PICTURES are available ONLINE NOW from the Nov. 15 Thursday Night Live arts showcase held at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop in the greater Brandon/Riverview area.
VISIT: www.MyPaperNow.smugmug.com.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Thurday Night Live Arts Showcase At Winthrop
For event details, click on the image to the left.
More than 30 artists have signed up for the Nov. 15 return of the Thursday Night Live arts showcase at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop, where a major recycling effort will be unveiled that includes a city bike program and public art initiative.The event coincides with National Recycling Day and the art will feature recycable themes and materials.
Winthrop also will unveil a public art initiative using recycable construction materials as well as the upcoming establishment of electric vehicle charging stations and a communitywide recycling initiative involving cardboard, cans, and paper. Winthrop artist Bryant Martinez and Winthrop welder Art Davenport have created from rebar and old bicycle parts a “bike limo rack ” that is a piece of changeable art itself. As Winthrop town founder John Sullivan put it, “you can lock in bikes traditionally, or you can lock them in at angles, changing the art as you do.” The rack will house newer bikes and stolen, repossessed, and discarded bikes acquired from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. The Wintrhop-wide recycling effort has been spearheaded by Sarah Sullivan, daughter of town founders John and Kay Sullivan, who researched, conceived and executed the effort for her Girl Scout Gold Award, which is the equivalent of the Eagle Scout ranking for boy scouts.“I’ve been a scout since daisies, since kindergarten, and even though I’m in college now, I wanted to complete my gold award because I see it as a culmination of all my years of scouting,” Sarah Sullivan said. Moreover, “Winthrop already has the foundation of being a green development, by building homes and businesses close together and thereby putting the pedestrian above the car,” Sarah Sullivan said. “It’s the perfect place to initiate innovative recycling and reusable ideas that can be a model for other communities.” Thursday Night Live, as initially conceived by Sullivan’s sister, Katharine, and her co-curator, Chris Rutherford, is an opportunity for those active and interested in the visual, performing and communication arts to exhibit and display their talents and support local artists and artisans. “Our community needs something like this, where families, artists, couples and individuals can come out and be a part of something bigger than themselves," said Martinez, who teaches at Tampa Bay Technical High School. "Art gives you a sense of purpose and empowers the community.”
Winthrop also will unveil a public art initiative using recycable construction materials as well as the upcoming establishment of electric vehicle charging stations and a communitywide recycling initiative involving cardboard, cans, and paper. Winthrop artist Bryant Martinez and Winthrop welder Art Davenport have created from rebar and old bicycle parts a “bike limo rack ” that is a piece of changeable art itself. As Winthrop town founder John Sullivan put it, “you can lock in bikes traditionally, or you can lock them in at angles, changing the art as you do.” The rack will house newer bikes and stolen, repossessed, and discarded bikes acquired from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. The Wintrhop-wide recycling effort has been spearheaded by Sarah Sullivan, daughter of town founders John and Kay Sullivan, who researched, conceived and executed the effort for her Girl Scout Gold Award, which is the equivalent of the Eagle Scout ranking for boy scouts.“I’ve been a scout since daisies, since kindergarten, and even though I’m in college now, I wanted to complete my gold award because I see it as a culmination of all my years of scouting,” Sarah Sullivan said. Moreover, “Winthrop already has the foundation of being a green development, by building homes and businesses close together and thereby putting the pedestrian above the car,” Sarah Sullivan said. “It’s the perfect place to initiate innovative recycling and reusable ideas that can be a model for other communities.” Thursday Night Live, as initially conceived by Sullivan’s sister, Katharine, and her co-curator, Chris Rutherford, is an opportunity for those active and interested in the visual, performing and communication arts to exhibit and display their talents and support local artists and artisans. “Our community needs something like this, where families, artists, couples and individuals can come out and be a part of something bigger than themselves," said Martinez, who teaches at Tampa Bay Technical High School. "Art gives you a sense of purpose and empowers the community.”
The Nov. 15 Thursday Night Live begins at 7 p.m. For information, call: 601-3129.
