How Cool Is This

In a previous post, I wrote of the art mecca that St. Petersburg has become. Along with the Dali Museum, the Chihuly Collection & Morean Art Center, and the Museum of Fine Art, add numerous galleries and art studios. The Downtown 'Burg is a one-stop shop for viewing and purchasing art in all media.

This weekend add one more stop on your cultural itinerary - The Cool Art Show. Now in its 23rd year, the, dare I say, venerable show will again spotlight some of the most creative art in the state. It's free, it's indoors in the remarkable Coliseum and it's COOL.

Artist Finder

A new web site has been launched that promotes Florida artists and their studios. It is called Artist Finder and will use a combination of web site, YouTube and Facebook to promote artists and their work.

One of the most important aspects of the site is to encourage studio visits and purchases from patrons. As outdoor shows have proven, patrons love to talk directly to artists and gain first hand knowledge of how and why artists create. The added feature of studio visits allows patrons an opportunity to enter the artist's world and view the totality of their work.

Jerry Uelsmann At Harn Museum of Art

Jerry Uelsmann (born 1934)  Untitled , 2003
Gelatin silver print
19 3/8 x 15 in (49.1 x 38 cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

In 1965 I arrived at the University of Florida ready to shock and awe the masses with my art making ability.
It did not take long, roughly one semester, to realize I had seriously overestimated my talents. Mostly, it was a couple of hippie graduate students who quickly showed they could paint circles around everyone.

The other person who brought me back to earth was Jerry Uelsmann. It was me in awe from the first I saw his rich darkroom creations. How did he get those elegant images? How could I achieve such feathery chiaroscuro? It was then I discovered that photography could also be art.

What I learned most from Jerry was how to really see the world around me - not just cursory glances, but focused observation. I learned to use my eyes first as a viewfinder and only then look through the camera. A personal design sense would come later, gradually. It helped tremendously that I was able to observe first hand the photographs of a master.

Now through September 11, The Mind's Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann at Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Hidden Lake By Marjorie Greene

Here is an excellent example of the printmaking technique of artist Marjorie Greene. Marjorie is also a gifted painter and teaches at St. Petersburg College Clearwater campus. These prints, titled Hidden Lake, are reduction wood block prints, which means that after each color is printed, that part of the wood block is cut away.  At the end, very little of the block is left. Thereafter, no additional prints may be pulled.

The editions are small with only six prints of each image. The size is 24" x 41" for the outside two and 18" x 41" for the center panel.  The prints will be on view at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art on the St. Petersburg College Tarpon Springs campus in August and September.

Re-Birthing By The Bay

Last Saturday, in one fell swoop, a friend and I completed the trifecta of downtown St. Petersburg art museums. First we viewed the shimmering glass creations of The Chihuly Collection, took a gelato break and later joined tourist throngs at the new house of Surrealism, the Dali Museum.

Those ultra-chic edifices have joined with the Palladian style Museum of Fine Art to make St. Pete a first class art mecca. Every year the city ranks as one of the primo art destinations for mid-sized metro areas. Not bad for a place formerly known for its shuffleboard courts and early bird specials.

Walking along Beach Drive it was easy to see the positive changes that have transformed the downtown bayfront. Sidewalk cafes vied for space with new art galleries and trendy clothing shops. Muscle boys, fresh from a run in Straub Park with their dogs, nursed Perriers while sneaking looks at passing glam girls. If not for the absence of Deco hotels, this had all the feel of a mini-South Beach look at me parade.

If you want to investigate the reasons for such visionary changes in this city, look no further than art. The Chihuly Collection would not be here if not for the encouragement and hard work of the Morean Art Center and its patrons. The Morean Art Center exists because of early and constant efforts of a group of area artists. Artists were and are the catalysts for creating cultural capital.

I go out of my way to tell people that sunny beaches didn’t do it. Condo mania didn’t do it. And baseball certainly didn’t do it. It was art folks.

Thoughts On Arriving

Waiting for the paint to dry.

Waiting for the light. Waiting for excuses.

Waiting for insight. Waiting for a sale.

Waiting for nothing else to do.

Waiting. 

Cy Twombly At The Tate Modern, 2008

Australian Alien Art?