HALO celebrates 20 years during art auction

They have a process.

Claire West and Sharon Lowder checked in at the HALO Art Auction Benefiting Homeless Youth, got their bidding paddles, grabbed a cocktail, and they were off to browse through auction items early Saturday evening at the Capital Bluffs Event Center.

“I like the wood piece here,” West said as she looked at a polished smooth block of wood that had worm holes. “I bought the wood piece they had last year and gave it as a gift.”

Lowder said she especially liked a stained glass sculpture called “Farmland,” by Janis Burgin. The piece was a simple tall rectangle that had blue and white sky, green pastures and red and gold fields.

The women said they have been longtime supporters of HALO, which in Jefferson City runs a home for pregnant, parenting and non-parenting girls ages 16-21, and their children, who are in homeless or high-risk situations.

It also has a program and after-school home for boys.

Last year, the local auction raised about $350,000. The goal this year was $300,000 and all the money raised was to stay in the Jefferson City community.

Rebecca Welsh, the founder of the nonprofit, said her family was proud that the organization was celebrating 20 years helping at-risk and homeless youths in Jefferson City.

“I’m really excited about Cindy Scott. She’s a live-painter who’ll be painting all night,” Welsh said. “We’ll be auctioning that off.”

Scott stood on an area of the stage that extended into the pit where bidders were seated in half-circles.

“It’s going to be a beautiful piece. She also participated in (our event in) Kansas City last weekend,” Welsh said. “So she’s just really committed to our cause. I just can’t wait to see what she paints tonight.”

As Scott prepared for the fundraiser, she explained that when she works, she takes direction from event organizers and they talk about what might appeal to the most people at that event — and what might bring the most money.

“Sometimes, I do a visual that appeals to the mission of the organization or the people that the organization serves,” Scott said. “In this case, I’m doing a seasonal landscape. It’s something that I think symbolizes hope and light.”

There were also a couple of signature pieces that excited participants, Welsh said.

Welsh’s mother, Joyce Neuenswander, did a survey of HALO clients around the world. She asked them to draw self-portraits in a small space, and in another small space, to draw what they considered their homes. Finally, she asked them what HALO means to them.

Neuenswander took the images created by 135 youths and, using Photoshop, placed all the self-portraits on one image and all the homes on another. HALO made prints of the resulting art and sold them as pairs during the Kansas City Art Auction last week. They did the same in Jefferson City Saturday night.

HALO also used the images and the descriptions of what HALO meant for the youths and placed those on coasters, which were then set on the dinner settings for the auction.

“They did their portrait. They did their home,” Neuenswander said. “So the kids can kind of look at … ‘Let’s see what she did. She did that one!'”

Most of the pieces of art “were really endearing,” she said. “Because I had them write on the side, ‘I love HALO because …’ and some of them were like extensive — ‘You’ve changed my life so much.'”

Neuenswander said she really made the artwork for Welsh to celebrate 20 years. But it became so much more.

Melissa and Jeremy Owsley came to the auction from Sunrise Beach. They said they first went to the auction to support their friend, Kayla Keller, who is the director of HALO Jefferson City.

“She was one of our youth kids in our church,” Melissa Owsley said. “We were youth pastors when she was there.”

They said they were pleased that Keller took lessons she might have learned from them and moved forward with them.

“She’s knocked it out of the park, pretty well,” Jeremy Owsley said. “She’s done very well.”