Daily Loaf

A traveling exhibition organized by Chattanooga’s Hunter Museum of American Art, I Heard A Voice: The Art of Lesley Dill brings nearly 30 of the acclaimed contemporary artist’s works — with an emphasis on sculptural installations — to St. Petersburg. Poetic and psychologically charged, Dill’s constructions often combine fabric and figures (or dress forms) with text to spellbinding effect; works featured in I Heard A Voice respond to poetry by Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu and Franz Kafka. Expect to be moved by the artist’s ideas and awed by her craft. Oct. 10-Dec. 27, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, 727-896-2667, fine-arts.org.

Pictured right: Dill’s Breathing Leaves (2004). Ink, thread, glue on tea-stained fabric. Courtesy of the Artist and Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

More of Lesley Dill’s artwork after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Because it’s hard to know these days whether to be cautiously optimistic that the recession might be ending or terrified that nobody knows what will happen next, contemplating Florida’s place in the economic (and, increasingly, environmental) miasma is a harrowing exercise.

Artist Michael Parker has his own vision of the state’s fate, as expressed in a composite of digital photographs (”The Final Battle,” right): two toddlers, each sunk ankle-deep into cement, seeming to lunge toward each other in a grappling contest, set against a slightly surreal landscape of swirling clouds and an ominously looming tree.

The picture — simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and disturbing — conveys in a nutshell for curator Manuel Lopez what the exhibit Slow Death of a Flamingo is about. Read the rest of this entry »

When customers pop into Central Art Supply Company to stock up on paintbrushes and pastels, co-owner Pat Jennings can’t help but be curious. Earlier this year, after an abundance of shoppers confessed to him that they were headed to workshops elsewhere (like North Carolina or New Mexico), curiosity gave way to inspiration — and the Artista Project was born.

The workshop, demo and lecture series invites artists into Central Art Supply Company’s 1,000-sq.-foot studio, three doors down from the store, for a wide range of how-tos themed by artistic medium as well as professional development issues like copyright. (When I pointed out to Jennings that the appeal of escaping to Vermont for a lithography seminar in the dead of August transcended the allure of merely taking an art class, he countered that “holding a watercolor workshop with some rock star [instructor] here in February is equally compelling.”) Read the rest of this entry »

Customers browse at the Tampa Artist Emporium in South Tampa. Pictured below: Boggs stands behind the Emporium’s front desk.

Two years ago, Tampa photographer Shelby Boggs took a gamble. Inspired by the Kress Emporium, an historic building in Asheville, NC, that serves as a marketplace for more than 80 regional artists and craftspeople, she set out to create something similar (if smaller) in Tampa. Using some money she’d pocketed after flipping a house in the once-hot real estate market, she snagged a favorable lease in Hyde Park Village.

Boggs dubbed the location, once occupied by retailer Ann Taylor, the Tampa Artist Emporium and soon began renting wall and shelf space to local artists, who displayed their work. Monthly mixers and an open-door policy during the shopping district’s popular outdoor art fair led to sales. In relatively short order, Boggs’ pie-in-the-sky idea didn’t look so crazy after all.

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Sheree Rensel. Twingo. Copper and mixed media on wood. 11-3/4″ x 11-3/4″ x 3″. Artist’s statement: “Twingo” is the unique and original tweet language of Twitter Tweople. Bio: BFA, MFA, Detroit artist born, NOW living and loving my art life in the real and virtual Universe.

If you’re following St. Petersburg artist Sheree Rensel on Twitter—that’s to say, if you’ve signed up to read her “tweets” or 140-character updates throughout the day—you can pretty much count on receiving a smile-inducing greeting routinely at around 9 a.m. It goes something like this:

“Good morning ART Tweople!”

(For those not already fluent in Twitterspeak, tweople—or tweeple—is a blend of “Twitter” and “people” used to refer to other users of the service. To learn more Twitterisms, consider consulting a twictionary like this one.)

A self-described “hyperactive” early adopter, Rensel has taught visual art to emotionally and developmentally disabled kids at a public school in Gulfport for 17 years, incorporating digital projects like photo portfolios and basic animation into the curriculum when possible. A mixed media artist by practice, Rensel—who describes her age as 50-something—uses Twitter mainly to keep up with other artists whose work she admires.

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Ricardo de la Vega and Felipe Packard. Strolling in the Park. Mixed media, 2007. Image courtesy Morean Arts Center.

Thursday

5-7 p.m. – Opening reception for Green: the Primary Color, featuring environmentally-themed art by Florida artists, at Art Center Sarasota.

5:30-7:30 p.m. – One Wild Night networking event, in conjunction with Wild Spirits exhibition at the Morean Arts Center. $10 admission includes interactive activities with the artists, heavy hors d’oeuvres and cash bar. RSVP to Lara Shelton at 727-822-7872 x15 or e-mail lara[at]moreanartscenter.org.

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Aqua Wynwood 2007: Rusted wheelbarrows cut with lace-like patterns by Cal Lane at New York’s Foley Gallery. Photo by Megan Voeller.

Since reports (like this one) surfaced that collectors were actually buying earlier this summer at Art Basel in Switzerland, the international art fair circuit has managed at least partially to shake its recent image as a victim of the economy.

In December, when Art Basel Miami Beach arrives in Florida, St. Petersburg’s C. Emerson Fine Arts will take part in Aqua Art Miami, one of the popular satellite fairs that orbit around the larger showcase. Aqua, which plans to ditch its original venue (the Aqua Hotel on Miami Beach) and set up shop only in the Wynwood gallery district, has a reputation as one of the stronger satellites. It typically includes galleries from around the US along with a smattering of international participants.

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Photo by Brian Vandervliet

Friday

5:30-8:30 p.m. – S’REAL Happy Hour and opening reception for summer exhibitions: Mabel Palacín: Una noche sin fin [An Endless Night], Dalí at Work and Play: The Photographs of Marc Lacroix and Dalí: Seen Through Glass, at the Salvador Dalí Museum. Complimentary snacks and cash bar. Half-price admission ($8.50) after 5 p.m.

6-9 p.m. – Summer Jazz Series with the Campfire Quartet at the MFA; $15 for non-members, $10 for members, includes admission to Hazel Hough Wing galleries (currently on view: Andy Warhol prints).

7-9 p.m. – Opening reception for Discontinuum, photography by Brian Vandervliet, at the Globe Coffee Lounge. From the release: These forty photos were taken close to home in St. Pete, on the other side of the world in Asia and Europe, and around the United States. An Indian actor shares the wall with a bemused grandmother in Bangkok, and she with celebrators in a Pride Parade.

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Denis Gaston. Little Boxes. Mixed media on masonite, 20″ x 16”. Pictured below: Denis Gaston. Ground Control To Major Tom (Grab ‘n Go Art Collection). Ink on paper, 7″ x 5″. Images courtesy of the artist.

If it’s summer, it must be time for the Cool Art Show. Any other time of year, the region would be lousy with outdoor art fairs—but from July through September, who wants to brave heat, humidity or the chance of an afternoon thunderstorm?

Twenty-one years ago, Dunedin artist Denis Gaston had a simple idea that turned out to have staying power: round up a group of the Tampa Bay area’s most committed professional artists and add air conditioning.

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Tes One’s spray-paint-on-wood painting measures 10-ft. by 11-ft.

You know what they say: when the going gets tough, the tough get…bigger?

Despite the ongoing economic malaise—which seems to find Florida in a particularly compromising position—St. Petersburg artist and art party impresario John Vitale isn’t giving up. Though the muralist and owner of Vitale Studio recently downsized out of a company warehouse that doubled as an art gallery, his response to tough times is simply to take the show on the road.

All the way downtown to Nova 535, that is.

