Around midnight on the evening Hughes put on a grand-opening bash at Rosslyn’s brand-new Artisphere cultural center, the trash cans are overflowing with empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans and Vitaminwater bottles. Cleaning up the mess, just like assembling the crowd, is Hughes’ job. But even as she ponders post-party refuse, Hughes’ connections are on display. D.C. Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein, a close friend, is among the volunteers picking up late-night garbage. Klein offers to put in a good word for Hughes with Arlington County Board Chairman Jay Fisette after everything is over.

When it comes to swaying the governments that provide large chunks of arts funding, Hughes might actually not need lobbying.

In the District, for instance, one of The Pink Line Project’s more successful public projects was a summer collaboration with the D.C. government to transform the former R.L. Christian Library, at 1300 H St. NE, into a temporary store—the Temporium—where local artists and designers sold their wares. A few months later, the city had turned the innovation into an entire category of funding. A request for applications released by the Office of Planning defined what a Temporium is (“a Temporary Urbanism project that transforms vacant storefronts or spaces into a temporary retail space for local designers to exhibit and sell their work”) and outlined the H Street project’s successes (“Future Temporiums should meet similar benchmarks”). One grantee will be selected to build their own Temporium in December 2010.

Hughes is bemused that the government would put out a request for proposals to recreate her project. “I think it would be better for them if they had their own branding on it,” says Hughes, somewhat miffed. “It’s bad for them if they’re trying to achieve their own goal in temporary urbanist projects.”

Last year, Hughes became a commissioner on the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities—a title she now lists directly under “chief creative contrarian” on her Pink Line e-mail signature. The position gives her some input on a number of funding, grant and public art projects undertaken in the District. People in the art scene have asked why she hasn’t been made the commission’s chair. “I think the situation is too political and bureaucratic and I think I can make more of a difference on my own, working on the ground so to speak,” Hughes says.

The appointment has its critics, too. “I cannot say I understand why she is on the D.C. arts commission, other than that she has lots of energy, loves to party, and seems to be doing a very good job of bringing the young art community together,” sniffs collector Lorie Peters Lauthier, who attended the upscale Corcoran party. Hughes finds herself cultivated by government on the other side of the river, too. Arlington County’s cultural affairs division tasked her with organizing one of the opening weekend parties for Artisphere—a county-sponsored megaproject that needed some buy-in from the twenty- to thirty-something set. Hughes delivered by bringing Brightest Young Things on board as co-host and, promising all-you-can-drink PBR and balloon-based performance art, sold some 900 advance tickets at $20 a head. More than 1,400 guests came in all.

The Artisphere party cost just south of $21,000 to produce. Of that, The Pink Line Project and Brightest Young Things spent roughly $4,000 on booze, $6,000 on talent, and $4,500 on security. Arlington Cultural Affairs gave the hosts a $5,000 sponsorship, meaning that all told, The Pink Line Project and Brightest Young Things netted between $5,000 and $6,000 each. Hughes estimates that it cost each of them 300 man hours.

Cynthia Connolly, director of visual arts for the Artisphere, says that she was first attracted to Hughes because she’s a surfer. “I heard about this woman named Philippa who collected art and surfed,” says Connolly. “Who the hell in D.C. collects art, is a younger woman and surfs?” A photographer and D.C. stalwart since 1981, Connolly is the visual art scene’s Ian MacKaye—something of a purist with a long memory and connections with anyone who produces art here.

The 4,000-square-foot Terrace Gallery, over which Connolly presides, is one of the Artisphere areas where drinks aren’t allowed during the opening party. As The Pink Line Project has expanded from small art talks to art-scene galas, its reputation in the art scene has both waxed and waned. Connolly registers some doubts about the merits of mixing art shows and parties so explicitly. “I find it offensive sometimes. I find creativity really important and nurturing the creative mind really important, and I feel like it needs respect. I sometimes feel that in a party atmosphere, things can become in a way not respectable to the art,” Connolly says, as Hughes’ party swells in the hold outside her booze-free space. “The art becomes a vehicle to make the party happen, and the party supercedes the art.”