In our previous post, we heard from JFAB 2016's artist, Amy Henry Centola about how The Justice For All Ball and the mission of The Pro Bono Project inspired her painting. In today's post, we see a different side of her amazing piece of art.
Amy Henry Centola’s beautiful painting of Lady Justice was by far one of the largest pieces of art ever produced for the Justice For All Ball. It was so big that Gary Solomon, Sr., who had bought it in the silent auction, was unable to take Lady Justice with him. It simply didn’t fit in his car, and Solomon Group's production crew didn’t want to take it for fear of damaging it.
We couldn’t leave it at the Audubon Tea Room (ATR) that night for later pick-up because they had an early morning event for which to prep and didn’t want to be responsible for keeping it safe. Jan said she would take it to her house, but she was dropping someone else home on the way, and didn’t have enough room to carry the painting, too.
Finally, Jenny suggested calling Uber and requesting a driver with an SUV. At 1:00 am, we thought that there would be no such driver available to come and pick up Lady Justice from the ATR and take it to Jan’s house.
Lo and behold, we were surprised when it turned out there was an SUV Uber driver on the road, and he wasn’t far from the ATR. John, our Uber guy, was, of course, a pretty cool dude who laughed along with us over the situation in which we found ourselves in the wee hours of the morning. He had never had a “passenger” quite like this - but Lady Justice fit like a dream into the back of his big SUV. We called Jan, who had departed already, and told her we were on the way!
Joanna followed John since we were not sure that Jan would get there before the painting. As it happened, Jan, John, and Joanna all arrived at Jan’s home within a few minutes of each other. As we stood in the street unloading the painting, we couldn’t help but continue to laugh about these closing moments of JFAB 2016. It wasn’t how we thought the night would end, but for all of us, it was a wild ride!
- Joanna Broussard on behalf of
Jan Hayden, Chair and Jennifer Rizzo-Choi
28th Annual JFAB, 2016
If you have a JFAB story to share, please send it to CC Kahr
Photo above: (l to r) Jan Hayden, JFAB 2016 Chair & then Executive Director, Jennifer Rizzo-Choi
Photos below: (l to r) Auctioneer John Calhoun taking bids on Lady Justice; Gary Solomon, Sr. making his bid; the artist Amy Henry Centola with her painting
