Photo by Kevin Onofreo
Salve Regina’s first art auction in 8 years achieved success last Tuesday night, raising over $2,600 from the faculty, alumni, and members of the Newport community who came out to bid on the art.
The 80 items featured in the auction were not only donated by past and present Salve students, but also from faculty members and people outside of the Salve community. Over three quarters of Salve’s art student population participated in the auction by both donating pieces and volunteering their time to ensure the night ran smoothly.
As the ceramic sculptures, paintings, and photographs were shown, bids rose higher and higher as bidders competed with each other to take a piece home. The night’s profits added up to over $2,600. Profits from the auction will be used to fund a day trip to New York City for Salve’s art students, and another portion of the proceeds will go towards an art travel scholarship. The Gabrielle Bleak Burn Scholarship is named in memorial of a late Salve art professor who loved travel.
Salve art professor Gerry Perrino served as both the advisor to the art auction and auctioneer of the night. Perrino explained that, although the art auction was run for 20 consecutive years in the past, its streak ended in 2008. Since then, it had not been put on until this year. Perrino said that he had run many art auctions in the past and was glad to lend his experience.
According to senior art student Hope Foster, who helped run the auction, planning for the event began months in advance. Foster described the community outreach process for collecting the art pieces beginning in late November, with ample help from both staff and alumni during the collection process.
For many students like Foster, this was the first art auction they had ever attended or prepared. Senior psychology and art major Serena Lafond felt the event turned out to be well executed. When asked about what the most significant lesson she learned during the process was, her answer came immediately. “These people are incredible… To have a group of people who have never done something before in their lives like this, and to have them come together, and universally not know what to do, but to listen to all sorts of ideas and to just trust one another, is incredible. And it’s not something that can be said about a lot of things,” Lafond said.
After funding the New York trip and travel scholarship, the Art & Art History Guild is still left with enough money to be able to put on next year’s auction. The 2016 art auction found success through hard work, determination, and most importantly, team work. As Lafond described, “It’s really the people that make it, and the rest will come.”
