A sunny spring weekend in March saw the streets of downtown Tampa fill with over 300 artists and craftspeople of all stripes and thousands of visitors from near and far. In airy white tents, painters, sculptors, wood-carvers, potters, jewelry makers and others displayed their wares, rotating pieces in and out as they sold and hustled entries off to the fair’s judging room (where the winners of $61,500 in prize money were chosen). Booty, a separate contemporary art offshoot, debuted this year in a train of white PODS on Franklin Street. Curated by Covivant’s Carrie Mackin, the fair-within-a-fair brought together works by some of the area’s edgiest groups, from Experimental Skeleton’s whimsical fountain of wishes to an inscrutable adventure in taxidermy from the Fluff Constructivists. Underground Rising weighed in with black-and-white photography and mixed-media works, and Iron-On Resistance rocked the AIA gallery space a few blocks away with screen-printed gear.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.