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Rumors of a Sarah Jessica Parker-produced reality TV show – think Project Runway for visual artists – have finally been confirmed, and a round of regional casting calls held over the next two weeks will determine the series’ first round of participants. Aspiring Tampa-based contenders can head to Miami for next Tuesday’s try-outs at Fredric Snitzer Gallery in Wynwood. Just fill out the 23-page application (actual question: “What annoys you about other artists?”) and prep your portfolio (including “any original artwork that is easily transportable.”)

The application warns that contestants will need to have a current passport and submit to all medical and psychological examinations deemed necessary. So bring the drama, but leave the crazy at home.

Official Bravo casting call
Media Bistro’s UnBeige blog

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Allen Leepa (American, b. 1919). Homage to Tarpon Springs, 1998. Acrylic on canvas, 5 x 12 feet (2 panels). Courtesy Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art.

Earlier this week, Allen Leepa– abstract painter and founder of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art at St. Petersburg College– died at age 90. In celebration of his legacy, the museum will showcase his art in an exhibition scheduled to open on Aug. 2, Allen Leepa: In Memoriam.

In 1997, Leepa and his wife Isabelle donated $2.5 million to St. Petersburg College (then St. Petersburg Junior College) along with an extensive collection of works by Leepa, Esther Gentle Rattner (his mother) and Abraham Rattner (his stepfather). The collection, which is valued at upwards of $20 million, also includes works by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Georges Rouault and Hans Hofmann.

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Bruce Marsh, Riverwall (detail). Photo by Megan Voeller.

Downtown Tampa’s Riverwalk gained a public art cornerstone recently with the installation of Bruce Marsh’s Riverwall– a 40-foot long mural composed of photographic images of the Hillsborough River. Fired into porcelain enamel on steel plates, the images show the river– a 54-mile long waterway integral to the region’s ecological health– in a variety of incarnations, from a forking artery seen from above to a forested stomping ground for boaters.

Marsh, who taught art at the University of South Florida from 1969 to 2003, is well known in the region and beyond as an outstanding landscape painter. Though the Riverwall relies mainly on photographic depictions of the river, some of his paintings appear as pictures among the 550 featured images (each 8-inches by 9-1/2-inches). From afar, the grid forms a purposely enigmatic, river-like shape based on a photograph of floating water lilies.

“The whole idea [was to make] something that would offer a visual hook… that would entice and draw people… and function as a gathering point,” Marsh says.

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Fuzión Dance Artists performing “Just Girls.” Image courtesy fuziondance.com.

Friday

6-9 p.m. – Closing reception for Reincarnate Metaphors: Girard Louis Drouillard at Salt Creek Artworks Galleries.

6-9 p.m. – Summer Jazz Series with Orlando Stewart Trio at the MFA; $15 for non-members, $10 for members, includes admission to Hazel Hough Wing galleries (currently on view: Andy Warhol prints).

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Image courtesy Polk Museum of Art

This weekend, the Polk Museum of Art celebrates the debut of its recently acquired Art-O-Mat with an interactive talk by Art-O-Mat founder and creator Clark Whittington.

Whittington, a conceptual artist based in Winston-Salem, NC, first hatched the Art-O-Mat idea for an exhibition in 1997, when he transformed a dilapidated cigarette machine into a retro-fabulous contraption to dispense his own small-scale works of art. When the show was over, the hosting venue—Mary’s Of Course Café in Winston-Salem—requested that the machine stick around. Whittington obliged, inviting other artists to refill it with cigarette pack-sized works.

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Craig Kaths. 24 bit one. 18” x 18”, 24-color screen print on Arches 88 paper. Image courtesy craigkaths.com.

Though this weekend ushers in summer – a season notoriously devoid of art offerings in Tampa Bay – you wouldn’t know it from this busy slate of openings and events. The weekend begins early with tonight’s Heart Show 2009 and an Ybor Art Party. Friday night’s opening for Craig Kaths’ exhibition at Reax Space promises to be a June highlight, along with a triple header at the historic Santaella Cigar Factory (1906 N. Armenia Ave.), where the West Tampa Center for the Arts, [5]art and Three04 will all host opening or closing receptions for current exhibits.

Thursday

6-9 p.m. – Ybor Art Party at Ybor Art Studio (2702 E. 7th Ave.), featuring art by Ron Guerin; $5 donation.

6 p.m.-12 a.m. – Heart Show 2009, a night of art and fashion at Snow Park in downtown Tampa to benefit the James Anthony Ray Sadler Scholarship Fund, hosted by Tribeca Salon; $50 VIP admission (6-8 p.m.) includes wine and hors d’ouevres by Mise En Place, $10 general admission (8 p.m.-12 a.m.). For more information, email guestservices [at] tribecasalon [dot] com.

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Jeremy Chandler. Couple at the Fair. Image courtesy of the artist.

First there was Beth Reynolds’ documentation of Tampa life in heterogeneous form—from the flamenco dancer to the crab fisherman. Then came Suzanne Camp Crosby’s more surreal take on the city’s character—think headless mannequins in period costume arranged on the veranda of Plant Hall. Next, Rebecca Sexton Larson’s pinhole photographs, Steven S. Gregory’s digitally altered landscapes and Marion Belanger’s haunting interior spaces, devoid of people.

Now the sixth shooter to take up the mantle of photographer laureate for the City of Tampa, Jeremy Chandler, offers his view of the burg’s charms and curiosities. Through July 6, twenty of his color photographs (from a portfolio of 35 images in all) are on view at Gallery AIA at the American Institute for Architects offices in downtown Tampa. Like each of his predecessors, Chandler sees Tampa through his own aesthetic ‘lens’—in this case, one devoted to portraiture.

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Arlene Lueck’s quilt, Mom’s Hair Tools, is included in EXPLORATIONS: An Exhibition of Journal Quilts at the Dunedin Fine Art Center.

Special shout-out: The weekend’s art offerings include an unusual performance to held in conjunction with Homemade: A Music Symposium on Saturday. At HCC Ybor’s art gallery, co-collaborators John Russell and Kurt Piazza, aka AVAACC, will embark on an interactive sonic adventure with the help of visitors, recording and remixing sounds gathered at symposium sites throughout the day. The resulting composition will be distributed on a collectible CD at the symposium’s end. See Saturday’s listings for more information.

Friday

5:30-7:30 p.m. – Opening reception for Wild Spirits: Lenné Nicklaus-Ball, Candace Knapp, and Felipe Packard & Ricardo de la Vega at Morean Arts Center.

6-8 p.m. – Opening reception for SAWTOOTH: New Quilts from an Old Favorite and EXPLORATIONS: An Exhibition of Journal Quilts at the Dunedin Fine Art Center; $5, free for members.

7-10 p.m. – Art Auction, featuring work by Charlie Parker, Duncan McClellan, Brian Ransom, Neverne Covington, Chad Mize, Kevin Brady, Herb Snitzer, Carol Dameron and more, in honor of the Studio@620’s fifth birthday, at St. Petersburg Clay Company.

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Photos by Megan Voeller

The new Tampa Museum of Art, now slated to open to the public in early 2010, inches closer toward completion each day on downtown Tampa’s riverfront. Close observers will note that the building’s distinctive cladding—a double layer of perforated metal sheets offset to create a moiré pattern on the structure’s surface—has begun to be installed. Within days, the building’s air conditioning system should be active; museum staff may begin to move in as soon as November.

Now that more than the building’s skeleton is in place, TMA director Todd Smith leads three or four hardhat tours of the structure each week (one reason why he’s looking forward to the imminent addition of air conditioning). At 66,000 sq. ft., the new museum is the right size for the community, Smith explains as we stand in the sky-lighted atrium. (That square footage, roughly on par with the expanded Museum of Fine Arts and the proposed new Dali Museum, which is expected to weigh in at 75,000 sq. ft., seems to be a sweet spot for the region.)

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Restrooms at Nova 535, left, and Tampa Theatre.

