EEF administrators are still tallying proceeds and expenses from the night, but say they expect net proceeds to be strong, despite a 20-percent reduction in the number of partygoers from last year. They attribute the decrease in participants to a sluggish economy and competition with several other community events.

“While our revenue was off its peak, we were able to cut our expenses and net more proceeds available to be granted to the Eanes school district,” said Jerri Ann Yznaga of EEF.

The foundation hopes to raise close to $1 million in support of the Eanes school district for the 2011-12 school year. EEF members have already raised more than $700,000 through their annual giving campaign. Board members and administrators are banking on Saturday’s gala to provide the remaining funds.

The district garnered local student bands the Loose Wheels and High on Hotdogs to play the event along with Austin band the Kopy Kats. Tyler Rhodes performed classical guitar at the entrance of the gala.

Those attending the event seemed in high spirits as they enjoyed dinner, wine, games, entertainment and the chance to participate in live and silent auctions. Local author and photographer Kirk Tuck was there with his wife, Belinda Yarritu. They attended with their friends, Matt and Anne Hagan.

“We have been longtime supporters of the EEF and were delighted with the outpouring of generosity displayed collectively and individually by Eanes parents,” Tuck said. “The quality of EISD is why we live in the area. The evening was great fun and a very effective way to raise funds for important teaching positions, which otherwise would have to be left unfilled. Events like these are full of energy and good spirits. This year was one of the best we’ve ever attended. We can hardly wait for next year.”

EEF executive director Wally Moore and his wife, Polly, were also at the event.

“We are extremely grateful to the community, grateful for their commitment to this high performing Eanes school district and their willingness to be a partner in educational excellence,” Moore said. “As we move toward our goal of funding 20 teachers in the 2010-2011 school year, the support we receive through our annual gala is crucial, bringing in one-fourth to one-third of our annual revenue. We look forward to reporting more good news as we continue to move through our fundraising year.”

Laurel Daniel knows that her life tends to present unforeseen opportunities. And unlike most, who might grip on to a current situation like tree roots to the ground, she’s learned more from letting go than digging in.

While none of the major stages of her career have been particularly planned, all have revolved around visual arts. She’s found success in each, most recently as an oil painter and teacher at the Art School of the Austin Museum of Art on the historic grounds of Laguna Gloria.

“You’re traveling along, and the last thing you want is a change, but it comes along, and you get this whole new chance,” she said.

Her chance to rediscover painting came when her husband got a job in Austin. The couple lived in California for almost two decades, and they moved when their children had just begun high school.

“That was a really hard move, she said. “They were a junior and a freshman – for me, it was all about getting my family settled.”

In California, she had built up a solid business as a freelance graphic designer, which she could have transferred to Texas thanks to the electronic age; instead, she opted to hand her clients off to a trustworthy friend in the field so that she could focus on helping her son and daughter adjust. Without the pressure of running a business, but with the knowledge that she would soon be tending an empty nest, Daniel decided it was time to find a creative outlet and return to painting.

Because of an art class at the Austin Museum of Art, Daniel found her perfect mentor in artist Cassandra James and came full circle.

The beginning

That circle began as a young girl in Wisconsin, where Daniel’s family had a passion for music and nature.

“For vacations, we camped,” she said of her younger days. “Sometimes, we’d beg to go to Disneyland, but we loved it. So then later, we made our kids camp, too. I spent my whole childhood right on Lake Michigan.”

Daniel’s parents found their creative outlet in song, so it wasn’t until an art class her senior year of high school that Daniel fell in love with visual art. She took that passion to college, earning her bachelor’s degree in art from Wheaton College in Illinois.

“In college, I always thought, ‘I’ll never be a commercial artist,’ ” she said.

Those days opened the door to art history and modern art and the idea of conveying a true social meaning through the created visual.

“But I wasn’t ready for that,” she said of her early career.

At the time, she lived in Lexington, Mass., and her calling first took the form of an art teacher.

“I didn’t go to school for it, but I kind of talked my way into the job,” Daniel said.
Daniel loved her work, but her husband got a job offer in California. For the first time in her professional life, the world pointed her in a new direction and she followed.

