by Kathy
Dello Stritto
id you
receive the invitation to The Young Collectors Evening October
17 at The Dallas Center For Contemporary
Art? It was the pink invitation in triplicate so you could tear
off two of them to give to your young collector friends.
Well, JR was hot to investigate this
latest mutation of D-Art, and it took a lot of arguing to convince
him that:
- We
are not "young."
- He is already
a collector,
and this event is for wannabes.
- There would be a
lot of air kissing involved.
- He'd have to dress
nice,
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So we didn't go.
But then we started hearing vague rumors
and mysterious hints about an incident that happened on Oak Street
outside the DCCA. We could never confirm anything and decided
that the truth, if there was any, would come out eventually.
JR and I have also been wondering when
we would hear from Raynette
Burgess again. We thought we
saw Vernon's pickup turning on to Irving Blvd. from Oak
Lawn on that
very rainy Friday evening October 18, but we would never
in a million years connect Raynette and Vernon with The Young
Collectors Evening.
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of page
Yesterday I called
Raynette to find out if they really were there and to get her
version of the evening. This is what she told me:
It was true, Raynette and Vernon got the DCCA invitation,
and Raynette leaped on the opportunity to "explore her sense of style &
art aesthetic" (sic). She
even tried to "bring a few friends" but unfortunately
Jerry Wayne was still in jail, because he could not make bail
after losing all his money at the cockfights, and Raynette's
mother was in the middle of trapping a family of possums that
had obviously been breeding under her doublewide.
Raynette
said that the Evening was very educational. For
example, she learned that the only good artists live in New York
City. But Vernon got cranky because there was no beer or pork
rinds, only "wine and lite bites."
As they were leaving, Raynette spied
a small group of Young Collectors in the parking lot standing
near a U Haul truck parked on Oak. Raynette led Vernon over to
join in their conversation.
The Young Collectors told her that they
thought the truck was a return of David Ford's
installation titled Truck
Drawing El Paso to Dallas in the
Wall Power show last Spring. They said that they heard that the
installation had gone from Dallas to New York City, which now
means that it is real expensive art. Raynette said she wanted
to appear sophisticated, so she and Vernon oohed and aahed along
with the YC's at the very hip installation of furniture and appliances
in the back of the truck.
Raynette was wildly
(my version of what she said) impressed
when one of the Young Collectors told the reluctant artist sitting
in the driver's seat that he wanted to buy the installation for
his collection. The YC pulled out his checkbook and wrote a f**ing
big a** ( Raynette's exact words) check right there.
ell, that's when
things suddenly turned ugly.
According to Raynette, two police cars pulled up and caught the
artist as he tried to get away. They also put the collector/buyer
in handcuffs. Vernon told Raynette to keep her mouth shut and
not to "get into it" with the cops, because he couldn't
remember if he had any outstanding warrants.
It turned
out that the "artist" was a repeat offender, and the U Haul truck was full of stolen
property from a bunch of burglaries in North Dallas. The Young
Collector was arrested for receiving stolen property, and spent
another f**ing big a** (Raynette's words) check on bail and legal
fees to clear up the misunderstanding.
Raynette and Vernon very quietly returned
to their motel, and the next evening they decided to forego the
Dallas Art Scene and instead spend their evening at the familiar,
if not safer, Debonair Dance Land.
Raynette told me that she can't get over
the shock of seeing really rich people get arrested. Vernon said
there wasn't any art in that truck that he'd want to buy, but
there was a really fine big screen TV in there.
Vernon wanted to return to the DCCA for
last Friday's Texas
Mud opening, but it seems that he got that confused with
a listing in the Dallas
Morning News Guide for a Mudbowl
in The Colony. He was very disappointed that he would not be
seeing Joan Davidow mud wrestle, because in his words, "She's
a little scrawny, but I bet she can put up a fight I like feisty women."
The earlier Adventures of Raynette
& Vernon
are still available.
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