The "Hillary Clinton, America Ferrara fundraising event"

Finally, here are the photos from the "Hillary Clinton, America Ferrara fundraising event"!

For those of you that may just be tuning in, I just came back from a New York City fund-raising event for Hillary Clinton, hosted by America Ferrara, T.V.'s "Ugly Betty". Bill Clinton also made the scene.
It was her last fund-raiser as a Senator, and she will not be allowed to fund-raise as Secretary of State.
I saw this as an opportunity to put into motion a dream that I have.
That dream is to move the Hillary Clinton Army forward as her "Art Ambassadors".
Using art and creativity, the H.C.A. supported Hillary in the primary election. Much to our surprise, our non-traditional approach was extremely successful!
We want to continue cheer-leading for Hillary using art. Hillary is an incredible inspiration, one that just keeps on going!

I think Hillary inspires so many people, why can't we express our excitement through art? There are so many ways that this can happen. I chose to go to New York as a self-appointed art biographer for Hillary. I wanted to put our project on it's path.
I wanted to paint live at the event, I would like to paint live at future events.

My friend Kelly and I arrived at the event carrying the easel and art supplies I had gotten special permission to bring in and set up. This we did without a hitch, which was a refreshing surprise given my all my prior experience with these types of rallies.
During the campaign, there were many times that things didn't go as planned. Even if I had permission to bring the Hillcar to an event, that didn't mean the police and Secret Service would let me.

We set up to the left of the stage, near the 1,000 dollar donor section. Our only neighbor was a Secret Service man.







Painting Hillary was a little difficult, because she was so far away. But I enjoyed the experience just the same.



Kelly wondered how in the world I could see from such a distance that Hillary was wearing gold earrings. Truth is, I couldn't.
I just know Hillary enough to have a pretty good idea of the details.







The main portion of this rather brief event was the question and answer period. Apparently people had sent in questions for America to read and Hillary to answer. Some of Hillary's answers were very funny.









The event ended much sooner than I expected, but I had painted two paintings of Hillary.
Hillary said "goodnight" and exited stage left with America Ferrara. She bee-lined it right towards us, which was giving me a heart attack!
I didn't think my work was good enough to give her, and it was still a little wet. Nobody else was around our section. For this brief period of time, it was just Hillary, Kelly, myself, and an ever-present secret service man. This never happens at these types of event.



Time slowed down to a slow crawl, like in the movies. I had time to stand there and wonder what I should do.



The only thing I heard, was Kelly saying, as if in slow motion... "give....... her........ the..... painting....... "



I gave Hillary the painting. She asked if I had painted it just now, I said I had. She asked if it was signed, I said it was.
She said She must get my address to personally thank me for it.



Time returned back into the usual frantic pace as I gave Hillary's assistant, Uma, my information.
Crowds jammed in, standing all over my art supplies, crawling on chairs. Snapping photos.
Hillary was off and running.
To me, nothing creative is fun if it doesn't include others. I believe the power of art lies in inspiring each other.
To me, art shouldn't be a solitary sport.
SO let's keep playing together and have more Hill-fun!