This Palm Springs vacation rental will be turned into a curated art exhibit featuring more than 40 artists and open to the public starting Aug. 7.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JACOB MESSEX
It all started with the color pink.
That is the color of the Palm Springs house owned by a friend which caught Carlye Packer’s eyes and immediately made her brain connect pink to director/artist John Waters.
So she called Waters, who if memory serves you well graced the December 2014 cover of Palm Springs Life surrounded by, you guessed it, pink flamingoes.
Artwork by John Waters, who wrote and directed the 1988 film Hairspray.
“And then sometimes dreams get to become a reality,” says Packer, “and John Waters agreed that it looked like a very John Waters house and was the first person I asked and the first yes. And then it sort of went from there.”
There has blossomed into House Parté, an art exhibit curated by Packer inside a Palm Springs vacation rental by Oranj Palm. The installation opened Aug. 6 with a private showing and since then is viewable by invitation only after sending an email to: [email protected].
Packer, who grew up in Southern California and made the trek to the desert many times, was part owner of a Los Angeles gallery and curated independent projects until the pandemic closed everything.
In March, she put together a show inside the Baxter-Hodiak house in Los Angeles, originally built in 1940 for Frank Lloyd Wright’s granddaughter and actress Anne Baxter and remodeled in 1951 by John Lautner.
ARTWORK PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY CARLYE PACKER
The Haas Brothers, which are also sold at Patrick Dragonette in Palm Desert.
“There was something nice about being in an exhibition space that was domestic,” Packer says of the event. “It felt comfortable, like people would spend more time. It was just much more interesting than returning to like a white gallery cube.”
Packer hardly changed a thing and hung paintings on the wall and added sculptures. The Palm Springs house, a Jack Meiselman build and designed by John Moyer in the late 1950s, will be completely emptied and reoriented so that a bedroom won’t appear as a bedroom.
Beyond Water’s artwork, you’ll see the art of more than 40 artists that Caryle says she either knows from running her gallery, picked from reputable galleries she knows, or were recommended by friends. Notable names she recommends checking out are Ruby Neri, HAAS Brothers, Tala Madani, Delphine Desane, and Sigmar Polke. The artwork will continue to rotate in the home after the event is over.
“From room to room, the art will be different, and I think they play well with each other,” she says,
