June 26, 2002 – Friday's Da Da Wine Down at Café Amici promises to be more bubbly than most.
Featured artists Jacqueline Buckley and Doreen E. Walsh will certainly do their bit to keep the ambience effervescent, but the key ingredient is the Marquis de Monistrol Reserva champagne that will be part of the "pour" for this month's wine tasting and seminar.
A representative of West Indies Corp. also will be providing Miquel Torres wines for the occasion.
Da Da Wine Down, held on the last Friday of each month, runs from 5 to 8 p.m. in the open-air restaurant in Riise's Alley. The public is invited to view the art, chat with the artists, enjoy the complimentary hors d'oeuvres and cash bar and quite possibly take home a door prize of artwork, wine or a dining certificate.
For those who wish to participate in the wine seminar and tasting, there is a $10 fee. Presentations will be ongoing throughout the evening, as long as supplies last.
Buckley will exhibit recent paintings, and Walsh will show her batiks and prints.
Buckley grew up and currently lives on St. Thomas. She says she has been interested in art ever since she received her first box of Crayolas from her grandfather. After graduating from the Philadelphia University of the Arts, she returned to St. Thomas to build her home, teach art in elementary school and paint. One of her best-known projects as a teacher at Lockhart School was to have her students illustrate old-time West Indian sayings; the charming, whimsical and insightful illustrations and the sayings that inspired them were then used to create a series of greeting cards that were sold to raise funds for art supplies at the school.
Walsh, who has been creating batik artwork on St. Thomas since moving to the island in 1989, continues to push the envelope of the traditional wax-resist dye process. She grew up in New York and Pittsburgh, studied at Penn State University, then spent 15 months on a sketching tour of Western Europe and 10 years working in Oregon before moving to the islands. Drawing from and responding to her surroundings, she captures images and feelings, lights, shapes and colors to form moments in time. "There is a lot to learn from the Caribbean's often-contradictory facets of life, from the mind-boggling destruction of hurricanes to the awesome resiliency of humanity," she says.
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