| EVENT REPORT 04.21.09 8:00 AM |
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| What Goes Around, Comes Around |
| This year's Corcoran Ball filled nine galleries with recycled and eco-friendly elements and served up organic and sustainable food. |
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On Friday night, the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s 54th annual Corcoran Ball carried a distinct eco-friendly message to its who’s who crowd of Washingtonians, among them White House social secretary Desirée Rogers and British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald. With the museum’s current Maya Lin exhibition serving as the inspiration, the evening highlighted a panoply of recycled and sustainable materials, while staying true to its decor-heavy focus.
The event’s planning team—the Corcoran’s women’s committee, headed this year by ball chair Collette Bruce, and Occasions Caterers' Eric Michael and floral designer Jack Lucky—first met back in September to finalize the theme. “From the beginning, it was always meant to be a green event,” said Michael. “Subsequently, the world has changed and events in general are wanting to be a little less extravagant. So it was important that we focus on everything that had been done to keep the ball eco-friendly.” |
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PHOTO GALLERY |
 | Gallery 18, one of the dining rooms for the younger patrons, got an underwater feel from gobos of sea life on the walls. Tie-dye-style blue linens covered white plastic tables uplit by Light-Olutions.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | | One bar area with flowery pink gobos looked into the ornate Salon d'Ore, which featured more pink linens, lighting, and flowers.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | Strings of glass balls hung in the purple-lit Atrium space, where the table settingsranged from deep blue to aquamarine.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | | In the upstairs lounge was a glowing bar with matching tables, acrylic bar stools, and massive arrangements of calla lilies in bronze pots.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | Gallery 16 had a dark lounge feel, with purple gobos of interlocking rings on the walls accenting the arrangements of deep purple blossoms.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | One of the evening's brightest rooms, Gallery 1 had neon blue, orange, and green settings and lighting. A trio of vases held loose arrangements of pink and yellow blossoms. Adding to the fun: rustic bamboo folding chairs and paper cutouts embedded with seeds in the shape of dragonflies on each setting.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | The Little Mantle Room matched its Rococo art with blue and gold paisley linens, gold opera chairs, and gilded pedestals for the floral arrangements.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | The Salon d'Ore's neoclassical French interior included shimmering pink linens and gold Chiavari chairs with pink dupioni skirts.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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 | Six-foot-tall centerpieces of ferns, bamboo, and other greenery in thick green cylinders punctuated the jungle-themed Rotunda, where fern-shaped gobos projected onto the ceiling and potted trees dressed up the entrances.
Photo: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography for BizBash |
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In doing so, the organizers printed cards for each table to outline the measures that had been taken to green the event, such as recycled glass stemware, borrowed antique dining tables, soy votives, local flowers, and recycled-paper programs. The menu also went for organic and sustainable ingredients in the form of wild gulf shrimp with curried pineapple, a filet of Virginia grass-fed beef with lemon-scented organic potatoes, and a free-trade chocolate and crème brûlée torte.
The eco-friendly elements did not, however, detract from the event’s reputation for eye candy, as nine dining spaces each had unique decor. Although the attendance shrank this year to 1,000 (from last year’s 1,200), the crowd still filled up the space, clamoring to sneak a peek at each setup.
The massive front Atrium offered the largest dining area, with purple uplighting and delicate strings of glass balls hanging from the ceiling. Linens in deep blues, violets, and aquamarines covered the tables, accented by towering six-foot-tall centerpieces (a look spotted in many of the dining rooms).
Some of the smaller galleries offered more flirty surroundings, such as the DayGlo-hued Gallery 1, which paired neon blue, orange, and lime green linens with trios of tall glass cylinders filled with loose pink and yellow blossoms. The Mantle Room went banquet-style, with three long antique tables set for 10 and cane-back chairs with leather seats. Instead of traditional linens, organizers opted for delicate lace place mats to show off the table and tucked packets of vegetable seeds into the napkins.
The Rotunda also offered an alternative to the standard linens, with recycled patchwork tablecloths in three shades of green that, according to Michael, took extra time to source. “Since we were doing things very economically and with an eye toward ecological responsibility, we started quite early,” he adds. “We ordered a lot of things in advance, particularly the Rotunda linens that had to be ordered back in December.”
Finally, the upstairs galleries appealed to the younger patrons seated in that area with more contemporary setups. A glowing white bar with matching uplit tables and acrylic barstools fed into Gallery 16’s dark purple-swathed space with black leather lounge sofas, black Panton-style dining chairs, and dramatically lit centerpieces of deep purple roses. An adjacent lounge area also offered a late-night option for revelers, with white leather sofas, a full light display of the New York skyline, and upbeat jazz from Phil McCusker & Orchestra.
—Danielle O'Steen
RELATED TOPICS
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Ball
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