Artists give back in ‘Funk-Raiser’

By Kristen Peterson

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When Cindy Funkhouser opened a downtown antiques store on Casino Center Boulevard, she cleared a space to showcase local art.

Within months, the calendar for the backroom gallery at the Funk House was booked. Theater troupes, bands and solo acts performed in or behind the store. Then she started First Friday. That, too, was a smash, drawing as many as 10,000 people to the monthly street festival and gallery crawl.

Artists moved into the area. Cultural activity in the Arts District had fanned out 18 blocks.

Now it’s payback time. Funkhouser, who was diagnosed last year with Ewing’s sarcoma, has racked up a hefty stack of medical bills from chemo, surgery and other procedures.

The cancer is gone, but to help pay the bills, local artists are throwing a “Funk-Raiser” on Thursday at the Double Down Saloon. Art will be auctioned. DJ Bozo and Szandora, “the Hula Hoop Chick,” will entertain. Tattoo artist Dirk Vermin and performer Toni James will host the event. Proceeds will go directly to Funkhouser’s medical bills.

“People understand it’s all about the community,” says Mark T. Zeilman, who arranged the artists for the auction and will sell remaining works at his downtown gallery. “Any artist that has shown downtown has pretty much benefited from her.”

The Funk House has been a stopping place for fine art, lowbrow art and underground art; poetry readings; and book signings. Funkhouser, through her organization, Whirlygig, also partnered with gallery owner Todd VonBastiaans to create Obstacle Art, a miniature-golf-inspired interactive art exhibit. She and her husband own the Fall Out Gallery on Commerce Street.

“She’s been instrumental in just about everything. She’s worked her ass off,” says Vermin, owner of PussyKat Tattoo, who held his first “Tattoos & Trash” exhibit at the Funk House before opening his own Gallery Au Go-Go.

Vermin is donating a tattoo. More than a dozen artists have donated works, including Zeilman, Jerry Misko, Jorge Catoni, Leslie Rowland, Diane Bush, Danny Roberts, Dray and Anthony Bondi.

The event was organized by Moss (the one-named owner of the Double Down) and two of Funkhouser’s sisters from Spokane, Wash., in addition to Zeilman.

Wrangling the strong-willed, private and fiercely independent Funkhouser into signing off on such an event wasn’t easy. At first she said no.

But they persisted.

“She hasn’t really been able to work for months,” says Lori Funkhouser-King. “Even with good insurance, the bills are piling up.”

And the community seems to have no problem stepping forward.

“It’s only going to be a three-hour event and we’ve got so much artwork,” Zeilman says.