Art & Animal Rescue
When the pandemic brought daily life to an eerie stand-still, a flare of creativity started brewing in West Hollywood, California. Gigi Garner was on her way to discover something new, to keep the lights on at her newly-established non-profit that had only been open for a year. You may have heard of Garner before. In 2019, five years after her father’s passing, she launched the James Garner Animal Rescue Fund. (JGARF) To honor her father’s legacy, Gigi chose a cause that had always been the most significant to him. In fact, if James Garner was not acting or reading film scripts — for shows such as Maverick, The Rockford Files and Grand Prix — he was hanging out with his dogs.
Recently, a friend of mine emailed pictures of two abstract paintings by Gigi Garner that had been purchased directly from the artist herself, but online. While the purchase of these artworks raised support for JGARF, I was immediately drawn to the artist’s breathtaking use of color: the appearance of vibrant yellow, orange, red and green, for instance, attempted to saturate a shiny and densely, dark surface.
