The final auction package is for a dream vacation to a destination of your choice, courtesy of Kim and Don Kramer. The winner will select the date and destination from a vast selection of luxury timeshares listed in Interval International for a memorable week-long getaway.

“Co-chairs Stephanie Fagan and Connie Pilz and Decorating Chair, Suzanne Carlin, have done a superlative job,” said SAMA-Ligonier Valley Coordinator, Janet Bucciarelli. “Guests at our Garden Party will celebrate the arts in present-day posh style but with the charming atmosphere of Colonial times. They will have the opportunity to meet a renowned and gifted artist in Chas Fagan, while enjoying great food, lively entertainment, wonderful company, and the fun and excitement of bidding on enticing items in the silent and live auctions. And what better setting for this party than our beautiful flower gardens?”

The Garden Party is open to the public, but reservations must be made by May 15. Cost is $125 per person. For reservations or more information, please call the Museum at (724) 238-6015 or visit www.sama-art.org. The Garden Party is sponsored in part by Smail Automotive and PNC Advisors. 

Since it opened in 1976, the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art has been devoted to its mission of collecting and exhibiting 19^th and 20^th century American art to the rural communities of Southwestern and Central Pennsylvania. Since that time, the Museum’s permanent collection has grown to number more than 3,000 works of art. The Museum attracts more than 70,000 visitors annually at its four locations in Altoona, Johnstown, Ligonier Valley and Loretto. Its award-winning Arts-in-Education and Artist-in-Residence programs reach more than 35,000 students, and the Museum has recently launched the Museum/Health Care Partnership Program, through which trained artists and Museum educators work with patients and therapists in hospitals, assisted living facilities and community centers in an effort to relieve pain and discomfort brought on by aging or other health-related issues.