(Via Tampa Downtown Partnership)

Strange but true: two Tampa Bay area arts venues – downtown Tampa’s iconic Tampa Theatre and downtown St. Petersburg’s Nova 535 – are in the running for Cintas Corporation’s annual America’s Best Restroom contest.

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Neverne Covington’s drawing, Portrait of Bob Devin Jones (detail), 2005. (Pictured below left: Covington’s Portrait of Dave Ellis. Pictured below right: the complete portrait of Jones, which measures 45″ x 88″.)

Since April, St. Petersburg’s Studio@620 has been unfurling a series of events designed to celebrate the multidisciplinary arts venue’s fifth birthday. Following a gospel brunch, film screening and theatrical shorts, Friday’s art auction – to be held at St. Petersburg Clay Company – benefits the Studio while offering local collectors a chance to purchase works by some of the area’s artistic luminaries.

Neverne Covington, a St. Petersburg-based artist whose longtime studio space at Jannus Landing makes her a neighbor as well as a fan of the Studio@620, contributes two large-scale portraits of the nonprofit’s co-founders, Dave Ellis and Bob Devin Jones. Recalling her first encounter with Jones (while attending a performance of his play, Uncle Bends: a home-cooked negro narrative, at Eckerd College), Covington remembers thinking, “Who is this person? We need to keep him around…”

Mission accomplished—thank goodness.

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Wallpaper design (detail) by Anthony Zollo. Image courtesy of the artist.

For a couple of years now, Florida Craftsmen has been organizing a series of exhibitions that explore a single theme: living with art and fine craft. Despite their conceptual commonality, the exhibits couldn’t be more diverse. At Home With Crafts, the inaugural effort in 2007, offered everything from artist-designed linens and a custom fireplace to one-of-a-kind flatware and a handmade wood crib, all presented in a model home-style layout inside the gallery. Last year’s follow up, Architectural Details and Other Decorative Crafts, wowed with pieces like Alison Swann-Ingram and Carl Johnson’s eco-minimalist coffee table, made of reclaimed wood topped with glass.

This year, Florida Craftsmen narrows its focus to one particular ‘medium’—an interior design staple that has enjoyed a recent upswing in mass market popularity: wallpaper. True to their mission (“empower artists, enrich the community, engage the next generation”), the nonprofit has partnered with about 20 artists—the vast majority of them local and ‘emerging’—to create more than twice as many unique wallpapers that, it seems safe to say (for now at least), you won’t find anywhere else.

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Friday

6-9 p.m. – Opening reception for View Point, photography by members of North Tampa Arts League, at The Great Frame Up Gallery (1646 Bruce B. Downs Blvd, Wesley Chapel). The exhibition is judged by Robert Louis Kerns, a retired professor of visual communications from USF, who is a prizewinning photographic artist and photojournalist, as well as a teacher and author.

7-10 p.m. – Emerge art party Eight Is Enough, presented by Kick Start My Art and Tampa Artist Emporium, featuring artworks that measure 8-in. x 8-in., at Tampa Artist Emporium.

7-10 p.m. – Film Lingual 3 at C. Emerson Fine Arts. C. Emerson Fine Arts’ annual showcase of genre defying photographic works, Film Lingual 3, opens Friday with a one-night-only interactive video projection that puts visitors in the spotlight. (“We need your bodies,” tweets gallery owner Lori Johns.) This year’s roster of artists — David Audet, Nancy Cervenka, Brandon Dunlap, Corey George, Illuminations 33701, Jamie Jackson, Laszlo Horvath, Matthew Lindhardt, Austin Nelson, Leah Oates, Dana Plays and Joseph Walles — promises diversity in their creative explorations, alternately serving up documentary photography, digitally-crafted images and sculpture made from found movie film. Don’t miss an experimental film screening hosted and featuring films by Audet on Tuesday at Café Bohemia. June 5-20, with an opening reception 7-10 p.m. Fri., June 5, C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com; and Short Attention Span Theater, Tues., June 9, 9-11 p.m., Café Bohemia, 937 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, free, myspace.com/cafe_bohemia. (From CLTampa.com.)

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Black-figure Column Krater. Greek, Attic, about 510 BC. Ceramic. Tampa Museum of Art; purchased with funds from the Friends of the Arts (FOTA) 1981.5. Courtesy tampamuseum.org. Foreground: Richard E. Perry curator of Greek and Roman art Seth Pevnick.

The Tampa Museum of Art (TMA) announced this afternoon that it has hired Seth Pevnick of the J. Paul Getty Museum to serve as the museum’s Richard E. Perry curator of Greek and Roman art. Despite recent budget cuts, the museum was able to bring the curator on board thanks to a 1998 gift by Dr. Richard E. Perry and his wife, Mary, of St. Petersburg, which established the endowed position. TMA’s collection of Greek and Roman antiquities is widely regarded as the museum’s most valuable asset; Pevnick’s duties will include designing and overseeing the installation of the collection in the new building (currently scheduled to open in early 2010). A PhD candidate at UCLA’s Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and a graduate of Loyola Marymount University and Dartmouth College, Pevnick begins his position at TMA on Sept. 1.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Wallpaper design by Jenipher Chandley, featured in Off and On the Wall at Florida Craftsmen. Image courtesy Florida Craftsmen.

Correction: Bejeweled takes place on Saturday night, not Friday.

Friday

5-7 p.m. – Opening reception for Re-Art, an exhibition of artworks made from repurposed objects by Dee Hood, Sheryl Haler, Kevin Dean, Gwen Fryer, Polly Holt, Rose Marie Prins and Peter Rampson, at ArtCenter Manatee.

5-7:30 p.m. – Opening reception for Jeremy Chandler: City of Tampa Photographer Laureate VI at Gallery AIA (American Institute of Architects), 200 N. Tampa St., Suite 100, Tampa. Kindly RSVP to publicart[at]tampagov.net.

6-8 p.m. – Opening reception for Paper: Off and On the Wall, an exhibition of original wallpaper designs by more than 20 artists including Wade Brickhouse, Bluelucy, Claudia Jennings, Daniel Mrgan, Melia White and Anthony Zollo, at Florida Craftsmen.

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Friday

6-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Experimental Skeleton’s To Boldly Go at West Tampa Center for the Arts, gallery 209.

From the release>>

‘To Boldly Go’ will explore the utopian ideas, visual flavor, pop culture influence, imagined technologies, flora and fauna, and virtually any aspect of the original Star Trek series that invited artists have focused on. Works will be in [a variety of] media. Come experience a very unique and exciting reception.

Participating artists include David Waterman, Mike Stewart, Chris Deacon, Max Valentonis, Don Fuller, Vincent Kral, April Childers, Allen Hampton, Bob Dorsey, Katey Raven Dorsey, Brian Taylor, JR Bonds, Joe Griffith, Kym O’Donnell, Jason Rodrick, Bradley Paul Valentine and more—with Special Sonic Enhancement by DJ Sam, DJ Brian Oblivion and Bud Mayhem.

Free and open to the public. Donation Bar.

7-9 p.m. – Closing reception for Fever Fakers at [5]art.

7-9 p.m. – Closing reception for Roger Chamieh: New Work at three04.

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Tampa Theatre begins screening Little Ashes, a film about the more-than-friendship between surrealist painter Salvador Dali and poet Federico Garcia Lorca, this weekend. Showtimes tonight, Saturday and Sunday are preceeded by talks by Dali Museum staffers, including director Hank Hine (Saturday). Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson plays Dali, and the film’s trailer promises a titillating mix of flamboyant artistic tempers, fragile egos and underwater eroticism. As Lorca fans know, this story doesn’t have a happy ending.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Keith Haring, Andy Mouse (1986) © Keith Haring Foundation

This weekend’s visual art options include the debut of Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life and Legends at the Museum of Fine Arts, featuring more than 70 screen-prints by the pop master. Classics including Campbell’s Soup I (Cream of Mushroom), Flowers and portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Superman and Muhammad Ali go on view, along with several lesser-known portfolios. The showcase spans Warhol’s career as a fine artist, from his heyday in the 1960s to the 1980s, when he produced the poignant Endangered Species series (included in the exhibit)—four years before his unexpected death of complications from gallbladder surgery in 1987. As a bonus, the show includes portraits of Warhol by Keith Haring, whose perversely Disney-esque Andy Mouse strikes the perfect irreverent note, and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life and Legends, May 16-Aug. 16, Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg, 727-896-2667, fine-arts.org.