“I started doing graphic design; again, I kind of talked my way into the field,” she said. “I took a job and learned the ropes, but when we had kids, I decided to freelance so I could work from home during their childhood.”

Daniel built that successful business, learning each nuance of the various mediums and technologies for layout and design. But when opportunity came knocking for her husband again at the beginning of the new millennium, she once again took life’s lead and started over.

Rediscovering art

That first class at Laguna Gloria reignited Daniel’s passion for art, and she soon fell in love with the richness of wet oil paint on canvas. The classes took her outdoors, where she found an even more specific passion for the “en plein” air style, a French term meaning “to paint outdoors.”

“It was such a blessing; it was great for me to have that chance to say, ‘If I could do anything, what would it be?’ ” she said. “It was just for fun. I was just going to do it because I loved it and there was no pressure.”

Much of the freedom Daniel felt came from the fact that her representational artwork didn’t require her to put a deeper meaning behind each brushstroke, like much of her art education had dictated.

“I took a still-life class, and it was so refreshing to paint apples and oranges and have it not mean anything extra,” she said. “I didn’t bring out any extra expectations.”

She stressed that she has a profound respect and appreciation for the contemporary and the abstract, but that she had found her passion in the representational. And in letting go of trying to connect to the viewer for some specific or predetermined reason, Daniel is able to create art that has resonated with those around her, now having steady representation in multiple galleries across the country and a constant flow of pieces picked for various exhibits.

“I keep pinching myself,” she said. “I feel very fortunate, and it never gets old. I really feel blessed in what I do, and I’m thrilled when people like it.”

The plein air painting, she says, allows her to connect to that zeal for nature fostered as a young girl.

“The whole notion came around when the impressionists were establishing their genre,” Daniel said. “Until collapsible aluminum tubes were invented to keep the paint wet, you were kind of stuck in your studio. Then someone invented the French easel.”

Daniel thrives in finding inspiration in a particular spot and then capturing it in a specific moment in time. The light will inevitably change over the hours it takes her to paint, so she must remember all of the details of one instant and then use the scene with the changing light as a guide to paint the rest.

A higher calling

By the early 2000s, Daniel had gone full time with her painting career. Her work had begun selling well, but her path took another unexpected turn.

“My teacher moved and challenged me to take her place,” Daniel said. “It’s more of those changes that you done choose. Her leaving was really hard.”

But, as she’d learned to do in the past, she let the universe pick up the paintbrush and entered into her new setting as a teacher at the Art School of the Austin Museum of Art.

“When Cassandra moved away, she recommended Laurel, and the positive comments from her students came pouring in,” said Judith Sims, director of the Art School at the Austin Museum of Art. “She’s done a fabulous job, her classes fill quickly every semester. She’s a wonderful teacher and a real benefit to the art school.”

Daniel, however, says she’s learned far more from her students than they have ever learned from her.

“I feel like it stretched me,” Daniel said. “I had to learn how I think about what I do and articulate the process. And, teaching at Laguna Gloria is just the perfect place.”

Austin, Daniel said, is the ideal setting for her outdoor painting ventures, which she does at least four times a month. She finds perpetual inspiration at Bull Creek and the Zilker Botanical Gardens and constantly discovers new places speckled in the green areas throughout the city that speak to her.

Daniel said the process of transferring to painting full time has also helped her connect with her family on an even deeper level.

“There is something so different about this venture,” she said. “It requires something really different, and it’s so great to see [my children] proud of me.”

Her new career took off just as her children ventured out into the world after graduating from Westlake High School. While they come home for all her major shows, her sturdiest foundation has been her left-brained husband, who balances her creative flair with his analytical mind.

“That’s a really important thing to have – he’s right there, and he can always get me through, always encouraging and helping. I can’t ask for more,” she said.

Now, celebrating a decade in Austin, they’ve lived in the Westbank since they arrived. Daniel says she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

“It’s close [to downtown], but it feels like the country, and we’ve made so many friends,” she said. “This is our community.”

The event features a rockwall, super slide, gaming theater, jumps, games, cakewalk and unique items in the silent auction such as vacation-getaways, interior design services, family portraits, spa services, jewelry, summer camps, parties, dining, fitness packages, dental packages, country club packages, sports and celebrity items.

