Seen/Scene: Glass Blowing Live Auction @ Zen Glass

On January 12th,Zen glass held a live auction as Christian Zvonik and crew blew glass from the new kiln. Josh Poll ran around the room with a notepad and pen taking bids as the works were made. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Visitors enjoying Zen Glass.

 Congratulations to Christian Zvonik, Josh Poll and the crew at Zen Glass for a great evening.

--- Luis




600 27th Street South, Saint Petersburg,

Guest Mystery Blogger: Why is Art? by Anonanonymus

[Personal Note: I received this rant in a plain envelope at the Art Taco P.O. Box. it was postmarked "Emporia, KS". I looked it up. It is a dive town in the middle of nowhere. The envelope was handmade and hand-stitched. The rant was typed, apparently on a Selectric, on Arches 10lb woven paper.] 

WHY IS ART?

Part I

Why is it that art exists whether or not anyone buys it, or even sees it? Art doesn’t need your permission to exist. It doesn’t even ask the artist’s permission. It often arrives, instructs, manifests, and disappears as mysteriously as it came. It animates its creator to bring itself into being, and like mitosis, tears itself from its progenitor when it is ripe. Like a snake leaving its own skin.

Why is it that art seems to have a life and mind of its own, taking its own direction and dragging the artist behind it like a rag doll lashed to the pinions of a freight train?

Why is it that people that do art launch into it like a somnambulist tightrope walker skipping crazily across the Grand Canyon at the last ray of day? Whether or not anyone is looking? Whether or not anyone understands? Do you really think that art is created for YOU? Because of YOU? To become your “Thing”? If by chance, it does - that may be just incidental.

Whom does art serve? Is it your servant? Your pet? Is it tame? Does it dance for you? Is it there for your amusement? Does art smile for you as it sits on your credenza or graces your wall obediently?

Why is it that people are addicted, yes addicted, to collecting art? Why do people become art lovers? (That includes artists themselves, even when they trade.)  You may think you collect art for cool reasons, for investment, as a signifier maybe, but the truth is , you can’t stop yourselves: you are enchanted, you are in love with that thing that won’t leave your dreams until you relent, until you take it home, where it is the possessor and you are the possessed. It is that seed that clings to your sock unawares until you find a tree growing through the top of your head. And if you think you have a cool handle on what art is, you are confident in that, you are probably an academic.  You may not see that art is a tree that grows from fire.

Why is it when you finally see that painting or sculpture you have loved all your life, that you have mythologized, when you see it in the flesh, in a respectful or formal setting, when you see it iconized - you have a sadness, a knowing, that when you leave, you are leaving a piece of your flesh behind. Why is it that “in person” you sense a presence, an intelligence, an invisible machination that renders time and space obsolete?

Why is it that these artists, these creators, these artificers, seem to live on dandelion roots and air, can go for days without sleep, would rather buy paint and brushes than food,---and often do?

Is being an artist a thing chosen, or does it choose you? Is collecting art something you choose, or is it choosing you, mesmerizing you? Cannibalizing you? Have you ever known an artist or a collector to suddenly become something different, to be dispossessed? I haven’t seen art break that spell. So why is that?

Artists are not your slaves.  They are slaves to one thing and one thing only:  Their art.

You, sitting in your comfortable offices, in your comfortable homes, wearing the right clothes and hanging with the right people, suspended within your pensions, your paychecks, your children’s college savings fund, you, the self-domesticated animals:  Look again at artists. These are your sugar substitutes, your investor sacrifices, your projected Frankensteins, the very things you might have been had you not been you who are so careful and rational:  These are your Proxies. 

Artists are spiritual ninjas. Karmakazies.  Heroes.  Enjoy your proximity with the crumbs of art. They will remind you what it might be like to live another life, one free, wild, uncompromised and uncertain.

Why is it that art seems to have a life of its own, is like a thing born, is independent, has spirit, has presence? Why can it be examined but not catalogued, catalogued but not vivisected, vivisected but not killed, killed but not eradicated? To do these things to art is to do the same to yourself and you don’t really want that.

Why is it that art invades you, makes you its host, lives there like an invisible organ, lays eggs, changes you, and then changes you again --in ways you could never imagine? --does a clean reinstall on your hard drive? --makes you want to change your hair, your name?  You crawl out the other end of art because it is bigger than you, perhaps more real than you, and perhaps the thing that engulfs us all. Perhaps it is the aquarium we swim in that is connected to the sea that gives you life. Perhaps it is creating you in the process of collecting it, seeing it, thinking about it.

If you are an artist, you may have noticed that you and your art are co-creators, are covalent bonders, two in one in a state of symbiotic mutualism, instinctual. What a waste of time to do anything but create art.

What is art? Why bother to answer that question? Is it something we feel and just know by its dark and silent and always moving irresistible tendrils, like insidious woodbine? It is called into being because WE need it, because we called it? It needs no reason, no justification, no more permission than that.  The artist is conduit, birth tunnel, midwife, and sperm donor. But art, like Nature, just is.  It is potential, out there, waiting to be born. It IS the cornucopeia of nature, borrowed, rented, eternally in translation.