Friday

6-9 p.m. – Opening reception for Reincarnate Metaphors: Girard Louis Drouillard at Salt Creek Artworks Galleries. Resident artists’ studios open during reception.

7-9:30 p.m. – Back In the Day Bazaar and Social at Tampa Street Market with special discounts, music, drinks and food provided by Loko Cuisine. Meet artist Anika Easter. $15.

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A 2007 work by Sabrina Small (Out Of The Trenches And Into The Fire, watercolor and ink on paper 8” x 11.5”), one of the artists featured in Zero Modern Arts Directory. See Saturday for more information.

Thursday

6-8 p.m. – Closing party for Contemporary Chinese Photography with a performance by Paul Wilborn and the Blue Roses at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. Admission ($10 for museum members, $12 students over 21 and $15 for non-members) includes wine and hors d‘oeuvres.

Friday

8-11 p.m. – Double Takes Second Annual Dalí Look-Alike Contest, featuring a screening of the competition videos and an exhibition of surrealist artworks, at Gallery Live. (Event continues Saturday night.)

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Image courtesy Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten and Leslie Fry

Tuesday evening marks the public debut of a collaborative project between St. Petersburg-based artist Leslie Fry and Austrian artist Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten at the Studio@620. The pair met via email and Skype earlier this year then teamed up for an intense, ten-day collaboration in St. Petersburg. During Tuesday’s opening reception (6-9 p.m.), visitors are invited to peruse the resulting artwork and play an interactive game while enjoying Austrian and American food and introductions by three speakers: Andreas Stadler, Austrian Cultural Forum New York; Wallace Wilson, Director, College of the Arts, University of South Florida; and Erika Greenberg-Schneider, Owner and Master Printer of Bleu Acier Inc., Tampa.

Hoping to spawn more cross-cultural connections out of their own, Czerwenka-Wenkstetten and Fry say the reception is an opportunity to network and encounter other perspectives. Their collaboration continues in the fall when Vienna’s Windspiel Galerie will showcase their work. Over the weekend, both artists offered thoughts about their collaboration by email.

Artsqueeze: How did you both meet and decide to collaborate?

Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten: I researched in the area who did interesting work, so I searched the internet, and Jorge Vidal at the Arts Center, among others, mentioned Leslie Fry. So I researched her. And I like her work, I love the aesthetics and background she works with. So I called her from Europe and told her about the project. That was in September, I guess. Then some emails, and soon Leslie gave her OK to that exploration.

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The lineup for October’s Ringling International Arts Festival features New York cabaret sensation Meow Meow. Meowmeowrevolution.com.

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, in partnership with the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, announces the first Ringling International Arts Festival, scheduled to take place in Sarasota this October. The festival, which runs Oct. 7-11, features an array of dance, music and theatrical performances. (Somewhat disapointingly, it looks like the visual arts offerings will be limited to the museum’s planned exhibitions, Venice in the Age of Canaletto and Louise Fishman Among the Old Masters.)

However, the festival’s dance and theater offerings are out of this world (or, at least, out of this region, in the sense that aficionados would ordinarily make a pilgrimage to PS 122 or Jacob’s Pillow to see performances like these). Both a world premiere by Canadian choreographer Aszure Barton and an extended version of Arena, choreographed by Deganit Shemy, are festival commissions. Theater offerings include a world premiere (another festival commission) by Elevator Repair Service and Ella Hickson’s Eight, winner of the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s highest honor.

Also not to be missed, “post post-modern showgirl” Meow Meow’s Beyond Glamour: The Absinthe Tour.

Click here to access the festival’s website, including an order form for festival passes. (Individual ticket sales start May 15.) Ringling members, of course, get the best deals– like an eight-performance pass for $180.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Ann-Marie Manker, Hummingbirds. myspace.com/cheddarbunny

On Friday, [5]art presents the first in a series of exhibitions from contemporary art galleries around the country where the Tampa collective’s work will be shown later this year. Fever Fakers, featuring five artists from Young Blood Gallery in Atlanta, is particularly notable for its fine examples of figurative drawing and painting: from Steven Alexander Dixey’s chilling acrylic interpretations of classical and biblical imagery (e.g., Cain at the moment of his sentencing, guiltily clutching a handgun), rendered in a style that’s half graphic novel and half medieval altarpiece, to Ann-Marie Manker’s delicate drawings that follow a female figure through a fantasyland populated by curiously affectionate animals. If this show doesn’t raise the temperature of Tampa’s visual art scene by a few degrees, what will?

Friday

6 p.m. – Opening reception for Verso: The Other Side of the Urban Vista, photographs by Thomas U. Gessler, at the Studio@620.

7-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Fever Fakers, featuring art by Steven Dixey, Ann-Marie Manker, Samuel Parker, Joe Tsambiras and Cristina Vidal of Young Blood Gallery (Atlanta) at [5]art.

7-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Roger Chamieh, featuring work by the Tampa-based sculptor, at three04 (adjacent to [5]art).

Saturday

10 a.m.-5 p.m. – ECO.lution, Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park in downtown Tampa. (Though not a visual art event, let’s support the Urban Charrette’s efforts to promote sustainable living in Tampa Bay.)

10 a.m.-5 p.m. – 10th Annual Wildlife & Western Visions Art Show at Raymond James Financial, St. Petersburg. For more information contact The Plainsmen Gallery 1-888-779-2240 or go to wildlifeartshow.com.

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Dominique Labauvie, Firecloud, 2009, Steel, 21 X 21 X 5 in. Courtesy Blue Acier.

Bleu Acier announced last night that French sculptor Dominique Labauvie has received a Gottlieb Foundation grant for 2009. Labauvie, who lives in Tampa, will be featured in an exhibit at the gallery opening May 23.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Oil painting by Kimberly Adams

The University of South Florida’s MFA grads are having an End of the Semester Studio Sale in anticipation of summer vacation. Snag affordable art by up-and-coming artists. Facebook users, click here to find out more and peruse pics.

Wed., Apr. 29, 2-5 p.m.
FAS Grad Studios (Located in the small building just north of the Contemporary Art Museum.)
4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa

For more information: emmuelle[at]mail.usf.edu.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Leslie Fry. Detail of Towards. Painted plaster, 12” x 18” x 3”. Image courtesy of the artist.

This weekend roundup goes out with special happy birthday wishes to ARTpool! (see Saturday)

Friday

5:30-8:30 p.m. – Opening reception for Alternative Vistas: New and Recent Work by Creative Clay Artists at Creative Clay.

6-8 p.m. – Opening reception for Clearing the Path: Leslie Fry at Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art.

6-8 p.m. – Opening reception for Buy Florida, By Florida Furniture and Original Design at Florida Craftsmen Gallery.

6-9 p.m. – Opening reception for craft-ed!, works by emerging artists of Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts Artists-in-Residence program 2003-2008, and solo exhibitions of work by Charles Parkhill and Kim Michelle Coakley at Dunedin Fine Arts Center. Gallery talk for craft-ed! at 6 p.m., followed by reception at 7 p.m.

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Intersect at C. Emerson Fine Arts features celluloid sculptures by Gulfport artist Nancy Cervenka. Image courtesy CEFA.

Friday

7-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Pompous Circumstance, the USF Senior Thesis BFA Exhibition, at the West Tampa Center for the Arts.

7-9 p.m. – [5]art opens in conjunction with Pompous Circumstance at the WTCA. Current show: Five + 5.

