Local art collector donates collection in honor of his late wife to fund children’s art studio at Sebastopol Center for the Arts
Janet and Harvey Charnofsky shared a deep love for the arts during their 59 years of marriage. After the couple wed, they immediately began to purchase art in the Bay Area.
“We bought art before we bought furniture,” Harvey Charnofsky said.
In July 2017, Janet Charnofsky died leaving behind a legacy of local art and an expansive shared collection of 700 works of art.
In honor of his late wife, Harvey Charnofsky donated 66 of those pieces, including some done by Janet Charnofsky, to the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. The pieces will be available for purchase this Saturday and all funds raised will go to establish the Janet Charnofsky Youth Arts Studio.
The event will take place on Saturday, June 23 at Sebastopol Center for the Arts Little Red Hen Dining Room, 282 S. High St., with an art preview from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by a silent auction from 1 to 4 p.m.
Harvey Charnofsky will speak at 2:30 p.m. about the collection. Light refreshments will be served during the silent auction featuring local wineries and food vendors.
Charnofsky said he and his late wife hoped to encourage youth in the community in the experimental attitude of creating something that will last a lifetime.
“It’s really important to bring youth into the picture, because if we don’t start bringing young people into the artistic world, they’ll never be here,” he said.
Janet Charnofsky was a civil engineer as well as a celebrated Sonoma County artist. She helped establish Art at the Source, a long-standing SCA program featuring west county artists.
Harvey Charnofsky said he and his wife were always looking for the next generation of artists. He said they were fearful there would be an absence of local youth in the arts because of the unaffordability of the Sonoma County area.
“Who are the successors of the art?” he said. “Who is going to be in Art at the Source and Art Trails and who is going to support the galleries?”
Since January the Sebastopol Center for the Arts has been working with Harvey Charnofsky to bring the couple’s vision to life by providing a place for area youth to create art.
Anjana Utarid, executive director of SCA, said the auction is a starting point for the youth arts studio.
“This is really a silent capital campaign, we haven’t gone into full launch yet,” she said. “This is like the seed money to really rev it up.”
Giving children the opportunity to be exposed to art is the goal behind establishing the Youth Arts Studio as well as the reoccurrence of the SCA Summer Arts Camp.
Utarid said because of generous donors, scholarships are made available so no student is turned away. The Arts Camp is now enrolling students from age seven to 14. The first session of camp begins on July 9.
For more information on the camp or on the Charnofsky art sale, visit http://sebarts.org/.