To preview the items, visit www.bcebc.dojiggy.com, and anyone can bid without attending.

For more than a year now, they’ve spent at least 20 hours a week, not including the constant barrage of e-mails planning out the event that raises more than half a million dollars for one of Austin’s oldest charities. But through it all, they’ve maintained a sense of humor and a sense of fun.

“We go into Lucy in Disguise and dress up for every single meeting,” Little said. “Even if no one else thinks it’s funny – we crack ourselves up.”

It’s this mentality that’s kept the operation running smoothly and kept the volunteer work from feeling more like a chore. And through the fun, they’ve remained focused on the mission.

“You’re helping orphans that just don’t have anywhere else to go,” Prickett said.

Founded in 1893, Helping Hand Home began when an abandoned newborn baby girl was found in a shoebox at Austin’s railway station. A group of women from various missionary societies came together to help her, and soon they became the go-to group when a child was in need.

They pooled their resources to buy a small cottage on Guadalupe Street, and since then, the organization has become one of the only places in the country for many severely troubled children. In 2008, the home opened an onsite charter school through a partnership with the University of Texas.

“By the time they get to us, they’re not even foster eligible,” Little said.

The March 6 gala brings in about 25 percent of the group’s proceeds each year and sees more than 1,500 participants at the luncheon, 1,900 at the ball and coordinates more than 200 children for the debutante and girl portion of the evening.

Despite the sheer magnitude of decisions, Little and Prickett decided that in the economic climate, they couldn’t simply run with every company used last year. They price shopped every decision and created more spreadsheets than a champagne bottle has bubbles.

“We felt like we had to go outside of some of the things we were normally doing… the decisions went on and on,” Prickett said.

While the main theme each year is The Crystal Ball, various chairs can add their own spin, and this year, the longtime friends from West Texas have created an ice palace.

“All of the colors are light blue, silver and pearlized white,” Little said.

They’ve also added mystery boxes to the menu of auction items. For $20, attendees can purchase the box that is guaranteed to be valued at $20 or more but could include everything from jewelry and gift certificates.

“People have still just been so generous this year,” Prickett said of donors who’ve helped made the gala possible.

And, the women gushed about everyone involved in the gala that have made their jobs so much easier.

“Our committee members are just so good and smart and capable,” Little said.

Beyond the fun, the work, and the valiant mission, Prickett and Little have been able to use their charity work to instill a sense of community in their children.

Little and her daughter were in the charter group of the National Charity League of Austin, a mother-daughter volunteer organization. Prickett’s children always throw in a helping hand and her oldest son spent last year working in Argentina at two orphanages.

After the huge time commitment they’ve put in, both women said they’ll likely opt for smaller roles in the organization next year, but they won’t be able to breathe easy until they get to enjoy the fruits of their labor March 6.

“I keep waking up thinking, are we forgetting something?” Little said.

But with the endless hours of preparation, the answer is likely no.

Tickets are still available for the Crystal Ball and preceding luncheon. The luncheon and fashion show will be held at 10 a.m. March 6 at the Palmer Events Center, with a champagne bar and silent auction at 10 a.m., and a fashion show with presentation of princesses and debutantes at 11 a.m.

The gala begins at 7 p.m. on the same day in the same location, kicking off with cocktails and a silent auction. Presentations will begin at 8 p.m. with dinner, catered by Rosemary, being served at 9:30 p.m.

Various pricing options and levels of sponsorship are available.

For more information on these, visit www.helpinghandhome.org or contact Erin Whitehead at 459-7705 or ewhitehead@helpinghandhome.org.

“This is an exciting time for us,” EEF executive director Wally Moore said.

Moore attended his first EEF gala in 2000 in the Shriner building. Asleep at the Wheel headlined.

“We want people to come and have fun with their neighbors every year,” he said. “It’s a great community builder, and it brings in a fourth to a third of our annual funding.”

This year, EEF hopes to fund 20 teacher positions for the school district at a price tag of about $1 million. Property-wealthy school districts in Texas have come to depend on foundations like EEF to make up for the shortfall of funds they receive from the state. Donations to EEF passed on to the Eanes school district are not subject to state recapture laws, something that takes more than half the district’s tax dollars each year and sends the money to other school districts with poorer population bases.

