A SHINING WEEKEND OF GLASS ARTS

Steven Rolf Powell                               Glass Artist

St. Pete once again proves it is an Art Town!
When a community focuses on the arts it enriches itself economically and culturally.

Dali Museum Art Night Opening

On the Florida Gulf Coast in the middle of the state lies an area that comprises the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg and surrounding areas.  It is becoming known as the Tampa Bay Area. The communities are blending in ways that make them almost one big city and that is a good thing. There is much art in both areas, and together it is a wonderful offering for those who live there and those who visit.

Steven Rolf Powell    Glass Artist                              from google for educational purposes only

Dale Chihuly at his new St. Petersburg Museum

This is going to be a great weekend of glass arts in the Tampa Bay Area.  St. Petersburg really has become a town that puts a huge focus on the arts. First it was the Museum of Art, then came Dali Museum, the Morean Art Center, the Florida Craftsmen Guild, the Train Depot(clay center), and now a new stunning Dali museum and the Chihuly Museum. 

Duncan Mc Clellen's Art Warehouse Studio, the hub of the warehouse arts district

 Duncan Mc Clellen's huge warehouse studio will be buzzing with an open house and guest glass artists demonstrating and showing their work. 

Joseph Cavalieri 

Duncan McClellen's  Wave 

Joseph Cavalieri will be there and Steven Powell.  Dale Chihuly will be in town speaking at the Vinoy and highlighting his museum in St. Pete. (the only museum of his work in the USA other than his home of Seattle). 
 Wow! What a weekend!  And there is an art walk with all the galleries and museum open this weekend!!!

Little Vignettes of Memory

The Fountain room decked out for Christmas at the Columbia Restaurant

I have grown up in the tropical city of Tampa. It is a city rich with history, but has now forgotten much of what made it so special. Tampa needs to embrace its past and revitalize an incredible energy that beat with Latin music and culture.  It is a port city that brings many cultures to its doors.  Long before Florida had roads built through the marshes and swamps coastal ports and rivers were the lifeline of travel and goods. 

photo by Elizabeth Gordon

Tile detail exterior of Columbia Restaurant

 When I was a child bananas came straight off the boat from Cuba. My Aunt Josephine bought them by the stalk and we carefully checked them for tarantulas!  Ybor city was still Cuban, filled with wonderful restaurants and fabric stores that carried cloth straight from Spain that my Mother cherished. The cigar factories that brought the Cuban and Italian workers to our city were still busy making the worlds cigars. We spent days walking the streets, hearing the vendors call out Deviled Crabs, Deviled Crabs here.  Wrapped in a thin crisp paper and served with tabasco sauce they were a true specialty. 

Tile Details on the outside of the Columbia Restaurant 

But our true delight was to go to the Columbia Restaurant and have a Cuban sandwich and spanish bean soup.  And even as a child I was allowed sips of Cafe Con Leche.  The restaurant takes up an entire city block and much of the exterior and interior is imported from Spain.  It was like Disney world for me when I walked through those doors.  The delight of foreign smells, the Cuban waiters with their starched red cumber buns singing as only the Spanish men can, the snap of the castinets as the flamenco was gracefully performed-I felt as if I had entered another world. 

Today I sat in the room I went with my Mother and my brother as a child and soaked in the pleasant memories.  A glance here and there, the details so etched in my memory, I felt as thought I was time traveling backwards in time.  Today I sat and sipped a cafe con leche slowly with delightful pleasure and smiled peacefully satisfaction-I am home!

This room was the cafe at the Columbia when I was a child, the cheaper room for sandwiches and soup

As an artist what I would like you to focus on is taking an odd angle or just what the glance out of the corner of your eye might be.  Our eyes see so much, but we forget to really look.

Detail of the Columbia Restaurant    photo by Elizabeth Gordon

TAMPA               YBOR CITY

Sangria pitchers drying at the bar of the Columbia Restaurant      photo by Elizabeth Gordon

CUBA                              ITALY

On the Road Again!!

Heading off of I 75 I turn on to a smaller state road, highway 301. The glimpse of small towns and people that make their living off the highway trade. Sidewalks disappear, sand dirt roads, and old buildings that speak of an early time dot the roads landscape. I like small towns and their advertising, it is more individual and creative than larger cities. Sometimes it balances on the rustic side, but I find human creativity fascinating no matter how basic.
Oranges have been Florida's gold for a long time, with the tourist who come for the milder weather. But when the economy is bad, tourist don't travel and it has been hard times for those who depend on tourist dollars.
There is still that 1950's look about Florida and wonder of something different, A 13 foot gator, Ross Allen milking rattlesnakes and the gas station with monkeys. Florida is all boom or bust. It is swamp land, Seminole Indians, hurricanes and beautiful pure white sandy beaches.
Florida, tourist and oranges. Ever since I was a small child I can remember these, with orange blossom perfume, alligator chocolates, and bags of fresh oranges to take North to your friends and relatives.
Heading out of Florida on I75 I leave the flat land behind, temperatures of 92f. The interstate is garish in its advertising signs that tower above all else. I see two truck ahead and fall in behind, we are underway Vinci and I!
Some of the quality of the photo's are poor due to taking photos in motion.

Leaving Tampa Bay area, Leonardo Da Vinci and me. The palms and low lying land, the humid tropical breezes all in my behind me heading North. A final glimpse of something so typical South Florida, The State Alligator Trapper. There are not many place you have to have a state agency for trapping alligators!