Saturday

8 a.m. – Roser Park Photo Walk, free and open to photographers of all levels. For more information go to PhotographyIsEasy.com.

10 a.m.-3 p.m. – Art in the Park art and craft market in Williams Park, 400 First Ave. N., downtown St. Petersburg.

3 p.m. – Opening day and gallery talk with Chief Curator Dr. Jennifer Hardin for Developing the Collection: Recent Acquisition of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts.

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I became a fan of Tampa-based fashion designer Ben Chmura after seeing his work at Dirty But Sophisticated 4. (He was also featured in last summer’s installment of Wearable Art at the Dunedin Fine Art Center.) Chmura describes his design aesthetic as “retro-futuristic” and lately has been incorporating the influence of ancient global cultures into his sexy party dresses. This weekend he brings his latest and greatest work out of the closet at DENILE, an Egyptian-themed fashion event at Ybor nightclub Czar.

Venomous snakes, from the black mamba to the cobra, inspire both the dresses’ fabric color and texture and their construction, which Chmura describes as modeled on snake musculature and other anatomy. “Each carefully created frock is intended to be a statement of subtle, sophisticated empowerment for all women,” according to the event press release.

Damn straight, hiss…

DENILE, Sat., Apr. 11, 9 p.m.-12 a.m. (fashion show at 11 p.m.), Imperial Theatre at Czar Nightclub; after-party continues at Czar. Standing-room admission is $7 for 21+ and $10 for guests under 21; limited seating available for $20. Admission includes a free “Bleeding Cleopatra” cocktail by sponsor Absolut Vodka. For more information, click here.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Check out the full schedule of the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image, which runs through Sunday, for more events.

Friday

7-9 p.m. – Opening reception for USF MFA Graduation Exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum. Artists include Kimberly Adams, Jeremy Chandler, April Childers, Rebecca Flanders, Chad Harmon, Shane Hoffman, Lauren Howard, James Reiman, Ivan Reyes-Garcia, Marta Slaughter, Jonathan Vaughan and Wesley Wetherington.

7-10 p.m. – EMERGE! Art Party: Photo with guest artists Carolina Cleere, Michael Bowles, Bob Pomeroy, Bob Parsons, Dave Pritchard, Deborah Muller, Dorian Angello, Colleen Gorlewski, Melisa Taylor, Stephen Bivens, Mark Paulissen, Kristi Stiff, Joel Perez and Jerry Feightner at Tampa Artist Emporium.

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Mastering the financial and creative challenges of a career as an artist is never easy—and it’s especially challenging in the context of a recession. On Sat., Mar. 21, the 3rd annual Self-Employment in the Arts Conference at the University of Tampa aims to give practitioners in the visual, literary, performing and film arts a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency. The daylong lineup includes sessions on marketing, networking, work-life balance and intellectual property led by professional artists, writers, filmmakers, professors and an attorney. This year’s conference is organized by Suzanne Williamson, a recent transplant to Tampa Bay whose experience as a visual artist makes her uniquely suited to the task.

You’re new to Tampa– what brought you here?

I moved to Tampa last July from New York City with my husband, John Capouya, who accepted a full-time position as an assistant professor teaching journalism and writing at the University of Tampa. We love New York, but we wanted to change our lives. I was the photo editor of ARTnews magazine, and I am a photographic artist. I wanted more time to work on my art, and John wanted to teach full-time and write. We were drawn to Tampa and the university when we visited. We have really enjoyed meeting artists and participating in the cultural life here in Tampa. The photographic possibilities in Florida are so rich—I enjoy working here.

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Still from Léche Vitrine (music by The Pigtails, visuals by Bluelucy), one of many short video/film/animation works to be screened at ARTpool’s 2nd Annual Local Film Festival & Hollywood Fashion Show. Courtesy Bluelucy.

Thursday

7-9 p.m. – Lecture by Dr. Sean Roberts, assistant professor of art history, University of Southern California, at USF Tampa, FAH 290. Roberts’ research focuses on the exchange of images and ideas, especially printed material, between the Italian city-states and the Ottoman world in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. His lecture “Ornament and Exoticism in Venetian Renaissance Painting” focuses on works by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.

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A rendering of the new TMA, currently under construction in Curtis Hixon Park. Image courtesy tampamuseum.org.

Times are tough. This morning the Tampa Museum of Art announced that its finances were in enough of a bind to merit slashing the institution’s budget for the 2009 fiscal year by 29%, including the elimination of three full-time staff positions. Among those whose jobs will be coming to an abrupt end on Friday, curator of contemporary art Elaine Gustafson.

Complete email from Todd Smith, executive director, Tampa Museum of Art, after the jump.

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The Playhouse, starring Buster Keaton (above), will be paired with a postmodern film score during Ybor FoMI 2009.

The seventh annual Ybor Festival of the Moving Image (what the hell– let’s call it FoMI) has released its schedule of events. The always interesting film-art-performance showcase takes humor and satire as its theme this year, and the laughs begin on 4/1. (April Fool’s Day, get it? I’m in stitches already!) Performers include New York performer-choreographer Claire Porter and Vermont-based circus clown-mime-magician Rob Mermin. Opening night marks the debut of an exhibit of work by local artists Lori Ballard and Steve Smith and a special screening of Buster Keaton’s The Playhouse with live accompaniment by Ray Villadonga. (As a kind of recurring joke/homage, the silent film will be screened several times during the five-day festival with a different musical accompaniment each time.) With plenty of free events– especially on opening and closing days– getting your jollies on at FoMI is looking like a steal.

Full press release after the jump.

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Patrick Fatica. Somehow I Thought You’d Save Me, Somewhere in January. 2009. Oil on panel.

C. Emerson Fine Arts‘ latest exhibit, Under the Influence, showcases the genre of contemporary art often dubbed ‘pop surrealism’ and occasionally ‘lowbrow’ because it bridges practices including illustration, screen-printing, custom toy production (or decoration), and so on. As such, the show may be a bit of a departure for the gallery, where offerings are frequently a touch more cerebral. (Only one artist in this show, Austrian Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten adds a conceptual twist. After filling a TV frame with a distorted, fun-house-esque mirror, the artist photographed visitors as they regarded themselves in it during the exhibit’s opening reception; the sculpture remains installed on one of the gallery’s walls. In a statement, she describes the project as an attempt to “resist and fight back” against media images of the body.)

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Laura Mae Dooris. Cornucopia of Discovery. Mixed media on canvas, 36″ x 24″.

I just learned today about TampaArtist.com, which has an extensive image gallery featuring work by about 200 Bay area artists. About 75% of the names were new to me (unlike, say, Laura Mae Dooris, whose work I’ve seen in several exhibitions over the past few years), so I recommend checking it out– you may discover someone new to admire or collect.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Thomas Allen. Fancy, 2006. 20 x 24 inches, chromogenic print. Courtesy Foley Gallery.

Who says pop-up books are for kids? Just check out artist Thomas Allen’s sly constructions, crafted from pulp fiction book covers and beautifully photographed to produce images that resonate with adult concerns: eroticism, repression and the enticements of nostalgia’s mirage.

Learn how to make your own paper pop-up books Mar. 21 & 22 at a Florida Craftsmen workshop led by book artist Carol Barton. (Registration deadline: Mar. 19.) While pop-up books may be poised to become the next hipster craft du jour, it could be that you just want to make something cool for Little Johnny’s next birthday. And that’s okay, too.

Workshop info and registration form after the jump.

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From the press release:

Selecting from a field of more than 300 acclaimed artists displaying their works, juror Martha Connell, owner and director of Connell Gallery/Great American Gallery in Atlanta, has named the recipients of 39th annual Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts cash awards. This year, the Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts awards total $75,000, the highest amount ever awarded in a single year.