EEF runs an annual giving campaign each fall, asking parents to donate to the organization without the auspice of a special event. Despite the downturn in the local economy and the disastrous recent impact on many local nonprofit organizations, EEF has remained strong in 2009 and 2010. The organization has already raised more than $700,000 for the Eanes district next year.

Moore said the organization has something unique that keeps it healthy – motivated parents. A large portion of EEF donors are parents with children in Eanes schools. Other supporters include businesses that depend on family customers and district alumni sup-port.

“We all make our charitable donations for different reasons,” Moore said. “But people always want to preserve their children’s schools until the very end. It is so heartening to us, and we acknowledge that we are very lucky. These are very committed parents with the desire and the ability to support their schools.”

EEF has been able to sustain a moderate growth in its membership base, something other nonprofits around the country would be happy to be able to boast. Last year, EEF said it wanted to broaden its membership among district parents, and it did that. In 2009, roughly 25 percent of district families contributed to EEF. This year, that percentage has risen to 35 percent.

But that doesn’t mean Moore or others at EEF can sit back on their laurels and wait for the money to roll in. Even in Eanes, getting people to give to schools takes some gentle reminding in these hard times. Headed into a probable bond election in 2010, many voters are wary.

“We want to people to understand how important their donations are to this community of excellence,” he said. “We want to continue to build and strengthen that community through giving. Gifts to the foundation help to build financial flexibility for each district principal. It allows them to staff their school and to reach their full potential. It fills in the gaps.”

Moore said the benefits of community go far beyond growing great schools and successful students. The reputation of the schools keeps property values strong, even during the recession. And the community attracts others looking for a healthy family lifestyle.

“We form a kind of a three-legged stool,” Moore said. “The community, the schools and EEF. There is a lot of trust based on history out here.”

The 2010 EEF Austin City Limits Gala is presented by Heritage Title Company of Austin and Treaty Oak Bank and features music by two local bands, High on Hotdogs and The Loose Wheels and a third band, Kopy Kats.

Auction items, which are still coming in, feature vacation time in Cabo San Lucas, a guitar signed by the Eagles and diamond earrings from All About Diamonds.

Individual tickets to the gala are $150. Table purchases range from $1,750 to $7,500. To view auction items, purchase tickets or tables or to find out more about the event, visit eaneseducationfoundation.org or call 732-9065.

“”It’s the best party in Westlake,” Moore said. “Don’t miss it.”

Can photojournalist Donald Winslow help an industry struggling to reinvent itself survive the digital transition?

By Dane Anderson, staff writer

The grass grows green and deep in the humid Indiana summer, a fact Donald Winslow learned to appreciate when he was growing up. As a kid in Bloomington, he used to lie back on that lush carpet of grass for hours at a time, looking up at the sky and watching the planes fly overhead. He thought about the people on those planes, where they might be headed and why. He didn’t know those things, of course, but he did know one thing. He wanted to get the hell out of Indiana.

The only child of a university professor and a nurse, Winslow knew that he had places to go and things to see. But first, he had to do a lot of waiting, waiting until 5 p.m. every school day at the university for his father to wrap things up. Professor Winslow must have taken pity on his son’s impatience, or maybe he just remembered what it was like to be 10 years old and late for the world. Whatever the reason, he put the fourth-grade boy into the hands of a photography professor, who, in turn, put something magical into Winslow’s own small hands – a Nikon F 35mm camera.

That camera was Winslow’s ticket out of Bloomington. It earned him a window seat on a journey through time, a time when the world, and the way people viewed it, would change dramatically and forever. 

Thirty years later, Winslow is editor of News Photographer magazine, the monthly publication of the National Press Photographers Association and the sacred bible of photojournalists. He writes about the photojournalists and the pictures that are changing the world.

 “Photography was what I admired every day on the pages of the Herald-Telephone and the Louisville Courier-Journal,” Winslow said. “In my eyes, photography was a passport to that big, amazing, beautiful world filled with fascinating people and breaking news and major league sports. It was a chance to be around those sleek cars in Indianapolis, and the horses that ran in Louisville, and the beefy blue-collar NFL  football players like Dick Butkus, who ruled both the Miracle Mile of Michigan Avenue and the Sports pages of the Chicago Tribune.”

