Theme: Peek-A-Boo

Location: Spectacular Sky Palace

Year: 2005

Art: Paul McGhee

Invite backstory:

Greer is born and can be seen emerging from the Artichoke Mama. She’s wearing the great Artichoke Hat my brother-in-law Charles made for me and is 11 months old for her first Artichoke Madness Party.

In addition to the traditional Christmas, Hanukah, Ramadan, St. Patty’s greetings we efficiently made this invite our birth announcement!

This is the first time we are combining Artichoke Art and photography and I like how it turned out. This is the 3rd of the Family series.

Party Highlights

I remember hanging out at the outside Skybar and letting the roar of the party wash over me - it was a beautiful day and a great energy. Lots of travelers including Joe Molino, John Falcone and Susan Garahan from graduate school made it extra special.

The kids had a Star Wars Party, this was a three-peat for chef Stephen. We upgraded our liquids to ‘relatively cold’ liquids and staked our claim as the ‘world’s best, maddest and longest running private artichoke party’. We were aware of the Artichoke Festival in Castroville so knew we weren’t the biggest - but since they closed that down in 2023, we likely are the biggest in the U.S. now!

Another highlight - 15 guests had been to all the Artichoke parties so I made an ‘All 10’ sweatshirt with all the party logos on the back.

In the top power move in Artichoke Madness history, Suzy Hansen, one of those proud 15, showed up in Seattle at Artichoke Madness 15wearing her sweatshirt (below! As you will learn, there was a lost decade after Artichoke Party 11, so 16 years had elapsed between AM 10 and AM 16, so it was unexpected and very fun!