Jane's Window: My Spirited Life in West Texas and Austin

11. Laguna Gloria

140 a FTeR We MOveD to austin, i became involved with the Laguna Gloria Museum of art, an institution founded to showcase Texas artists and their work. The museum was a bequest of heiress Clara Driscoll, who, at the age of nineteen , became famous for using her money to buy the alamo in San antonio , saving it from demolition. The museum is located in the Driscoll mansion on 35th Street on the shores of Lake austin. ever since my days as a student at UT i had wanted to be involved in the art world. in 1950, as a bride in el Paso, i had joined the austin chapter of the Texas Fine arts association. The active austin members welcomed me warmly after we moved. They soon discovered that i would take jobs nobody else wanted, even jobs i had not volunteered to do. But i got those anyway. in 1964, when the art gallery committee nominated me to become chairman of “Fiesta,” Laguna Gloria’s annual fundraiser—a difficult and demanding position—i said, “yes, but i want to do it my way.” Once i accepted that job, i quoted J. Frank Dobie, the delightful Texas humorist and author, who said, “it always rains on Cinco de Mayo.” naturally, that was always the day we held our Fiesta. alice Kleberg Reynolds was then president of the museum. “alice,” i asked, “do you mind if we really try to make some money this year?” “Sure, Jane, go right ahead.” Our “Fiesta” was supposed to be a fund raiser, so i thought we ought to raise some funds, even though the museum had never made much money on the event. if they were lucky, in former years, they broke 11 a Laguna Gloria 141 l A g U N A g l O R I A even. But primarily, the event goal had formerly been mostly to promote local artists. i, too, was eager to support the artists, but i also wanted us to make a profit. While it was always great fun, Fiesta was far too much work done by too few people. To spread the work, for the first time, i organized committees. i was determined that we were going to surprise everyone and make some serious money. The only way to do that was to organize early, monitor the work of the committees, and watch our expenses carefully. i never imagined that this more or less unglamorous job would give me a reputation as someone who could get things done. Being Fiesta chairman was a long way from the world of Monet and Picasso, but it allowed me to hone my organizational skills. every Monday morning for five months before the event, all my committee chairmen met with me in my dining room. We sat around our long table and drank coffee while each committee chairman gave her report. as a result, at each step along the way, we knew where we were and what we had left to do. Fiesta was always held on the museum grounds and local artists rented booths where they showcased their work. We charged them ten dollars each to set up a booth. even back then, that was the best deal in town, because the artists sold what they displayed and they kept all the profits. The museum did not receive any commission. all we asked was that they each donate one work for the auctions we held on Saturday and Sunday. We were pretty sure we would make money at the auction for the contributed art pieces, because we had a terrific auctioneer. Jack Darrouzet was a local attorney. if he was as persuasive in front of a jury as he was at selling art, he must have won a lot of cases. i was also fairly certain we could increase our profits on food and beverage sales. One thing we learned well was that when your goal was to sell more beer, salt the popcorn heavily and locate the popcorn stand right next to the beer booth. We were more than generous with the salt and our beer sales soared. We also introduced the tradition of selling cascarones, empty eggshells that are dyed, filled with confetti, then sealed with tissue paper. all of our committee folks ate scrambled eggs for months so we would have enough empty eggshells. We even appointed a chairman of cascarones, 142 C H...