Winslow’s 1968 senior year in high school afforded the burgeoning photographer a twisted boost of insight and a springboard into the psyche of a country entering a new age. Playing baseball on the last day of school, he shattered his left leg and found himself flat on his back for three long months of summer. To keep the teenager from going insane with boredom, his parents plied him with stacks of magazines – Life, Look, Time and Newsweek. They were filled with powerful, painful photographs of a country that appeared to be coming apart at the seams, Winslow said.

Tethered to his bed, Winslow witnessed the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn., and the June 5 assassination of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles through raw photographs that came to define the era. He saw the Vietnam counteroffensive explode into full swing through Associated Press photos that  catapulted the country out of innocence and face-to-face with Eddie Adams’ shot of Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan pulling the trigger of a gun at the head of a terrified Vietcong guerrilla. It was death in suspended motion.

That photo, and others like it, forged a powerful new American generation. The summer of 1968 transformed Winslow from a boy to a man, from a photographer with a gift to a photojournalist with a mission. He studied photojournalism at Indiana University and landed his first job as chief photographer for the Wabash Plain Dealer in rural Indiana. In 1978, Wabash County was, as Winslow put it, a 421-square-mile cornfield barely interrupted by a small town. 

“Whatever blew up or burned,” Winslow said. “If somebody held up a potato that looked like Hitler, I took a picture of it.”

He might joke about it, but Winslow learned a lot at his first newspaper job. He learned about human beings and developed a deep respect for the stories they entrusted to him.

“Every week, I walked into people’s homes, into their lives, into their best moments and their worst disasters,” he said. “I shared their joys and heartbreaks. Through me and my cameras, their lives were splayed open on the newspaper’s front page and shared with our extended family, this larger community.” 

Let loose with his cameras and his intellect, Winslow developed the fundamentals that have guided him well throughout his decades as a photojournalist, writer and editor.  He came to understand the role he played in putting life on public display. 

“I learned that good journalism is about people, not so much about places or events, but about the relationship between the readers and the subjects of our stories,” he said. “It is about telling truth with a camera, and making the viewer feel something in response.” 

It is Winslow’s steadfast adherence to delivering real truth and emotion that sets him apart and sends others in the news industry to him for understanding. In a Jan. 24 Washington Post article by Andrew Alexander on the graphic nature of photos from  Haiti, Winslow offered words of wisdom that echoed back across his years of experience, reflecting the same basic tenets he first pulled together. 

“Words make people think,” Winslow noted. “But pictures make people feel.” 

Winslow’s 30-year career arc has taken him from small daily newspapers to the Oval Office to a global community of readers and garnered him the daily demands of Web reporting and producing magazines. He’s served stints at The Republic in Columbus, Ind.; the Pittsburgh Press; and the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post.

Reuters recruited Winslow in 1990 to cover the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, professional sports and the Barcelona Olympics. But it was in 2003 that Winslow garnered his dream job, when Jim Gordon, editor of News Photographer magazine, retired after 25 years, and the 48-year-old boy with a camera became editor for the next generation. 

Winslow takes the helm of the iconic magazine at a time of great change and even  greater challenge. He puts out his magazine on a laptop through WiFi connections all over town. Hard at work in the local coffee shop near his Lost Creek home on a recent rainy morning, Winslow took a few minutes to lean back on a cushioned couch, reflect over the defining moments in photojournalism history and peer ahead into the volatile unknown.

One of the first technology advances to change the course of photography in the U.S. was the release of the Brownie Hawkeye camera in 1950. Winslow’s parents had one. So did everyone else in the country. Suddenly, everybody was taking and developing photos. 

In the early 1990s, digital cameras became affordable and leveled the playing field between amateur photographers and those working for National Geographic. In the late 1990s, computers became ubiquitous, and everyone became an expert. 

“The magic of photography that used to separate the professional photographer is gone,” Winslow said. “Photography has been taken from the hands of a few revered professionals and put into the hands of the masses. Images from all around the world are now coming from the people you see sitting around you in the coffee shop on their laptops. It’s going to give us a broader, less filtered and more real understanding of the world. ‘Look, here is what this person living in Haiti understands at this minute in time.’ “ 

Winslow said there is a new ruling source of information at play today, the visual world. 

