Touch My HeART Event
Sonya Paz – Touch My HeART fundraiser Article 01/06/06 – PDF
Los Gatos Opera House: February 12th 2006
Over 30 faux felines designed by Silicon Valley artists, including Sonya Paz whos cats will be on display at various Los Gatos locales. The cats are the centerpiece of the Touch My HeART fundraising campaign for the town’s art and history museums. The title of the cat that Sonya painted cat is Cat-Itude.
Cats on the prowl at town fundraiser – Los Gatos is really going to the cats.
By Sal Pizarro
Mercury News
For the next month, 32 faux felines designed by Silicon Valley artists will be on display at various Los Gatos locales. The
cats are the centerpiece of the Touch My HeART fundraising campaign for the town’s art and history museums.
The artists all started with the same acrylic cat body but ended up in wildly different places. One cat has hearts for spots
and is standing on its hind legs. Another is encased in a bronze metal body and a couple have scenes from downtown Los
Gatos emblazoned on their coats.
The only rule was that a heart — either in shape or word — had to be represented somewhere on each cat. At a preview
Wednesday at the Los Gatos Art Museum, Touch My HeART chair Sandy Decker and cat wrangler Valerie Hopkins
helped my quest to find every cat’s heart. I was successful with 26 of the 30 cats there (two cats were fashionably late,
as cats are wont to be). I’m sure someone will find the elusive four I missed.
Every cat is worth seeing, but there are a few that shouldn’t be missed: “Pablo Pawcasso” by Lorraine Lawson at the
Maid’s Quarters; “Heart of a Tiger” by Ken Johnson at the Windermere S.V.P.; “Hearts in the Balance” by Bill
Vujevich at Wells Fargo Bank; and “Cat-itude” by Sonya Paz at Alain Pinel Realtors. And wherever you find a cat,
there should be a list of where all the others are around town.
If all this sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a bit of a, uh, copycat: The Los Gatos Arts Commission also auctioned off 50
art cats in 2003 for nine South Bay arts groups. Decker said people have been asking for an encore ever since.
The cats will be auctioned at a Touch My HeART gala at the Los Gatos Opera House on Feb. 12, appropriately just before
Valentine’s Day. The theme of the event is “Hail Britannia,” and it will include a performance by Beatles tribute group
BBC, the auction of a London cityscape painting by artist Thomas Kinkade, and a London vacation giveaway.
