Joe Downtown: Irish musician, fourth-grade artist team up for fundraiser

By Joe Schoenmann

Wednesday, March 27, 2013 | 8 a.m.

A local fourth-grade artist and an Irish folk music legend are teaming up Easter Sunday for an art show and concert to benefit Casa de Luz, which serves the poor in downtown’s Naked City.

Gerry O’Beirne, who was once an opening act for the Grateful Dead and has performed at the Kennedy Center, will be playing March 31 at The Lady Silvia bar, 900 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Ste. 140, on the first floor of Soho Lofts.

O’Beirne begins playing at 5 p.m., while the art of Jonah Jakin Schoenmann, 9, will be exhibited in an adjoining gallery starting at 3 p.m. (Full disclosure: Jonah is my son.)

Proceeds from the $30 cover charge will go to Casa de Luz.

Schoenmann, a downtown resident since his birth at University Medical Center and a student at First Good Shepherd Lutheran, said he discovered art “about a year ago” when, remarkably, he grew bored of video games.

“Then I realized that I had some paints I never really used, so I took a piece of paper and just did what I did,” he says. “And I knew that I could keep on doing it.”

Since February 2012, he has created roughly 50 acrylic-based paintings. He said his painting process was “a secret,” but he hoped his colorful works would make people “feel happy.”