“A shift in human understanding has taken place,” he said. “What the new generation understands and misunderstands about the world no longer comes from parents, textbooks, churches, or mainstream media. Most education now is visual. The line between entertainment, education and information is blurred. The real power of photographs may no longer be in what they show, but in what they may stimulate people to do.”  

Photojournalism suffers from the same factors that have torpedoed newspapers and print magazines, Winslow said.  

“Demand for photos is at an all-time high, while the ability to make a living as a photographer is at an all-time low,” he pointed out. 

Winslow said the world is on the cusp of a new era of visual storytelling. Two years from now, photojournalism will be completely different. The world is in major transition, and there is no such thing as the long term anymore, he said. 

“New realities are on the horizon,” he said. “We can manage them well, or we can manage them poorly, but we will not be able to ignore them.”  

Winslow said we need to learn how to capture the potential of probable mainstream devices of the near future, such as Apple’s tablet, iPhones, Kindles and eReaders. 

“This is a crucial time for photojournalism,” he said. “Its survival may well depend on  how well the transition from print to digital devices is managed.” 

More than 30 years into his love affair with images, Winslow considers ways to step back from the pressure of daily deadlines to think about the future. Much like the young boy who watched planes fly overhead, he wants to know where  photojournalism is going and what it will be like when it gets there.  

Does the unknown nature of the once-and-future industry make him a little nervous? He shrugged his shoulders and peered over his glasses as he answered. 

“I don’t like change any more than anyone else, but I have no choice,” he said. “It’s adapt or die. And I’m not old enough to sink to the bottom yet.”

 
Photos by Donald Winslow. Left, Members of an Amish family briefly cross paths with a sports car on a Pennsylvania highway. Right, Havana is filled with aging American automobiles from the early 1950s, which families keep running for decades.

Taylor said he wanted to leverage the impact that he could make through involving passionate supporters of the Strings Attached community.

The group’s most recent album, “Acoustic Rubber Soul” is available from iTunes and other online outlets. To find out how to donate through online purchases of Strings Attached music, visit Willhelps.com.

Elvis may be dead, but Ghoulwill Ball was alive with the theme, “Ghosts of Graceland.” More than 400 grown goblins dressed in all shapes, sizes and colors came out of haunting at the recent Driskill Hotel to benefit Goodwill Industries of Central Texas.

Halloween revelers enjoyed tarot card reading by Xephyr, a photo booth, face and body painting by Brenda Shelton with Balloon People and live music by Blue Finger Disco.

The Elvis-inspired menu included peanut butter, bananas and blue-suede-shoes sandwiches with milk shooters; Mississippi chicken tenders with southern gravy; big E’s mini pulled-pork sandwiches; trick-or-treat teriyaki salmon satay and mummy wraps (Chinese spring rolls). The rock-and-roll desserts featured peach cobbler and home-style banana pudding.

An impressive silent auction showcased trips to New York, Las Vegas, Whistler, Disney World and Colorado. Westbankers who donated items were Chief Art Acevedo of the Austin Police Department, Barton Creek Resort, Anna Gray Gift and Jewelry Boutique, Beehive Boutique and Hill Country Cupcake.

Westbankers and event chairs Jay and Kelley Lamy organized a costume contest with celebrity judges Andrea Ball of the Austin American-Statesman, Kelly Slifka of CBS News, and Alicia Dennis of People Magazine with Lauren Petrowski of FOX 7 News as the emcee.

The entertaining winners were Paul Hofmeiser, Tania Tost and Robert Diaz as alien Elvises, first place; Daniel Cooley as Edward Scissorhands, second place; and Terry Tingley as a lost TWA pilot, third-place.

“For our third-annual Ghoulwill Ball, we not only brought Central Texans together to celebrate our mission of changing lives through the power of work, but also we solidified our reputation in the community as the Halloween headquarters,” said Jerry Davis, chief executive officer of Goodwill.

