Hot Town, Cool Art

The 21st annual Cool Art Show returns to the historic Coliseum in St. Petersburg, July 18, 19, 10am-5pm. Featuring 75 statewide artists working in all media, Cool Art will please the eyes and engage the mind. Check art writer Megan Voeller's Creative Loafing story for more information.

Little Boxes

It is not necessary to work eight hours a day seven days a week to create a body of art. All that is required is a willingness to somehow get the job done. Painting sixty minutes a day over a year's time will give many hours in the studio.

The writer Elmore Leonard got up at 5:00 am and wrote for two hours before going to work at an ad agency. He did it for ten years and turned out five books and 30 short stories.

My ad agency days are thankfully behind me and I've found arising in the dark unappealing. The best I can muster is staring out the window at daybreak, nursing a cup of darjeeling.

But working here and there over time, I've amassed a sizeable body of new paintings and drawings. Above is a mixed-media painting on masonite called Little Boxes.

Zen Of The Pen

There is a method of making art called automatic drawing in which a mark is placed on the paper and then another and another and with no apparent conscious intent a series of abrupt beginnings and endings continues until something like a finality is reached or perhaps the hand refuses to work anymore.

Mixing Up Some Media

While waiting for new studio space to open, I labor in the confines of a small apartment turned atelier. My dining table doubles as a drawing board, the tea table a framing station. As my focus narrowed, large works got shoved under the bed and I once more made friends with #0 brushes.

For the Cool Art Show in St. Petersburg next month, I will have many five by seven inch drawings. Nine inches by nine inches is now a large work and that is the size of Bell-Hop at the Sands Hotel (above) - an example of mixing some media on masonite.

From The Image Vault

Rummaging through my image folder the other day, I came across this small sculpture completed a few years back, and now hopefully hanging in someone's home.

It's an example of a blocked painter with time on his hands, a bunch of wooden dowels and a French Savoyard whittling knife.
I'm not keen on the idea of Art Therapy, but here was a project perfectly suited for my predicament.

I worked straight through on the piece, finished it with some satisfaction and retired the whittling knife, never to sculpt another. I did, however, begin painting again with renewed vigor.

In A New Light

This past January, the Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo closed it doors for good, victim of a bad economy, poor attendance, and perhaps a bit of public apathy.

The fate of the Museum's 450 piece permanent collection became a big concern, and most feared it would be sold off piece by piece to other institutions.

Quite the opposite happened. In a gutsy and hopeful move, St. Petersburg College brokered a deal with the Museum in which the College received the complete collection. All the works of art will stay in the area and be housed in various College buildings.

A big chunk of the collection is being showcased in an exhibition at Florida International Museum in St. Petersburg. The exhibition, "In A New Light," will feature one of my works I called A Close Shave, and that title now seems appropriate for the entire collection. Read more about the exhibition here.

The exhibition is at the Florida International Museum at St. Petersburg College, 244 Second Ave. N, St. Petersburg, through Oct. 4. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $8 adults, $6 seniors and military, $5 students and free for children 6 and under. (727) 341-7904.

Good Things, Small Packages

In my extended gig as a health food store "vitamologist," word got out that I also dabbled in the Arts. Before long, I was asked to exhibit work in the store cafe, next to the "all you can eat" salad bar and across from the "grab 'n go" deli.

It occurred to me one day, while noshing on an organic radish, that in a restaurant setting a different kind of art exhibit would be better appreciated. Thus was born the Grab 'n Go Art Show, featuring scores of original 3"x 5" drawings covering the deli walls. Customers simply pulled off the drawing they liked and left $5.00. I made enough money from that exhibition to buy more art supplies.

The Grab 'n Go Art Show will make a reappearance at the July Cool Art Show in The Cloiseum in St. Petersburg. Above are samples of many new works that will be available.