Connell has selected the following pieces as to be recognized and the artists to receive the cash awards:

Raymond James Financial Best of Show Award ($15,000)
Presented by Geoffrey Simon, Senior Vice President, Raymond James Financial
“Wearable Art,” a sculpture by Nancy Cervenka of Gulfport, Fla. (Booth #180) – pictured above–

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The Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn., has commissioned five proposals for public sculptures, two of which will be constructed and placed in Chattanooga’s Renaissance Park. St. Petersburg-based artists Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse are among the artists in the running. Click here to vote for their proposed sculpture, Place in the Woods (pictured above), through Mar. 27. Visitors to the museum’s website may vote for up to two sculptures, but only one instance of voting from a given computer will be counted. Winners will be announced in April.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

A 2001 installation by Jin Soo Kim. Courtesy Selby Gallery.

Friday

5-7 p.m. – Opening reception for What’s Next?: Installations and Digital Films by Jin Soo Kim at Selby Gallery, Ringling College of Art and Design.

6 p.m. – View & Review with guest critic Joe Mitchell, retired Art Supervisor for the Polk County School District, at the Polk Museum of Art.

View & Review is one of Polk Museum of Art’s newest monthly programs. Local artists are invited to bring one piece of artwork for feedback from the guest critic. Art lovers are welcome to come listen to and join in the discussion. Admission is $15 for artists who are presenting artwork, and $5 for the audience. A cash bar will also be available. Artists must pre-register.

6-10 p.m. – Opening reception for dis/Order, recent work by Melissa Fair and George Byers at the West Tampa Center for the Arts.

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Not sure whether to think of this development as a thrilling breakthrough in the accessibility of art or yet another scary, scary reason why I will never be leaving my desk again. Now in Google Earth, tour the Prado Museum and a selection of its masterworks without crossing the Atlantic.

If you aren’t already a Google Earth user, you can see some of the images online at Google Maps.

Check out the YouTube video above for more information. (Watch in hi-quality if you want to be really impressed.)

From Very Short List:

Last month, the Prado became the first museum to open its collection to Google’s mapping technology, allowing you to take a virtual trip to Madrid and see super-mega-resolution views of 14 masterpieces.

The paintings include Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Rubens’s Three Graces, Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, and El Greco’s Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest, and you can zoom in so closely, it’s like putting your nose right up to the canvas (without angering security guards). Other museums, take note: It’s time to Google yourselves.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Target by photographer Ryan Prado.

This weekend’s visual art prospects include a solo exhibition of work by photographer Ryan Prado, the David LaChapelle of Tampa’s burgeoning art-fashion-hipsterdom scene, and DFAC’s annual Contain It!, inspired by Art Positions, the shipping container showcase at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Friday

6-9 p.m. – Opening reception for the Juried Art Show 2009 at the Studio@620.

7-9 p.m. – Reception for The (Police) State at the William & Nancy Oliver Gallery at USF Tampa.

7-9 p.m. – Closing reception for Fascicles: New Work by Lauren Garber Lake at [5]art.

7-11 p.m. – Opening reception for Ryan Prado SHOT Me! presented by Square One at Gallery Live, 1901 15th Street, Ybor City. Live models, photo shoots, music and more.

7 p.m.-late – Contain It!, an exhibition of site-specific installations in 11 PODS storage units, and Trashy Treasures, an art garage sale, at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center. Contain It! artists: Yoko Nogami, Allen Hampton & April Childers, Stephen (AG) Carey, Kim Michelle Coakley, Rocky Bridges, Jason Leigh, Jeff Whipple, Brandon McLean, Christine Renc-Carter, and Victoria Block. DJ, hot dogs and Giddy Up Helicopter!; $10.

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This life-sized work by UF alum Matt Schaffer is featured in Florida Fire at Florida Craftsmen Gallery.

Dunedin collector Mindy Solomon, who curated Florida Fire: the UF Ceramic Faculty Experience, currently on view at Florida Crafstmen Gallery, will speak tonight on a panel about collecting contemporary ceramics with UF professor Anna Callouri-Holcombe, whose work is featured in the show, and Sherrie Riley Hawk, owner of Sherrie Gallerie in Columbus, OH, who specializes in contemporary ceramics, art jewelry and regional contemporary art.

Mindy is a local educator whose passion for collecting contemporary art, especially ceramics, hit full throttle a few years ago following an exhibition of contemporary ceramics at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center. Since then, she has amassed an amazing (and still growing) collection with an emphasis on figurative works.

Passionate About Crafts: Collecting Ceramics
Thurs., Feb. 12, 6-8 p.m.
Members, $10; Non-memembers, $12; Students w/ ID, $5
Florida Craftsmen Gallery
501 Central Ave., St. Petersburg
floridacraftsmen.net

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Tonight’s the last chance to check out a performance by St. Petersburg-based “image-maker” Alice Ferrulo of Black Horse Theatre, whose creations meld theater, dance and visual art. Portraiture: In Three Movements is her take on Olivia, a composite personality inspired by portraits of former substance abusers by painter Thomas Murray (formerly of the Bay area, now of Edinburg, Tex.). In addition to Murray’s influence, the project incorporates work by fashion designer Rogerio Martins and artist/cutting-edge jewelry designer Donna Sweigert. Click here to read the story from CL’s print edition. Get your tickets for tonight’s 8 p.m. performance at the Studio@620 ($15 general; $10 students/seniors) online or at the door.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

This just landed in my inbox this morning:

Ringling Student Art Sale Comes to Campus Saturday, January 31!

On Saturday, January 31 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., Ringling College of Art and Design presents a one-day creative collaboration of emerging artists work along with an art materials showcase featuring top brands.

The art exhibition and sale will take place at the Ulla Searing Student Center Exhibition Hall at the main entrance of the Ringling College campus. The showcase will be outside on the deck. This is a rare opportunity to purchase artwork from tomorrow’s rising stars and to learn about the hottest trends in art suppliers.

Participating Artists:

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Leslie Shows. The Au Layer/ Storm Reflecting in a Pool, 2008. Collage and acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, via SFGate.com.

If you don’t already keep an ear out for visiting artist/scholar talks at the University of South Florida’s College of Visual and Performing Arts on a regular basis, you’re missing a chance to hear and speak with some of the most interesting artists to pass through Tampa Bay. (If only everyone they hosted was also exhibiting here…)

On Thurs., Feb. 5, emerging San Francisco-based painter Leslie Shows gives a talk at 7 p.m. in FAH 290 on the Tampa campus. Listen to a conversation she had with the folks over at Bad at Sports last summer by clicking here.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Sean Erwin. The Gardener, 2008. Porcelain, Glaze, Luster and Mixed Media. Courtesy Florida Craftsmen Gallery.

Not a bad weekend for the visual arts if you can stand the Super Bowl traffic. Just a heads-up, this is also the LAST WEEKEND to see Lights On Tampa 2009 installed downtown. Click here for CL coverage; visit the Tampa Public Mood Ring online and watch for it on ESPN.

Thurs., Jan. 29

8 p.m. – Portraiture: In Three Movements by Alice Ferrulo. “A solo performance art piece inspired by a series of portraits by fine artist Thomas Murray.” At the Studio@360; $15 general admission, $10 students. Repeat performances Friday and Saturday.

Fri., Jan. 30

5:30-7:30 p.m. – Opening reception for Jasper Johns Prints: Things the Mind Already Knows at The Arts Center.

6-8 p.m. – Opening reception for Florida Fire: The UF Ceramic Faculty Experience and MOST HIGHLY recommended: Sean Erwin at Florida Craftsmen Gallery.

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Mark Bradford’s Mithra. Photo / Frank Rodriguez

On Saturday, we hopped in the car and went for a self-guided tour of Prospect.1 projects in the Lower Ninth Ward. (The biennial offered a shuttle bus for visitors throughout the day, but our experience trying to catch it the day before at 40-minute intervals was something we decided we could live without.) Armed with the official Prospect.1 map, we drove around the alternately devastated/deserted and resurgent neighborhood until we saw a(nother) cluster of white folks snapping photographs of something– and then we began to look for the art.

