Odessa Arts’ annual Black & White Ball is coming up at 6:30 p.m. April 6 in the Permian Ballroom of the Odessa Marriott Hotel & Conference Center.
Honorees are Eileen Piwetz, Chris Stanley and Craig Van Amburgh. The emcee is Stephanie Rivas.
The event is open to the public. It starts at 6:30 p.m. with cocktails, then dinner, followed by the awards presentation, entertainment and an after-party.
“We’re excited about it. It’s going to be a lot of fun this year. It is every year,” Executive Director of Odessa Arts Randy Ham said.
Ham said Piwetz is important to the arts in a couple of ways. Long involved in the community, Piwetz recently retired as executive director of the FMH Foundation and continues to serve as a board member. She is vice president of the McGary Regan Foundation and Chairman of the Potts and Sibley Foundation Grants Committee and as a board Member on the Literacy Coalition of the Permian Basin.
“Most important was her work on the FMH Foundation because there are not many foundations in the Permian Basin that have any focus on the arts. FMH tends to look at arts and culture as one of their primary categories. I met Eileen right when I took this job back 10 years ago — 10 years ago in April. They were one of our earliest supporters for some of the things that we did like the ArtPocalypse and things like that, but more importantly, they support arts agencies all through the Permian Basin. They just gave money to the Education Foundation for Steinways. They invest very heavily in the Fort Stockton Community Theatre. They have supported the symphony; they have supported the Museum of the Southwest, so their reach is very, very far. I know that Eileen has had a lot to do with that and really champions our arts agencies,” Ham said.
Van Amburgh, president of CVA Advertising & Marketing, was on the board of the Permian Playhouse, the Globe Theatre and the West Texas Jazz Society.
“He was a driving force behind the Education Foundation concert, which is always a significant musical act. Craig has had his hands in so much of the cultural landscape here for decades. … He’s been really involved in that for a very, very long time. His children were in the Kaleidoscope Company,” Ham said.
Stanley, an associate professor of art at University of Texas Permian Basin, is a working artist on the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees, Ham said.
“That’s a huge thing, and I don’t think people really appreciate that as much as they should because he is not only teaching art students at UTPB and bettering the lives of the students at ECISD, but he looks at it from an artist’s point of view, and always thinks about it with a creative mind. I don’t think there’s a single community initiative that Chris Stanley hasn’t been involved in some way or another. I think that’s great, and he’s really good at building a coalition and putting people together that can help solve a problem,” Ham said.
Honorees are discussed with the board of directors of Odessa Arts.
“We look at the people that have made an impact not just on Odessa Arts but on the community and just start talking. I ask my board members to bring up names. The staff brings up names. We talk to previous honorees, who have they worked with that they think should be (honored) and really just kind of hash it out that way and see who’s really made an impact,” Ham said.
The awards will be new this year — an engraved crystal block with the Odessa spire on it “because they inspire us.”
“It’s too perfect. It’s too perfect. We had to do that and I think it makes it memorable, too,” and it relates to the work that the honorees do, Ham said.
Planning for the Black & White ball starts right after the previous one.
“But I would say we don’t really get into the nitty gritty of it until the fall, like November, December. Once we come back from the holidays in January, this is what our winter is, is just planning this and getting it executed. I can’t say enough about Dave Miller, our development director, and Maggie Marmolejo, our office manager,” Ham said.
Ham had a heart attack in January and was out for six weeks.
“That was very difficult to be able to put something like this together, especially since Dave’s brand new. He had never been to one of our Black & White Balls before, but he has experience in nonprofits and he has experience in putting these things together. So David and Maggie really did the lion’s share of the work before I came back and reached out to our board members and other people in the community that have helped put this on. The Marriott is always a great partner for things like this. The fact that we’re partnering with Steinway this year is a really neat, different aspect. But so much of this, so much of this groundwork was done before I came back to the office and I can’t say enough about how amazing that was, to feel comfortable with a team that was able to just take the ball and run with it,” he added.
Ham said he’s not good at resting and that’s something he’s had to learn how to do.
“But everybody just picked up the slack and was able to do a lot of the planning,” he added.
The good thing is that there is a template for the event.
“I think that Dave came up with some really great enhancements to the program this year that I’m excited about and so it’s really nice to be working with so many committed people that want something like this to succeed,” Ham said.
Individual tickets are $100 for Odessa Arts members and $150 for non-members. A table for eight starts at $1,500. Proceeds go back into Odessa Arts to help fund its programming.
“We’ve struggled with that like whether we need to be (commensurate) with some of the other nonprofits … but we wanted it to be as accessible as possible while still giving you a really great event. Also we do so much programming that’s free or no cost that this helps pay for that. If this is the one night out of 365 nights out of the year, this is the one night where it’s maybe a little bit more on the expensive side it helps to make things like First Friday free; it helps to make things like the community art gallery accessible, you know we’re working with Black Cultural Council to bring the Dallas Black Dance Theatre back. There’s the Shakespeare Festival in November and all of those programs, they cost money, but we we want to be able to do them so that they’re accessible to the public. So one night out of the year, we’re going to ask you to give till it hurts just a little so that we can continue the programming that we like to do,” Ham said.
He added that they are hoping to replenish the mural assistance grant fund.
“We emptied that out last year, which was great, but there are other places and other businesses that want murals and we want to continue with more murals. That’s one of the big goals we have is to be able to put some new murals up. It’s been almost a year since we’ve done a new mural and so it’s time to do some,” Ham said.
Odessa Arts also conducted a survey about why art is important.
“I’m so lucky to have a job that I love so much that I’m able to do this, but also I’m getting paid to advocate for art. Hearing from the community about why art is important helps us to advocate from the user experience. I think that is so important when we’re talking to municipal leaders, when we’re talking at the state level, when we’re talking to funders. I can spout all the facts and figures that you want, but when someone whose life has been affected by art tells their story, I think it’s much more powerful than it is when I tell the story,” Ham said.
They will read some of the testimonials at the Black & White Ball and some of it will go into fundraising literature.
“April is also Arts Advocacy Month. It’s so important that we spend time telling our story. And again, having the people that experience art tell that story is important, too. Those are the things that we’re going to do with that. Every year we redo our Beacon West (magazine) and tri-fold literature that we pass out pamphlets and things. We have all of these avenues to be able to communicate that message out and we just want to be able to hear from the people that we serve. What are the things that they like? What is it that you look forward to? Is it First Fridays, is it Shakespeare Festival? Is it the Dallas Black Dance Theatre? Is it the murals? Is it the jackrabbits?”
Ham added that he wanted to thank Sewell Family of Companies for continuing to support the Black & White Ball and the Marriott and all the other community members and businesses that have helped make the event happen.
