The Contemporary Art Gallery held their annual dinner/auction last night, their 39th for those counting. As in recent years, the event was held at Vancouver’s version of the Overlook Hotel, the Vancouver Club, where the dining room’s Doric columns have been painted the colour of tree bark and the club’s paintings look like inferior versions of their equally inferior referents. Or maybe it’s the lighting, as my tablemate Cathy Sousloff pointed out.

There are twenty tables in the VC dining room, each supporting ten seatings. Our table was “purchased” by long time arts patron and builder Rick Erickson, who could not make it but wanted us to have a good time. Which we did, I think, Attila grabbing the Etch-A-Sketch that held our table number, turning the 4 into what the more apologetic of us were calling a “svastika” (from the Sanskrit), as opposed to what Cathy saw.

An endive salad was followed by the vegetarian option (risotto), and then suddenly the "live" auction. Nothing outstanding from where I sat (not that I could afford to feel otherwise). The "silent" auction was more to my liking. I entered bids on an out-of-focus Trips Festival poster and a Khan Lee sculpture, but these were not maintained. Artist/educator Yunhee Min, who quietly teaches at Emily Carr University when not being an L.A. artist, contributed an energetic bit of 2D colour and form. Had I the night to sleep on it, I might have bid harder.