Artist Within

Marion Cultural Alliance's "Artist Within" fund raising auction was held Tuesday evening. The project teams up community leaders with local artists. It was a piece of cake to bring out the artist within Executive Chef Randal White whom I was teamed up with. He created the piece "Fantasy Cake", an acrylic on canvas. Randal embellished the painting by actually filling a pastry bag with paint and applying it to the canvas. Awesomely creative! You can catch Chef White's weekly cooking show, "Dishin' It Out" on Cox Cable channel 21 every weekend at 12:30pm and on channel 16 on monday at 7:00pm.

The event was held at Fox View Farm inside a huge barn containing a riding ring and stalls (with horses) circling the perimeter. Baskets of carrots were available for guests to treat and pet the horses. Way fun.

Close up of "Manely Motion".

Linda Ballantine Brown's horse is one of my favorites. "Horses in Motion" is a continuation of the original "Horse Fever" community project from 2001.

Nancy Ledding, the new executive director of Marion Cultural Alliance.

Power couple Maggie and Kent Weakley being cajoled by Laurie Menard into bidding on a diamond necklace.

Kent Weakley creates some amazing award-winning infrared black and white photography. Read his beautifully poignant account of his trip to Italy in this month's Ocala Magazine. Maggie paints wonderful, whimsical pets called "Maggie's Angels".