Will Paint For Food.

One of the perks that comes with being an Artist (with a capital A) is the fancy parties you get invited to just because you can make pretty pictures.

Every year the American Embassy in Luxembourg throws a swank cocktail party for Ambassadors, Diplomats, CEO’s, Celebrity Ex-pats, Spies, and Assassins. And because 2007 is the year that Luxembourg is the Capital of Culture, they really went all out for the occasion this year. Since our group show at the Europa Museum coincided with the holiday we were invited to attend the soiree which was held this year at Abbaye de Neumünster in old Luxembourgville.

The evening wasn’t really about Art or about much of anything really except having fun, but the organizers did request a few of our paintings to place in the cocktail area. My painting By Pale Moonlight, got a nice seat on stage behind the band. (Which is just cosmically perfect in ways I don’t have time to explain.)

Anyway, after our red carpet arrival, we were offered champagne and cocktails of every kind. A full choir sang the Luxembourgish and then American National anthems, followed by the American Ambassador to Luxembourg making a quick speech about friendship between the US and Lux and thanking each of us by name for lending our artwork for the evening’s events.

There were no fire works, but it was a great time:

The Ambassador had the chef serve us her own Baked-bean recipe.

We ate balled watermelon on fancy USA paper napkins.

And last but not least, FrenchBoy ate his first (and 500th) jelly bean, went into a sugar frenzy, stole a balloon centerpiece and ran through the streets of Luxembourg singing the US national anthem.

Seriously. It happened. It's all 100 percent true.