Cuban Sandwich Show Part VII: YAA's Ybor Art Series @ Cuban Club

Cuban Club, North si

Friday, June 10th, the Ybor Artits' Association held their Ybor Art Series show at the Cuban Club, a Leo Elliott designed building in Ybor City, one with long ties to everything that makes our community special, including the arts. The Artists and Writer's Ball, WMNF Tropical Heatwave, many concerts, etc. If those walls could only talk.

 On the right is a view of the original maquette of the Cuban Club from the same side.

On the left, a beautiful panoramic format, Floridian  grass with pine stands, landscape by Klaaren. He has painted many city and urbanscapes as well. For more of his work, see here: [Link]





 On the right is a picture of Susan O'Hara and her fine sculptures. I recently reviewed one of her works in the student show at HCC. Inspired by Picasso and others, her work has a strong  Neo-Modernist style, with African and Pacific Islands influences. [Link]



 On the left is "silence", an abstract body form with a yonic opening in its center, and the head at the top turned away. All in a beautiful green stone.

 Doing portraits of men with cigars in their mouths is not easy, but that's just what Photographer Willy Emerson does with Cigar City sitters. it definitely adds a whopping dose of macho and a connection to Tampa history/traditions. [Link]






 On the right is a photo of Anthony Capers, who does portraits, some of celebs (see Liz, Angelina and is that the Beeb? behind him). He also does these fictional portraits, which he calls "Kids Fantasy Art", in which he creates backgrounds for the kids and photoshops them in behind their portrait. Anthony is as passionate about his art as the celebs he paints.

 

  The singular Samantha Churchill, whose work I recently reviewed here, fittingly posing as a famous Botticelli, surrounded by her aluminum wire sculptures, painted sculptures and paintings. The latter are themed around the Day of the Dead. The wire sculptures look more like three-dimensional drawings. On the right, a closer view of the sculptures. [Link], [Link], [Link]

I keep running into Tatyana Hankinson and her paintings often, and continue to be pleasantly surprised to see new things. This is a dyptich, the left part of which is titled "The Wall, 1935. Fresh Wind" and the right " The Wall, 1917. Revolution". We see graffiti and slogans on the aging wall. Revolution comes and goes, as do governments, but the wall, the house which it is a part of, and the life therein go on.

 A group pic of the artists and YAA & YAC members who put this show on. Congratulations to all.

--- Luis

Cuban Sandwich Show Part VI: The Built, The Lost and The Dreams: The Architectural Drawings of M. Leo Elliott

 The Tampa Regional Artists at Old Hyde Park Center was founded in 1956. Among other things, it provides a gallery space dedicated to "Art You Can Live With", seminar, lectures, demos, workshops, classes and more. [Link].  This charming and venerable structure has undergone several incarnations in its lifespan, which began in 1899. They hosted "The Built, The Lost and The Dreams: The Architectural Drawings of M. Leo Elliott", of architectural drawings rediscovered while replacing an air conditioner at Carrastro and Associates. They're on their way to their final resting place at the Tampa History Center.

 M. Leo Elliott was born in the Catskill mountains, in NY state. His early education consisted of a one-room school house for eight grades. At fifteen, he went to NYC, becoming an office boy at an architectural office. After attending school at night, and graduation, he moved to Norfolk where he began working as an architect, then to Tampa. He designed the Centro Asturiano, Tampa City Hall, then WWI came and he served as an engineer designing concrete oil tankers. In 1920, he founded M. Leo Elliott Inc, with offices in Tampa, Sarasota and St. Pete.  After an illustrious career designing some of Tampa's finest architecture, he passed away at 81. He designed his own gravemarker.

Leo Elliott, Maquette, Cuban Club

He also designed the Cuban Club, Italian Club, Scottish Rite Temple, Tampa YMCA, First National Bank, Sarasota High School, Bryan Elementary, Palace of Florence, Tampa Yacht Club, the Leiman-Wilson House, Snell Arcade, twenty houses in Temple Terrace. and many more.

M. Leo Elliott, City Hall

Keep in mind that these drawings are before CAD, all done to scale and by hand. My father was an architect, and used to do it this way. The direct intimacy between the creator and the design is considerable. On the right is a view of a corner of the exhibit with some relics from Elliot buildings that have been demolished/lost.

 From the Myelvaron Apartments.






 On the right, a copy of a photograph of the Tampa Gas Company Building. I remember when this existed, and it was  an outstanding, beautiful design. That grand entrance was inviting and dazzling.








 On the left is a photograph of a table with fregments recovered from the demolition of the Tampa Gas Company building. Look at the attention to detail, color, motif, and more.

Concurrent with the Elliott show are two art shows, one devoted to Elliott buildings.

 In the other art show, this painting by Princess Rashid caught my eye.