Proceeds of $102,658 were 40 percent more than last year. These funds assist Goodwill’s job programs and services that help thousands of individuals with barriers to employment find meaningful jobs. The nonprofit collaborates with human-service agencies to provide the best support network for people with disabilities and disadvantageous conditions who are seeking work.

For further information, visit www.austingoodwill.org.

“I really never planned on being a retailer, but I saw a need for a contemporary fine art gallery,” said Sigel, who entered the world of art in 1986 as a private dealer selling American art to Japan.

When he moved to Austin from Santa Fe in 1995, the Austin Children’s Museum had just moved to its downtown location, leaving the perfect space open for his gallery on West Fifth Street.

“The location was perfect, the space was perfect,” he said. “The landlord offered to clear out all of the ramps and diagonal walls, but it was exactly what we needed.”

With an undergraduate degree from Syracuse University in math and a master’s of business administration from Carnegie Mellon University, art was an unlikely career path for Sigel. But he quickly realized that in both business and art, he had a knack for spotting the opportunity or piece for any occasion and then marketing, or framing, it perfectly.

In addition to being the place to go for fine art, ART on 5th has also become the premier framer in Austin, thanks to Sigel’s unorthodox techniques and dedication to finding the perfect frame to go with a piece.

“It’s strange. I think the reason we’ve become so well-known for framing is because I had no real experience with it,” he said. “Typically, framers get on-the-job training but since I didn’t, I came up with things like hand-ripped linen for mats.”

Since Sigel had no training or interest in “the way things were done” in framing, his frame designs stick out for their uniqueness.

“We have a tremendous selection of frames that’s always changing,” he said. “A lot of the frames we buy go out of production because we always pick the quirky or different ones. When a frame dealer says, ‘Let me show you our most popular designs,’ I say ‘no thanks.’ ”

In the same way the art he sells comes with a unique frame, his gallery has a unique configuration. While most art galleries are small with rotating showcases from month to month, Sigel’s gallery has four distinct parts.

The first, or upper floor, is his rotating showcase room, currently featuring small, affordable pieces for the holiday season. One level down sits his permanent collection featuring art from artists in his “stable,” 30-60 artists who have a continuing relationship with the gallery. About a third of these are locals.

Around the corner from these works sits one of the largest collections in the country of the secret art of Dr. Seuss. Ted Seuss Geisel, or Dr. Seuss, died in 1991. Four years later, his wife put out a book titled “The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss,” showcasing the works he saved for himself that tended to be more adult in nature. The pieces were an instant success and have been skyrocketing in value. Once again, Sigel saw a business opportunity and an opportunity to “Keep Austin Weird,” and has been growing his collection steadily.

“We have these crazy sculptures called ‘Unorthodox Taxidermy,’ ” Sigel said.

While the original busts were made from the horns and beaks of animals that had died at the zoo tended by Dr. Suess’ father in Massachusetts, the remaining sculptures, while still hand painted, have been cast from the originals. Sigel’s collection includes the “Goo-Goo Eyed Tasmanian Wolghast” and “The Andulovian Grackler.”

“There are a lot of hunters in Texas; they put these up on their walls next to the trophies,” Sigel said. “It’s really different, but still fine art.”

Sigel’s latest venture for his gallery is “The Art of Jewelry.” What started as an idea for a small trunk show featuring 10 pieces of jewelry from 10 artists has become an entire show room of its own. After the name came to him, he realized that the framing was just as important.

“It was another one of these epiphanies; why don’t we frame it and hang it up on the wall?” he said. “It elevates it to an art form.”

When Sigel sold 35 of the 100 original pieces in four days, it clinched the decision to create a rotating showcase in the same building as the gallery.

For more information on ART on 5th visit www.arton5th.com or visit the showroom at 1501 W. 5th Street.

“Carnivale” is one of the orchestra’s largest fundraisers with proceeds helping to purchase music, repair, replace damaged instruments and fund various trip expenses throughout the year.

Orchestra students are also selling raffle tickets for a chance to win some great prizes, which include a Sym Mio four-Stroke Motor Scooter, a MacBook Pro Notebook, or a 32-inch Vizio 1080P HD LCD TV. For each ticket a student sells, $5 goes into their personal orchestra account. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased through director James Edwards, or at this weekend’s varsity football game as well. Attendance at the event is not required to win.