Thursday Night Live: James Oleson
"Understated" best describes the artist James Oleson, but certainly not his larger-than-life metal sculptures. "I work with found materials," he said. "It's all steel." Car parts and scraps from fabrication and welding shops. An old meter is the head on "Time Expired," his sculpture of a meter man who represents the shift of jobs from man to machine. "Reaching Enlightenment," a piece featuring an under frame of tube steel and stainless banding. "There's this calm look about her, a calmness of mind," Oleson said. "It's about reaching that higher level of consciousness, where you no longer judge other people and you don't get caught up in control dramas and you don't steal other people's energy." The piece was his most challenging, he said, because the female body "demands so much with its tight curves." But his newest piece, "Big Business," is his favorite piece, because "it's strong and it evokes a lot of emotion." It's composition includes rebar, clutch fans, gears, nails, brake pads, brake shoes, a keyless entry contraption, and clamps. "It's all found materials," Oleson stressed again. This business man, working on all cylinders, stands on discarded gears. He's holding a huge, rotating globe, signifying "the weight of the world on his shoulders." Oleson's talent is inbred. His grandfather, the late Bud Oleson, sculpted the metal horses in the median of Bayshore Boulevard in downtown Tampa. James Oleson's inspiration comes from what society discards, in most every scrap he finds. As he put it: "You pick it up and it looks like something to you, and then it grows into a sculpture."
Thursday Night Live: LEROY ROGERS
It's a first time for Leroy Rogers of Wimauma. "It's the first time in my life I've done anything like this," he said. He shared this sentiment soon after he entered the Barn Theatre at Winthrop on Nov. 14, the eve of the reopening of Thursday Night Live. He was there to set up his work, the "unusual yard work" he sculpts with metal scraps and with his neighbor and art partner, Jullie Clark. "She just started welding four months ago and she welds better than some people I know who have welded for 10 years," Rogers said. "Our imaginations work well together." Rogers saw the metal sculpturing of James Oleson and literally lost his breath. "I was so excited, I couldn't stand it," he said. "It makes me want to be better at what I'm doing." What Rogers, a former welder, does and has been doing for 30 years is create art with, as he put it, "scrap metal and parts of yard equipment, nails, rebar, and whatever I can find." He walked over to Oleson's work, again before he left, and again held his breath in wonderment. And then he shared his thoughts about the Thursday Night Live arts showcase, scheduled to be held at least once a month at Winthrop. "It shows people there's people out there with talent and skill they don't even know about," Rogers said. "More people need to get in here and open their eyes to see what artists can do for the community."
Thursday Night Live: CHALET COMELLAS
In her art, Chalet Comellas uses symbolic imagery to suggest a story, to create "a portrait of a concept." Her "visual vocabulary" communicates ideas. "I use pattern work, juxtaposed with iconic images, to make those suggestions," she said. The empty chair, for example, in early Chrisitan art represents the second coming of Jesus Christ. In Comellas' "Waiting for Salvation," it represents a yearning to be saved. A belief, she said, "that something will come and save me from what's happening." Her piece, "Domestication," suggests through its imagery a feeling of being boxed in, caged in, held back by paramters. Prominent is a trophy, reflective of the second or third wife of a married man, the "trophy wife" as status symbol. "Like Mother, Like Daughter" features a composite that Comellas said is a blending of her's and her mother's images. The angry face, focused on the mouth, a symbol of the tension inherent in the familial bond. The moths below represent obsession; as the moth is obsessed with the light, so, too, do we often get stuck in the moments of our discord, seeing what's before us, but not what is beyond. Above, the red rose, again from Christian symbolism, representing passion and the true light, the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. For more on Chalet Comellas and her art, visit: http://www.blogger.com/www.chaletart.com
Thursday Night Live: LORETTA V. MADDEN
Loretta Madden was at the beach when she ran out of art supplies. No canvas, to be specific, and there was a problem. "I still felt like painting," she said. Her husband, meanwhile, was helping a friend install a ceiling fan. Why not use the old fan blades? And so she did. "I found them excellent to work with," she said. Thus was born a specialty. But Madden is used to reusing. She finds new uses for the art that people throw away. Painted flowers on a canvas? She turns it around. "Rather than buying all new materials, I find old art and paint on the other side," she said.
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