If you go
› What: Spectrum Silent Auction› When: 6-9 p.m. Thursday› Where: Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View› Tickets: $75, limited number of tickets availableSpectrum Live Auction & Gala› When: 6-10 p.m. Saturday› Where: Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View› Tickets: $500; sold out, but you can place your name on a waiting list› Information: 423-267-0968 or www.huntermuseum.org
Forty years in, Spectrum 2016 decided to get bigger.
The annual fundraiser for the Hunter Museum of American Art has always been a big deal for the museum, what with its auctions of about 90 pieces of art and fancy black-tie dinner.
For years, the dinner – which, by the way, is sold out this year – seated about 350 guests. This year, though, organizers decided to jack up the number to 500. The plan initially alarmed Hunter Executive Director Virginia Anne Sharber, who was afraid a crowd that size would mean the event had to move to another location.
“I said, ‘No, no, no, this is all about the Hunter; we’ve got to have it here,” she recalls.
And so it is.
The dinner – technically called the Spectrum Live Auction & Gala- has moved to the museum’s River View Terrace. All is well.
Spectrum is a two-part affair, a silent, non-black-tie and separately-ticketed auction on Thursday then the big to-do on Saturday. The Selection Committee has traveled to several cities – New York, Asheville, N.C., Santa Fe, N.M., Dallas and the Florida Panhandle – to find about 60 pieces of donated artwork, Sharber says. And, of course, Chattanooga artists have donated about 30 pieces, too, she says.
One of those artists is native Chattanoogan Krista Marie Eubanks, who is donating her “Cow,” a painting that’s part of her Bee Series. The artwork shows, naturally, a cow with bees buzzing around its ear.
“I hope to draw attention to the challenges all bees and thus mankind are currently facing with the recent global loss of bee colonies,” she says. “I believe as artist that’s why we’re here: to celebrate the details.”
Sharber, now in her second year as the museum’s executive director, says she was “blown away by the support from the community” when it comes to Spectrum.
“It’s extremely exciting and gives us an opportunity to attract people that are not always coming to the museum, to introduce the museum to the community,” she says.
Contact Shawn Ryan at sryan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327.