If only we could be so ... artistic Thursday, July 23, 1998
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Yet another reason to work hard in art class: Free vacations. And a $26 bonus. To wit . . .
Betsy and Terry Cunningham
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Terry and Betsy Cunningham, owners of Newport's York Street Cafe, are back from 10 days at the Bahamas' pricey Dolphin Inn.
Betsy is a painter (under maiden name B.B. Hall) and plenty passionate about it. Her work usually hangs around York Street, though she's been working the kitchen lately.
Anyway, like all painters who are serious about it, she took a few canvases on vacation. Good thing: She was so taken with the resort that she just had to paint.
Which is what she was doing when the resort manager wandered by, fell in love with the painting and bought it.
Betsy started another. Ditto: The manager falls in love and buys it. Both now hang in the resort lobby.
By now, vacation's over and "I go to settle the bill," Terry says. "The clerk reaches into the drawer and hands me $26. Two paintings covered the $1,400 bill and gave us $26 more. Don't you love it? Free vacation and we come home $26 richer."
Terry especially loves it because he ran up bills when he 1) wrecked a boat, then 2) sank it.
"We flew to West Palm," he says, "then sailed to the Bahamas on a friend's 23-foot dive boat. Fine, till we came in at low tide and I hit a reef. That knocked half the engine off. We had it repaired for $1,600.
"The very next day we left it tied at the dock and went to do something or another. A storm blew up and the boat sank. I had to get a crane to pull it out.
"Guess that's another bill."
NEXT: THE MOVIES: In other artsy news, Hyde Park painter Gayle Hummel - she shows mostly at Closson's, New York and Naples, Fla. - is breaking into movie star houses.
Seems she has work placed with Valerie Fitzgerald, a real estate agent with Beverly Hills' Jon Douglas Company. Fitzgerald's specialty - film people - and a high-powered client list that includes Sylvester Stallone, Winona Ryder, Mike Tyson, Irena and Mike Medavoy have made her very successful.
How successful? This: "Valerie is one of the top five producers in the country," office manager Stan Richman recently told a Hollywood trade publication.
One of the things that makes Fitzgerald so successful is her full-service approach. A client needs decorating help, landscaping, art, she finds the best.
Which is where Hummel comes in. Her art is in Fitzgerald's stable, meaning sooner or later she'll turn up in some right glitzy home. Not yet, but soon, we guess.
UPSTAGED: One more artsy note, just so you'll know how cultured Psst! can be:
Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, known for breaking new ground, is doing it again.
It has hired Cincinnati interior designer Pat Korb as the production consultant for Full Gallop, (Oct. 14-Nov. 1), a one-woman show about Diana Vreeland, Empress of Excess.
It's the first time, ETC's Sarah Warner thinks, that such a marriage has been arranged here.
But it's fitting: Vreeland, former fashion editor of Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, was known for her acerbic wit. So is Korb. She was known for a fondness for red. So is Korb. And a drop-dead sense of style. So is Korb.
Korb is a Vreeland expert, even down to quoting one-liners: "We all need a splash of bad taste . . . no taste is what I'm against."
He and his team begin today,turning ETC's stage into their particular vision of Vreeland's Manhattan apartment. And, knowing Korb, that will be quite the vision.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
