icons: the arts
The party was so underground and edgy that partygoers who had been invited by friends — and friends of friends — had the feeling they needed a secret password just to get in. If they dared find it. To get to “Anne and Mark’s Art Party,” you first had to walk down the long alleyway of the Smurfit-Stone recycling center behind Spartan Stadium, sidestepping rolling plastic bottles and bales of flapping garbage bags. Rounding the back of the building, you had a sense of excitement and dread, as though you might come upon a drug deal, a dead body or, wait, what is that? A 12-foot rocking rooster and a metal go-cart topped with sails careening through the parking lot? And who was this Bonfire Bob and what was that “dumpster dome?” Before you could fully comprehend your surroundings, the sound of opera music drew you into a big white warehouse that had been transformed into a gallery filled with hundreds of works of local art. It was Mad Max meets Moulin Rouge, freak show meets Fellini. It didn’t shut down until the last guest who lost his pants (don’t ask) left wearing a black garbage bag around his waist. And to think Anne Sconberg grew up on a cattle ranch in Salinas, barrel racing on weekends and so shy at school that she spent her recesses reading books. At home, her parents and grandparents were big entertainers. Every
Christmas, they had a huge party and after every branding, they’d throw a barbecue. “Their house was built around being able to entertain and really create a sense of community,” says Sconberg, who is in her 40s. “My grandparents would tell my mother and her siblings that it’s important to give back to the community and make it stronger by pulling people together.” When she was just 11, her father was killed while helping a neighbor put out a house fire. Her mother remarried, and the family moved to Woodside. Her new aunt introduced her to photography when she was 13, and ever since, she’s had a darkroom in her home. After graduating from the elite Palo Alto girls school Castilleja, she read a biography of Virginia Woolf, who grew up in a sheltered environment but became part of the literary Bloomsbury Group. “They created this artists colony for themselves,” Sconberg says. “That’s what I wanted to do — just go off somewhere and live in a really creative environment and listen to interesting people and have life be different.” With her stepsister and her stepsister’s mother living in an apartment next to the Rodin Museum, she left for Paris after her first quarter at Stanford University as an English major. As she traveled back and forth over the next several years, earning her English degree in between,
Above and on both pages: Sconberg and her partner organized the annual Art Party earlier this year that drew some 1,000 revelers and art lovers to a warehouse on the edge of downtown San Jose. Below, Sconberg with her daughter Charlotte, in front of a portrait of Charlotte photographed by Sconberg. Art Party is part of an effort, says Sconberg, to surround her daughter with all the things she loves – art, music, friends, festivities.
For more photos and information about “Anne and Mark’s Art Party,” go to www.artparty2010.com.
FALL 2010 • SCENE • 79