 A Palace of Florence architectural drawing (color-corrected to make it look as it might have when new). This fine building is still up, and can be seen on Davis Islands, on the left hand side of Davis Boulevard as you go towards the split on Davis Blvd.. In the early days, they held concerts on the roof, and people danced the night away under the stars. I knew a former manager of those apartments, Jackie, and have seen most of them -- all different. I also had a friend who lived in the turret apartment, and had access to the top. We spent many evenings  watching the exquisite view of Bayshore at sunset. I owe those memories, in part, to the vision of Leo Elliott.


In gratitude,

--- Luis


Show runs through July 8. Facility open Noon to 3:00pm all days except Monday. Public opening is Noon to 3:00pm Friday, June 10, 2011. Free.

Tampa Regional Artists at Old Hyde Park Center
705 West Swann Avenue, Tampa, FL 33606 (map)
813-251-3780
www.tamparegionalartists.org

 

Celebrations of Uncertainty @ Collective

View of part of the exhibit, back room at Collective Gallery

The Collective is a tattoo parlor and gallery at 601 Central Avenue in St. Pete. This show, Celebrations of Uncertainty, with works by three artists, Brandon Dunlap, Christina Garcia, and Paul Pavlovich, is said to have a "nightmarish and ghostly" approach.

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"Tamara Teuthida", by Brandon Dunlap. A white-faced Gibson-Girl's head on a tentacled body. "Teuthida" is the taxonomic name for the squid family. Tamara is a mythological name for a witch. It was also the title of an American horror movie about a character that returns from the dead in a seductive form to exact revenge from those who had been formerly unkind.



On the right is "First Buck", by Brandon Dunlap. It has the same theme as paintings of Judith and Holofernes and Salome and John the Baptist [Link], the decapitation (and symbolic emasculation) of the male. Here a little girl holds the head of a buck triumphantly.




 Paul Poplovich often makes biting socio-political commentary with the works in this show. In one, he has the Pope's crown/hat and below it a jellyfish, tentacles dangling, in a work called "Man of War". Here, in "Aristocrat", we see a member of the landed gentry on his horse, looking weak, foppish, ridiculous, paranoid and potentially mean, done in an American Colonial style.





On the right is Poplovich's "Olive Branch Dub". A red figure wistfully beholds an olive branch it is holding. The olive branch is a symbol for peace. The word 'dub' is street slang for twenty dollars worth of intoxicants.




In "Obscura One", we see a grotesque of a suit with a large, deformed toothy dinosaur-like skull for a head. Perhaps a comment on obsolescent thought? Note how different the images I have shown are, & how Poplovich is at ease with each of these styles.

Cristina Garcia's work in this show is of women, particularly tattooed/painted women, often with a tribal aspect. Here on the left, we see it literally, but in others, it's more conceptual. These are confident, strong women, performing their duties, going about rituals, or being, serene, powerful and introspective in their femininity. They are at ease in their own bodies and with the idea of transformation. Many have narratives inscribed on their bodies, all of them have it in them, their faces, postures and being. This is potent, primal work, the kind that establishes a taut emotional connection with the viewer..

 Congratulations to Collective for a good show from three interesting and varied artists.


--- Luis

Cuban Sandwich Show V: "The Cuban Sandwich Show" & "Wired" @ HCC Ybor Art Gallery

This show opened at the HCC Ybor Art Gallery on Thursday, June 9th,  involving a large number of artists for the size of the space: Jay and Peter Aalberg, Linda Alexander, Bradley Arthur, Tracy Assalone, David Audet, Lori Ballard, Kris Berry, Sarah Butz, Mike Cantwell, Nancy Cervenka, John Costin, Neverne Covington, Suzanne Camp Crosby, David Dye, David Edmund, Melissa Fair, Steve Gregory, David Hall, Dee Hood, Laszlo Horvath, Joe Howden, Joanna Karpay, Art Keeble, Rocky Kester, Mic Knight, Stan Kozma, Carolyn Kossar, Bud Lee, Phil Lee, Charles Lyman, Rick Melby, Elizabeth Mitchell, Gordon Mhyre, Chris Peattie, Ed Ross, James Tokley Sr., Cat Thompson, Patrick Thomsen, Judith Villavisanis, Suzanne Williamson, Kelly Young and others. Tampa Poet Laureate and cultural treasure James Tokley Sr. gave a reading of his Epic of the Sandwiche Cubano.

On the left is a back-to-front view of the HCC  Ybor Art Gallery. with Suzanne Williamson's photographs of the Cuban bread bakeries and the process on coffee burlap sacks hanging from the ceiling. On the right is a lateral view of the gallery, with Bud Lee's [Link] color drawings overhead. This show was a veritable who's who of established (and some emerging) Tampa artists.