Once you have been enchanted by art, you will never again need a reason to make it, to own it, to justify it, or to explain it.  It is the Heart of hearts.  We may not all hear its beat, but we do share its circuitry.

Artists are possessed by art. In the bubble of their creation they create worlds, visible and invisible. They move horizontally and vertically, unlike any other profession, a Tribe of virtual virtue. Their own species even, why not? Existing in that netherworld between this and that, uniting both.

Why is art? Why are magicians? Shamans? Engineers of invisible bridges, walkers of razors, creator of veils, makers of crooked paths, the ones who live in the place while the rest of us tread the borders, on the edge of light, content with reflection, with second-hand life.

I still don’t know what art is.

I only know I can’t imagine life without it.

Anonanonymus

Street Art: Stencils about murals

Spotted around town...

Photo Courtesy Jennifer Kosharek

The Art Cars of Saint Petersburg, Florida

Derek Donnelly was the first to paint his car as a rolling work of art in this current wave. The photo shows it in its first incarnation, at the grand opening of Saint Paint Gallery. It has been since repainted. This one has always been a collaborative effort by several of St. Pete's best street artists.









This Toyota Matrix belongs to photographer Khalid Hameed and was painted by Christian Thomas in a Live Paint at Queenshead Pub.









Jennifer Kosharek joined the elite art cars group recently by painting this car (which already had some small painted bits on it, including a painting of Woo on the hood) with help from her children.














Before all of these, Barbara Nicolazzo was painting art cars (and vans) for her friends and customers. On the left, she is shown with her own car.







Art cars have been around for a long time elsewhere, at least since Ken Kesey's Further bus in which the Merry Pranksters awakened a sleeping nation. Janis Joplin had an art Porsche 356, John Lennon a Rolls-Royce, and artists like Larry Fuente, Jackie Harris and David Best made their own.

At Artcar Fest, San Francisco

 Filmmaker Harrod Blank did a series of documentaries on this phenomenon, amongst them Wild Wheels, Driving the Dream, and Automorphosis. He also did two books on this topic. With Philo Northrup, he also founded the ArtCar Fest in San Francisco.







 In Houston there is the famous Glowrama, an illuminated art car festival.



 






And there have been corporate efforts to seize this artitic niche. BMW commissioned very famous artists to paint some of their cars. This one is by Jeff Koons.










Art cars are part and parcel of the Burning Man Festival. I have a feeling Woo would have liked this one, with some color painted on it.









There is also an Artcar Museum! In Houston TX. [Link]. They put on a yearly parade.






The Artcar painters of St. Pete join a rich Art tradition. Below, three Artcars from Europe...
















From Japan....



 Andy Warhol painting a BMW...








---- Luis

PS. Janis Joplin and her Porsche 356

Trust Birth @ Charlie Parker Pottery

The Village Birth Circle [Link] describes itself as a " ...new community, dedicated to supporting mothers, families and intuitive maternity care. The group provides education, assistance and support for pregnant mothers and families". It was founded by Katrina Hollon, LM, Toni Belange Shelby, RN, Laura Irmis, AAHCC, and Lisa Russell. 

It was hosted at Charlie Parker's Pottery Studio [Link], a spacious building, with three long and wide sections in which pottery classes are held, work shown and Parker does his own work. The show Trust Birth embodied body painting, belly dancing, artwork, and information focused on childbirth.

l to r, Katrina Hollon, Charlie Parker, and Ashley.

I spoke with Katrina Hollon and Ashley, who explained the mission of the Village Birth Circle and the nature of the show.








I got there too late for the belly dancing or painting, but even at that hour, the turnout for the event was very good. The art was all about birth, babies, mothers the whole experience. A few pictures...

Work by Johnnie Thomas

Congratulations to all the artists, participants, Katrina Hollon, Charlie Parker and their crews for a great event.

---- Luis

Murals: Madness and Method II

I received the following comment from 'Anonymous' about the Murals post...

AnonymousJanuary 20, 2013 at 10:03 PM

Maybe the issue is direction, or the lack thereof. It seems to be that a lack of direction, of unified theme, of a desire to not only celebrate art, but USE art to celebrate the heritage and history of the city.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1649278,00.html

Take a look at one of the country's most successful mural projects and see if you can see the difference.

Just .02

_______________________________________________________________

[I thought this deserved a proper reply in its own post and I also left it in the comments section in the original.]

Putting aside the rampant condescension in your comment, my thoughts: I have nothing against the way Philadelphia handled their mural arts program. Unlike St. Petersburg, they raised money to fund the paint and pay the artists. The average was ten to fifteeen thousand dollars per mural. That is decidedly not what is happening here.

There is no reason we should emulate Philadelphia. This is not a question of decoration, as in having the art match like curtains and drapes. Has anyone noticed graffiti has stopped? Not because of experts telling us what to do or policing, but because of the initiative of the pioneering street artists to whom we are indebted for this wave of murals.

