Spillover Crowd from the packed Lumenhouse Benefit. — Photo by Joel Myers

This past Saturday, on one of the first blasts of warm weather we’ve seen since spring allegedly arrived, Bushwickers and visitors from around the city hit Beaver Street to check out art and get their dance on at Lumenhouse‘s “Save the House” benefit auction. The hard times facing the art world, and Lumenhouse in particular, saw owners Aurora Robson and Marshall Coles reach out to Bushwick’s art community for help. The solution, it was decided, was to put together a full-on social event — performances, a dance party, and an art auction with all proceeds benefiting the business. From early in the evening, they managed to have the place packed.

Hors d’oeuvres were dished out by the creative food stylings of Laura Braslow and Umami, and Butternuts Beer could be seen all around. Would-be art buyers bid on the works, which had actually been made available online before the sale via Lumenhouse’s website. Bidding sometimes got competitive, as buyers circled the rooms and put down their prices. BushwickBK’s own Jeremy Sapienza complained of finding a piece he liked and making an offer, only to find he had been outbid by a precocious 7-year-old shortly after.

“The kid went crying to his dad when we outbid him originally,” Sapienza said. “So daddy bid it up for him at the very end. I guess it’s a good thing, having him experience the art auction process at a young age. It will prepare him for real life.”

As the clock wound down on the auction, a flurry of last-minute activity had workers and volunteers at Lumenhouse scrambling to collect all the bids and then pull all the art down from the walls. New art buyers proudly held their bubble-wrapped acquisitions.

Later on, DJs Stylus and krnl panic kept the party going, helped along by a pretty psychedelic video art installation set up on a projector in the main room. With the auction finished, though, the crowd started to thin out noticeably, as the patrons made their way to their other nightspot destinations. But that didn’t stop a core group of dancers from keeping the high energy going, dancing obliviously just as hard as if they were in a packed club.

Aurora and Marshall said they thought that overall it was a successful event. “After our expenses, we were about $1500 short of our goals,” they said afterward, “but… the long term effects of bringing that many people to the House are going to pay off soon.” The high turnout showed that even in this lingering recession, the community can come together in style to keep things rolling.