Cat Thompson, "Absence/Presence"

 Catherine (Cat) L. Thompson's pinhole polaroid titled "Absence/Presence" is a haunting installation. The palpable primal feeling of loss and the memory of when it wasn't so comes across here with little sentimentality and strong sentiment. [Link]



Laszlo Horvath's "Fish ship in Tampa Harbor" is another of his many surreal images with local backgrounds. The other day I ran into a "straight" Horvath landscape, and it was of a surreal natural formation. [Link]

An intricate and delicate mobile composed of fishing bobbers and cigars titled "Pastimes" by Art Keeble ties together two relaxing things.



On the right is Judith Villavisanis' mixed media work titled "Silver Ring Cafe". Part of it is an image of the sign that meant great Cuban Sandwiches, tazas de cafe con leche, fading boxing photographs on the walls, and local culture oozing from everyone and everything in the place. The photograph brings back memories, too.





It was almost frightening (think Night of The Living Dead) to run into this Dick Greco poster turned into art by David Audet. "Columbus Drive/Boliche Boulevard" included a small video screen, visible on the lower right edge, above the "O". Showing footage of Greco signs on Columbus drive (I think).





Cuban Sandwiches abounded in this show, and in every medium imaginable. Here is a soft sculpture of one done in satin, no less, by Sarah Butz, titled "Satin Cuban". It seemed to have an inner light of its own and an airy weightlessness.



Judith Villavisanis' "Girl Eating Cuban Sandwich" depicts a buxom beauty sensuously holding and partaking of the theme of the show, lost in her own private reverie...and it is one most Tampanians know quite well. Beautifully composed, with two perspectives, and all those diagonals riffing off one another, all leading to the point of that half-sandwich and those lips...the shoulder strap is a nice touch, too.

"Anna Tampana, 1980", by Suzanne Camp Crosby, is a posed profile of this wonderful woman who created this character and played it well. Here she holds paper cut-outs, while looking 2-dimensional herself, of those who played similar characters before hers.
  I met Anna Tampana around the time this picture was made, at a party for the old Tampa Times newspaper. Somewhere I have several slides of her playing at being sensuous and seductive. She was beautiful, enthusiastic, and played well with the camera. This picture does her and the times justice, and speaks about women's roles in the culture.






I know, three Judith Villavisanis works in one review? Yes, I was taken with her work. This "Saturn Devouring His Cuban", done in paper mache' was very innovative, and incredibly funny. [Link??]






"City of Tampa" by Rocky Kester. Rocky used to have a great studio in Ybor (now a bar), with a paradizzo garden in back. We used to talk there now and then. I still have a tiny ceramic virgin I bought from him decades ago. It gladdened my heart to see work by him, and that it still had his deeply human and gentle touch.[Link??]




There was this welded aluminum Cuban Sandwich by Mic Knight, [Link] resting on a beautiful complex dyed cloth titled "Mustard Seed", by Carolyn Kossar.

 On the left is "Cuban", an acrylic on tin painted by Bud Lee, a seminal figure in the arts in Tampa, as well as a famous LIFE magazine photographer. He took up painting after a debilitating stroke and has been making extraordinary paintings and drawings, two examples of many in the show can be seen below.

There was a second show inside the main one, called "Wired", centered around cafe con leche. Here is an overall view. Note the shelf full of handmade coffee cups.



The work on the left is "Wired and Stoned", by Patt Fosnaught, [Link] and on the right, "A Cup Full Of Paper Airplanes", by Dean Mackey. [Link??]

There were also photographs of cups and the coffee experience. Here is Suzanne Williamson's "Coffee on the Front Porch", faintly reminiscent of some of Josef Sudek's photographs. [Link]

On the left, conceptual clay cups, "Trompe l'oeil", by Elizabeth Kozlowski.[Link??]







On the right is Vanessa Montenegro's "Thoughts over Cup", consisting of a drawing on handmade paper, a handmade cup -- and pencil. Well-conceived, and in my opinion, underpriced. [Link]









 On the left is a study or maquette for the large Jerry Meatyard sculpture situated on the north side of the building.

[Link??]

Arthur Bradley and his wife posing below one of his metal and mixed media sculptures. This one has a fishing rod and line pulling on it. [Link]



Congratulations to the HCC Ybor crew and to all the artists, who were far too numerous to be presented here in their entirety, for putting together a memorable show themed on local culture.    Bravo.

--- Luis

  Both shows run June 8 through July 8, 2011.
Free. Art Gallery in Performing Arts Building

Hillsborough Community College-Ybor City Campus
Corner of East Palm Ave. and North 14th St., Tampa, FL 33605 (map)
813-253-7674 www.hccfl.edu/yc/art-gallery