Direction? Someone wants to be Director, and as Anon states, "USE the art". What has happened in St. Petersburg is a celebration of art in its purest, independent form. Art does not have to be uniform, allow itself to be used for anyone else's agenda, or celebrate anything, in any particular way. It is up to the artist, as long as the work does not trample on legally established community standards.

Anonymous does not seem to understand the most basic ideas about art.

I clearly SEE and reject the difference, and am more than impressed with the diversity, pluralism and quality of the Murals of Saint Petersburg. What the City should be doing is publicly and proudly honoring the artists who began this wave. Graffiti has become a thing of the past. People are coming here to see the works.

The time for all this desire for control and uniformity was back when there was nothing happening. You should have spearheaded it, and raised the $10-15,000 dollars/mural for the artists. That would have been a long line to apply for that money, but it is too late. St. Petersburg artists and their art are not mass-produced or uniformly conventional any more than its citizenry is, and the murals reflect it.

This City, its people and artists can see the murals and proudly say "This is who we are".

The Loop @ Eve N Odd Gallery

Just received this from Jennifer Kosharek....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Eb-o0Id6ucw

 

This is a video Ad for the art show called, "The Loop." Love and love lost is what The Loop is about.  This art show is not about letting go... it's about holding on to the best days of your life and reliving them in an endless circle.  One giant loop of his 300 Last text messages make up the piece.  I hope you come to eve-N-odd gallery and relive this imaginary journey.  eve-N-odd is located in the historic Crislip arcade.  645 Central Ave. #11, St. Petersburg, FL 33701. 

 

Photo courtesy of Eve N Odd Gallery

 

 

The show will be up Tuesday January 22nd through February 28th.  There will be an opening on February 9th from 6-9pm  during artwalk and Feb. 14th there will be fluxus performances, poetry reading and personal antcdotes from 5-6 pm.  Please join us! 

 

OPEN CALL:  **If you would like to do a performance piece about love or love lost... please email me... evenoddgallery@gmail.com Pieces need to be less than five minutes in length can be performance art, poetry reading (yours or someone else's), fluxus performance, personal story. The performances will be Feb. 14th from 5-6 pm. Thank you.

Mobile Mural

Jennifer Kosharek is painting her car. Masked and looking like part of a 305 crew, she is spraying her Oldsmobuick at the moment at her skunkworks in St. Pete with her crew.














Here is a picture of the work in progress. All photos courtesy of the artist.

Jennifer Kosharek, Art Car, in progress

 

 

Close to finished, 3/4 view...

Jennifer Kosharek, Art Car

There's a happy Gretchen on the trunk lid....

On the front...





All pictures courtesy of the artist.



---- Luis

Seen/Scene: Zine Fest @ Venture Compound

Professor, poet, Free Skooler, Cole Bellamy

The Venture Compound and Free Skool hosted the St. Pete Zine Fest on Dec. 12th. There was an overwhelming amount of material and people to attempt a review, so here are some photographs...

Cole Bellamy's Zine

Hunter Payne

Hunter Payne's "New York Public Library" nomadic zine tent installation was one of a kind at the Fest, as is his portrait on the right.

Kelly Steele, Zine Fest Organizer

Malcom Johnson

Coralette Damme and her "Things that Stink" zine.

Coralette Zines & work.

Mitzi Gordon's fabulous Blue Bird Book Bus was at the VC, packed with zines. Rolling culture.

Josh Sullivan and his Zines. 52 Friends is his latest

Congratulations to all the participants, organizers, the volunteers of Team Venture, Jesse Vance, Cole Bellamy and particularly Fest sponsor St. Pete Community Acupuncture. They are a cool acupuncture place with flexible (humane) pricing and great service. A non-consumptive health care model. Check them out at 727-823-1700 and here [Link]. Support those who support the Arts.

---- Luis

Memes 4 Lulz @ Eve N Odd Gallery

 
"For the Lulz"  is a popular web-derived catchphrase used to express that one carried out a specific action for the sake of personal comic enjoyment. Often this can involve offensive (or worse) content. This is a tiny show, even for a small gallery.








This is the show, and it requires the viewer to walk up close and personal to take in the art, which is one of the pleasures of a small, intimate gallery.






There are Fluxus and mail art pieces in this show. Many, but not all, are in a graphic style.

Work by Seth Tobocman

Naked mole rats don't get cancer, but they are nasty-looking. The picture used here (is that a rat octomom-to-be?) was certainly intended to be offensive. If they were only bigger, what great guard critters they would make.

 

 

That evening, Artpool was having one of their big parties and a fashion show. Gallery owner Jennifer Kosharek and her daughter Lulu modeled clothes from Eugenia Woods. They looked so beautiful.

Jennifer and Lulu

 Congratulations to all the artists and Jennifer Kosharek for a show, that is a little thin on quantity, but good and well worth seeing in detail.

--- Luis