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Pecan bread pudding at Antoine’s. Photo / Frank Rodriguez

Don’t ask me how, but we ended up at Antoine’s for lunch in the French Quarter before our tour of the Lower Ninth Ward. Once sticker shock wore off, really delicious pompano and beef tenderloin were the order of the day, followed by the extraordinarily rummy pecan bread pudding pictured above. Yum.

Then, as if we couldn’t pack enough socio-economic contrast into one day, we went to Palace Cafe for dinner upon our return. As we chowed down on roast duck and Cotes du Rhone, we contented ourselves with the thought that we’d done exactly as Prospect.1 founder Dan Cameron intended by dropping into the city and dropping a wad of cash, all in the name of contemporary art.

Anyway, that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Lee Bul’s Untitled (After Bruno Taut series), 2008, pictured in the window of CAC. Photo by Frank Rodriguez

We’ve thrown caution to the wind and a duffle bag in the trunk and ditched Tampa for New Orleans this weekend during the conclusion of Prospect.1– the largest biennial in the United States, according to the event’s organizers. The official number of artists taking art in the city-wide exhibition is 81, but many, many more are being showcased in unofficial satellite exhibits (sometimes at the same venues).

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[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/246107[/vimeo]

Tomorrow, Tampa Bay Creative Network (not the same as Creative Tampa Bay, a different local group whose advisory network I sit on) presents Jelly, a casual co-working experience. More and more of us these days (especially artists and creative industry workers) seem to be living the free agent lifestyle, either out of layoff-driven necessity or the hope of never having to attend another staff meeting again. But despite its benefits (no pun intended), the freelance life can be lonely. Jelly aims to remedy that by providing “a cool location with workspaces, wireless Internet and interesting people to talk to, collaborate with and bounce ideas off of.” Stop by Cafe Hey in downtown Tampa to check it out.

Jelly!
Thurs., Jan. 15, 1-4 p.m.
Cafe Hey
1540 N. Franklin St. just north of I-275 (free parking under the overpass)
Downtown Tampa
813-221-5150
myspace.com/cafehey

Tes One. Change We Made. 45”x60”, 2008.

Artworks by four Tampa Bay artists—Tes One, Bask and Phillip Clark and Chad Mize of Bluelucy—are headed to Washington, DC, where they will be featured in Manifest Hope, an exhibit celebrating the election of Barack Obama.

Shepard Fairey’s now-iconic, red-and-blue portrait of the president elect will serve as the centerpiece of the show, which includes work by more than 100 artists.

If you’d like to get your hands on a limited edition print of Tes One’s painting, Change We Made (pictured above), visit the artist’s e-commerce site on Inaguration Day (Jan. 20).

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Martha Whittington, “Nonpareils” (detail), sewn vinyl, 2008. Courtesy C. Emerson Fine Arts.

Truly an insane amount of great art to see this weekend. Please leave a comment if you’d like to have your event included and it’s not here. Unless otherwise noted, events are generally free.

Thursday

4-6 p.m. – Symposium featuring the artists of Lights On Tampa 2009 at Tampa Theatre.

7-9 p.m. – Artist talk and reception for Brody Condon, whose work was featured in a solo exhibition at USF CAM last fall, at FAH 101, USF College of Visual & Performing Arts.

Friday

3 p.m. – Artist talk and discussion for Werner Reiterer: Raw Loop at FAH 290, USF College of Visual & Performing Arts.

6 p.m. – Artist talk and discussion for Radcliffe Bailey: Between Two Worlds at Polk Museum of Art; members free, guests $10. (Read the review in CL here.)

6:30-10 p.m. – Artist talk and opening reception for Nonpareils: a solo exhibition of Martha Whittington’s new work, to include works on paper and installation, at C. Emerson Fine Arts.

7-9 p.m. – Opening reception for Werner Reiterer: Raw Loop at USFCAM.

7-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Fascicles: New Work by Lauren Garber Lake at [5]art.

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Steel sculpture by Dominique Labauvie.

Friday

5-7 p.m. – Opening reception for László Horváth at Gallery 501, Blake High School, 1701 N. Boulevard, Tampa.

7-9 p.m. – Opening reception for Je veux l’art, an exhibit of work by USF undergraduate and graduate students and faculty who traveled to Paris in June 2008, at Centre Gallery, USF Tampa.

7-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Dominique Labauvie: Sculpture Scale and Tales at [5]art; exhibit runs through Dec. 19.

Saturday

10 a.m.-4 p.m. – Made by Hand Art Show, a fundraiser for the Friends of Tampa Recreation, Inc., which supports city parks and recreation programs, at Kate Jackson Community Center, 821 S. Rome Ave, Tampa.

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Radcliffe Bailey, Tobacco Blues, 2000, Aquatint, etching, drypoint, photogravure, and chine collé, Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of the Friends of the McNay, 2006.56.

I’m gonna drop this week’s roundup early because there are some Thursday events here folks should know about. Text in italics is taken directly from press releases. If I’m missing your event, I invite you to leave a comment.

Thursday

7 p.m. – Squared by Square One Creative, fashion show with music by Jeremy Gloff and a preview of art-fashion-music-dance extravaganza Virgin 2.0 (Dec. 6).

7 p.m. – Preview of FMoPA’s 2009 Nature Photography Safaris, including excursions to Costa Rica and the Amazon.

Friday

3 p.m. – Gallery talk and opening reception for 50th Anniversary Visual Arts Alumni Exhibition, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg.

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Passersby in downtown Tampa – or anyone with a view of the waterfront just north of the Platt Street Bridge – may have been wondering about the giant, red steel sculpture sprouting up in MacDill Park this week. It’s part of Chattanooga-based artist John Henry’s Peninsula Project, which brings his monumental sculptures to seven Florida cities: Boca Raton, Miami, Naples, Orlando, Sarasota, Tallahassee and Tampa.

Technically, I have to file Henry’s Big Max under plop art (not my favorite species of public art) but it’s nice to see something – anything – new downtown. Between this piece, the offerings of Lights on Tampa and the opening of the History Center, the city’s core should be significantly spiffed up in time for the Super Bowl.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/2220381[/vimeo]

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Rendering via tampabayhistorycenter.org

The newly constructed Tampa Bay History Center is now set to open Jan. 17. (Up until last week, I’d heard December, but the History Center’s PR person recently sent me the January date.)

This is not only exciting news for those of us who live in downtown Tampa and are glad to see the former void between Channelside and the St. Pete Times Forum fill with a cultural attraction, but for everyone in the Bay area, history buff or not.

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Late-breaking weekend roundup so you can get your art on.

Friday

6-10 p.m. – Mind the Gap, a one-night exhibit and fundraiser for the Ellis-VanPelt Santaella Cigar Factory at 1906 N Armenia Ave (home to the West Tampa Center for the Arts, 5[art] and Three04). Additional information available at www.five-art.com and www.three04.com.

7-9 p.m. – Opening reception for Stranger Things, a exhibit of sculpture by USF undergrad Matthew Schlagbaum at Centre Gallery.

Saturday

12-5 p.m. – Make Art Not War Workshop with artists Diana Leavengood and Marina Williams. Learn how to make artists’ books, recyclable art, jewelry, artists’ trading cards and more. Attendees may display their work at artPOOL’s next art party (Nov. 29) free of charge.

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Wolfmother poster and album art by Keith Burnson

Last week, the second round of Artistik Envy – the online reality show about ten International Academy of Art and Design students competing to be named the best – focused on a 70s revival challenge. Two of the previous contestants Corey Garlow and Jerrodoemie Winters, were eliminated after Round One. (That’s not, in my opinion, to say they were the weakest competitors – I thought there were a couple of others who could just as easily have been cut. And, in fact, two weeks ago I voted for Corey – but apparently not everybody felt the same way. If you check out the site now, it looks as if another round of cuts have already been made, claiming Jovani Coleman and Rick Timpe as the latest designers to be auf’ed.)

