Daily Loaf

In just a few months every culture vulture in Tampa Bay will be descending on the new Stanley Saitowitz-designed home of the Tampa Museum of Art and its inaugural exhibition, A Celebration of Henri Matisse: Master of Line and Light. But as the winner of this item, you and a friend will get to escape the crowds and go on a private tour of the Matisse show and the museum with its highly personable new director Todd Smith and CL art critic Megan Voeller. Then you’ll top off your tour with lunch at Sono Cafe, which isn’t just any museum cafeteria; it’s being run by Mise en Place.

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Welcome to On the Radar, where we preview up-and-coming arts events to mark your calendar for. As tempting as it is to place labels like ‘minimalist’ or ‘landscape’ on Vicky Colombet’s work, such qualifiers don’t do justice to the profound mysteries the French artist creates with a stroke of the pen or brush, which you can see for yourself at the exhibit opening next Friday.

Perpetually exploring the limits of what will read as landscape, Colombet’s unique style of abstraction transcends its link to the natural world, offering ethereal geographies of rumination and respiration instead. Next Friday, Tampa Heights printmaking atelier Bleu Acier debuts an exhibition of recent drawings and small paintings by Colombet, who is currently working with 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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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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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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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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Dunedin Fine Arts Center Spring/Summer Exhibitions: Craft-ed!, Charles Parkhill and Kim Michelle Coakley. Take Monday off and head to the Dunedin Fine Art Center for what CL art critic Megan Voeller calls three of the best shows of the season. Here are her comments: “For starters, there’s Kim Michelle Coakley’s explosion of (literally) off-the-wall paintings, in which strokes of vibrant color fuse with tendrils of paper and even lace to suggest a Dr. Seussian view of nature. [That's one of her paintings at right.] Then craft-ed!, a group show featuring emerging artists from the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Tennessee, celebrates fresh talent in the realms of clay, fiber arts, mixed media assemblage and more. (For craft nirvana look no further than Damon McIntyre’s darkly humorous wood sculptures of a guillotine and an electric chair, or Kim Eichler-Messmer’s screen-printed quilts.) As if that weren’t enough, Sanford-based sculptor Charles Parkhill wows with an elegant solo exhibition of found wood sculptures in spare, poetic forms.” Through May 22, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat., 1-4 p.m. Sun., Dunedin Fine Art Center, Dunedin, free admission, 727-298-3322, dfac.org.

Community Town Meeting on the Arts The Arts Council of Hillsborough County Artist Advisory Committee hosts this forum focusing on the cultural needs and concerns of the area. Small sessions tailored to individual disciplines may also be hosted, depending on audience feedback. All interested citizens are encouraged to attend. Call 813-276-8250 for more info. Mon., May 4, 6:30-8 p.m., Carrollwood Cultural Center, Tampa, 813-269-1310.

Carrie Sue Ayvar’s “Stories of Florida.” The acclaimed storyteller flows seamlessly between Spanish and English as she weaves tales connecting Florida’s people, languages and cultures. Visit hcplc.org for more info. 7 p.m. Mon., May 4, Lutz Branch Library, Lutz, free, 813-264-3800.

Urban Exploration from Thomas Pregiato on Vimeo.

I left for a week’s vacation right after Creative Loafing’s spectacular Mar. 28 party, Sensory Overload 4.0. But I didn’t want to let too much time pass without congratulating the winners of the two $1,000 scholarships we presented to student artists. A panel of arts professionals chose one scholarship recipient: Thomas Pregiato of Ringling College of Art and Design, whose video (above) translated the theme of “urban exploration” into a compelling interplay between images of a restless sleeper and rapidfire glimpses of a Sarasota dreamscape.

Dan Robinson's winning billboard

The other winner was selected online by readers, who submitted close to 5,000 votes via The Daily Loaf and a live Twitter feed the night of the event. The winner of the popular vote was Dan Robinson of the International Academy of Design and Technology; his witty concept for a billboard (right) sends a mixed message about heaven and music.

The judges who selected Pregiato as best in show were Amanda Cooper, curator of exhibitions at the Arts Center in St. Petersburg; Chance Chanthalansy, post-production director at Pyper Paul + Kenney; and David Meek of Philip Gary Design, aka Illuminations 33701 (who did magical things with light and sound the night of the event). The judges also cited winners in individual categories, recognizing high achievement in a competitive field. They were: Read the rest of this entry »

"We had everything," Steven S. Gregory's photo of Pickford's Sundries.

Michelle DiMicco at the door of Custom Creations.

Pickford’s Sundries, the drugstore/diner in the squat pink stucco building on Hillsborough Avenue, closed more than a decade ago. But its mystique has never died. A local bluegrass band named themselves after it. Tampa’s 2006 Photographer Laureate, Steven S. Gregory, shot photos of it. And the building’s owner, Marie Lesiak Haley, never lost her dream of seeing new life in the spot where, 60 years ago, her father opened a business named after silent film star Mary Pickford.
“He admired her because she was an independent woman,” remembers Haley.
Now she has found a latter-day independent woman to rent the space. Baker and cake decorator Michelle DiMicco opened Custom Creations Café & Bakery earlier this month and will officially greet the public with a grand opening on April 1. Read the rest of this entry »

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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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.

If you’re an out-of-town visitor, you should know that our Convention Center is not ordinarily tricked out like an outdoor disco, and that we don’t usually project enigmatic artworks onto our parking garages, show animated visions of a flooded Tampa outside the St. Pete Times Forum or track our collective consciousness with an oversized mood ring (above, by Will Pappenheimer and Chipp Jansen).

Those downtown attractions are all part of Lights On Tampa, an outdoor art installation program revived just in time for you, our Super Bowl visitors. And if you’re a local who hasn’t had the chance to take in the Lights, this weekend’s your last chance. Read Megan Voeller’s story on the project here, and get all the details from the city’s site here.

Lights Up: Editor David Warner and art critic Megan Voeller welcome artist Will Pappenheimer and the City of Tampa’s Robin Nigh (L to R in the photo above) to talk about Lights On Tampa 2009, the illumination celebration that will transform the Convention Center, the St. Pete Times Forum and other downtown sites starting January 10.

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