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The artists of Doppleganger?

As always, please let me know if I’ve forgotten your event. Otherwise– Happy Halloween!

Friday

7-9 p.m. – Doppelganger: a USF PhotoClub Exhibition at USF Centre Gallery. Come dressed as a Doppelganger, get photographed in the PhotoShak (who knows what else will happen while you’re in there) and eat candy.

8 p.m.-12 a.m. – Halloween ART pARTy at ARTpool. Dress up as your favorite artist and win prizes; special award for best Andy Warhol.

Saturday

9 a.m. – Sketchcrawl with Tampa Realistic Artists (TRA). Meet at the Ybor Saturday Market, go sketch, then regroup for lunch and sharing work. For more information on Sketchcrawls in general, click here; for more about the Tampa version, click on the TRA link.

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Shown: Madden 09 screenshot

It’s lunchtime on the third and last day of the Sarasota International Design Summit, and some conferees are playing video games (literally). We’ve just listened to Phil Holt, general manager of EA Tiburon, offer insights into some of his company’s recent successes and where gaming as an industry is headed in the future.

A few things seem certain: gaming is headed toward being an increasingly important global industry (already at $37.5 billion worldwide per year), even with the economic challenges ahead; gaming is increasingly taking place on a variety of platforms including online, on gaming systems like Wii, on iPhones, on cell phones, within social networking sites, etc.; the audience for gaming is growing beyond hardcore fans to include demographics like children, seniors and women of all ages.

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A lot of what I’m doing – and what I assume other people are doing – during the Sarasota International Design Summit is listening for great ideas and thinking about to adopt and adapt them in my own practice. Two of the summit’s late morning panelists today were great sources for inspiration in regards to Web 2.0-based business practices and how to engage consumers/community with social networks, blogs, interactivity, etc.

Josh Hallett of Voce Communications spoke about his firm’s experience creating social media-based marketing strategies for corporate clients including Sony. Some takeaways:

-If you’re going to have an interactive site like a social network or blog, you need the backend manpower to maintain it adequately, to reply to comments, provide feedback or service, etc. Hallett cited the Sony Playstation blog and described an employee whose job is to reply to comments (which can number in the hundreds per post).

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Courtesy Sarasota Int’l Design Summit/Pininfarina

Today and tomorrow, the Sarasota International Design Summit continues. (Click here to read an earlier overview of the event.)

At this point, the ideas start coming fast and furious, which is why the summit’s “visualization maestro,” Tom Wujec of Autodesk, plans to recap yesterday’s big ideas (memes, if you will) in sketches this morning. Throughout the conference, Wujec and a team of Ringling College students transcribe the speakers’ main arguments and/or research insights into digital tablet-drawn graphics. Believe me, by mid-Tuesday a mnemonic device or two starts to come in handy.

More of yesterday’s highlights:

Franco Lodato of Pininfarina described his company’s design for an electric car, Sintesi, that engages with the surrounding environment (i.e., the city) as a network. Hair-raising concepts included the absence of mirrors from the car – why have them when the automobile could network with a city’s omnipresent surveillance cameras? – and the obsolescence of stoplights when the cars themselves are able to negotiate who will stop when.

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Greetings from the Sarasota International Design Summit, where I’m sitting in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton Sarasota listening to the summit speakers.

Bruce Damer (pictured) just finished discussing his work, including the development of the iDoublet—a renaissance-inspired garment that holds all of your “wearz” or gadgets, like iPods. (In addition to several music players, Damer was wearing a prototype of a LED Twitter feed, with text scrolling across a small panel at his hip as he spoke.)

Damer spoke about his work simulating complex processes that are not yet realizable in real life. Through his work with NASA, he has—along with a team of collaborators—created animations modeling possible asteroid landing techniques, for example. One of his most recent projects is EvoGrid, an animated model of how a computer-driven artificial evolution environment might look and operate. Though Damer’s own work is quite science- and space-specific, the idea of modeling a process or prototype and experimenting in a virtual world has potential for application in a wide variety of industries. (Including architecture and construction, which the summit’s next speakers will address.)

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

John Paul Bichard, Sofa 2 from The White Room (Evidência #002), 2004. Digital Print – In-game photoshoot of manipulated gamespace interiors. From Audience and Avatar. Courtesy USFCAM

In an Artsqueeze first, this weekend roundup of visual art happenings is stacked with Friday events but devoid of Saturday and Sunday offerings. I must be missing something… (What is it?)

And I feel compelled to mention that the Salvador Dali Museum is running the following promotion: any visitor to the museum who can show a World Series ticket will receive a free reproduction of a Dali sketch. Woo-hoo!

Thursday

6 p.m. – Slide show and poetry reading, An Evening of Art and Poetry: In Late Day Sun Florida Plant Series, at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts.

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Obama t-shirt design by Bluelucy

We already knew that Obama is synonymous with good design. (Which gives me hope that when he launches the interactive government documents database we’ve all been waiting for, it might actually be user-friendly.) A pair of local designers– Chad Mize and Phillip Clark of Bluelucy– are offering their own contribution to the Obama [design] revolution at their Zazzle online store. While Tamara Shopsin’s alternative lapel pin remains at the top of my wishlist, I could settle for this rainbow tee.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

This post continues an ongoing conversation with local arts leaders about how the economy is impacting their business. (Read the first in this series of posts here or an even earlier post here.)

The national media are starting to pick up the broader story about the effects of the recession on arts organizations and the art market. This Boston Globe article opens with the bittersweet account of a patron requesting an extended donation payment plan; in the past week, more ominous stories about art museums and the Frieze Art Fair hit the New York Times. All three articles suggest that the worst may be yet to come.

On the other hand, this story about the $69 million economic impact of Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls hit NYC newspapers this afternoon—a glimmer of good news that emphasizes one of the many ways in which we value art (i.e., by its nifty tendency to attract tourists).

As of three weeks ago, representatives from both the Salvador Dali Museum and the Tampa Museum of Art told me their building projects are on track to meet previously set opening dates (fall 2010 and fall 2009, respectively). And Lights on Tampa 2009 remains set to take place during the Super Bowl. (I assume it will play a role in luring Super Bowl visitors to Tampa’s downtown—what those visitors will think of the city’s core when they get there is another question.)

Thoughts from other players in the Bay area arts community:

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November will seem a little less eventful this year with the absence of Gala Corina from the visual arts scene. Since 1999, the unconventional art fair – typically staged inside a historic cigar factory or other unfinished structure ripe for architectural or interior design interventions – has been an annual Tampa tradition. In this, what would be Gala’s tenth year, news comes that there will be no 2008 Gala Corina. However, the loose coalition of artists who organize the event plan to stage two smaller-scale endeavors in spring and fall of 2009.

In lieu of the real thing, Artsqueeze proudly presents a stroll down memory lane in the form of photos from last year’s Gala Corina, in all its sometimes-wacky, sometimes-edgy, always-scrappy-and-spunky glory. Enjoy! (Click through to Flickr to read captions, including artist IDs, for the images.)

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.

Hola, Daily Loaf readers. From now on, I’ll be adding my ruminations on local visual art happenings to the mix here on the Loaf, to complement what I write each week as visual art critic in Creative Loafing’s print edition.

You’ll see short exhibit reviews, online-first arts reporting and weekend roundups of must-see events—as well as the occasional video.

You can also check out my blog, Artsqueeze.com, for links to many Bay area visual artists and arts venues, including local galleries and museums.

As always, please feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line at megan.voeller@creativeloafing.com if you have any questions.

Megan Voeller is Creative Loafing’s visual art critic. She teaches at the University of Tampa and The Art Institute of Tampa, edits the weekly online newsletter of CreativeTampaBay and blogs at Artsqueeze.com.