Enough with the turkey already," says Maria Emilia, the Cuba-born director of Florida Craftsmen Gallery, describing the impetus for the craft mecca's latest exhibit. "Hispanics are the largest group — not the largest minority group, but the largest group — in Florida. And we have different traditions on Thanksgiving."
If you've never gathered with your family to give thanks around a table laden with tequeños (Venezuelan fried cheese snacks), sancocho (a Dominican goat stew), or arroz con leche (rice pudding), you might find a few tricks worth adding to your Turkey Day routine at Thanksgiving Con Sabor. Visitors will get a mouthful at the catered event on Thurs., Nov. 8, which complements the gallery's current exhibit of crafts by Spanish-speaking artists, called A New Cornucopia (Una Nueva Cornucopia). Meat empanadas, fish tacos, picadillo, cactus salad and sweet mango cream also make the menu — and yes, there's even a turkey, stuffed with Catalán sausage, ham and apricots, for those not quite ready for a total free fall from tradition.
The source of the exhibit's artworks and recipes is one and the same. For Cornucopia, Emilia enlisted 10 Spanish-speaking artists who make crafts that are inextricably intertwined with the idea of food; in addition to contributing artwork, each artist submitted a recipe that will be served at Thanksgiving. Intricate woodcuts by Belkis Ramirez of the Dominican Republic pay tribute to the sensuous ritual of coffee drinking. (One of her two prints in the show, which are displayed beside the ink-coated wood blocks used to print them, graces the cover of novelist Julia Alvarez's A Cafecito Story.)
Mexican artist Catalina Delgado Trunk's elaborate papel picado (cut paper) panels tell of the divine origins of maize. And Tampa-based, Colombia-born sculptor Monica Eastman's literal cornucopia — a cone made of found metal cut with a delicate, lace-like pattern and filled with painted red seed pods — gives the exhibit its name.
The show's themes of diversity and plenty resonate on multiple levels, from the variety of methods and materials employed (wood and metal sculpture, embroidery, ceramics, painting) to the countries the artists call home (Puerto Rico, the United States, Cuba, Argentina and so on). The artwork itself constitutes a mouthwatering display, starting with my favorites: the stunning, sculptural ceramic place settings of New Mexico artist Eddie Dominguez (now a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln). A pitch-black collection of his stackable leaf-shaped plates, bowls, cups and salt-and-pepper shakers goes by the title "Night Garden" and resembles a tropical planter box when not arranged as a surreal, Little Shop Of Horrors-esque tabletop display. (A similar multicolored set assembles into a ceramic aquarium, complete with floating fish.) Visitors with a sweet tooth will get a kick out of Miami artist Demi Rodriguez's painted sculpture of a tiny cake topped with an angel, hanging next to ceramic plates by her husband, Arturo Rodriguez.
De Santo Latin American Bistro, a restaurant-in-progress slated to open soon near McNulty Station, will bring the concept of cornucopia alive on visitors' palates. Kudos to Florida Craftsmen Gallery for thinking outside the bird.
Sketchbook
Art becomes a family affair this month at C. Emerson Fine Arts (c-emersonfinearts.com), also in downtown St. Pete. Sculptures by Sarasota-based Mark Anderson, interim chair of Ringling College of Art and Design's Fine Arts department, mingle with drawings by his son, Jarrod Anderson, an emerging artist living in New York. The resulting show, Interstice, which runs through Oct. 26, makes for a harmonious conversation between two very different artists.
The elder Anderson's aluminum and bronze sculptures of human faces in gentle contact dominate the space, in part because more than two dozen slightly different permutations of them are mounted on the gallery walls. The effect is less one of repetition than an unsettling accumulation of presence, eerily disembodied. A related sort of existential stillness characterizes the younger Anderson's painstaking graphite drawings on slick paper coated with latex paint, which depict floating fragments of his jumbled, post-adolescent apartment. The most affecting include truncated bits of his figure, like an arm grasping a gun-shaped saw or a T-shirt-clad (but armless and legless) torso with an erection.
How do you know when scrappy-but-sophisticated Tampa artist collective [5]art "hearts" you? Well, they could just declare their amorous intent with the title of their next exhibit. Don't miss [5]Art Loves SMG, a one-night-only exhibit-fundraiser on Sat., Oct. 20, 7-11 p.m. The five-member collective has scratched out a niche for itself by hosting well-curated art events in unfinished and donated spaces. This one benefits the host space, Michael A. Murphy's Silver Meteor Gallery in Ybor City, site of many a memorable art party and fringe theater performance. Artists include USF grad students Allen Hampton and Mark Cannariato, USF prof Julie Weitz, Edgar Sanchez Cumbas and Diran Lyons. With the proceeds from last year's event, [5]art patched up SMG's dilapidated roof. For more information, go to five-art.com.
The latest addition to Tampa's visual arts landscape crops up in an unusual location: The Florida Aquarium will now feature the work of local artists on its walls. Seventy works by 27 artists will hang in the "Pathways" section of the Aquarium, a winding tunnel that spans the first and second floors of the building. Dan and Denise Rojas of Bay Studios, a Tampa corporate art consultancy, organized the spread of paintings, photographs and digital illustrations with an aquatic wildlife theme. The pair has previously curated exhibits at Rivergate Tower and Tampa City Center, and both are board members of Gala Corina.
"It's an honor to be a part of it," Dan Rojas says. "The arts in Tampa are getting better, but it's not quite a self-supporting business." To that end, proceeds from any sales of artwork benefit the artists first and foremost. (Bay Studios takes a slice for administrating the whole endeavor.) The Aquarium itself adds yet another attraction for paying visitors.
The current exhibit — which features Eileen Goldenberg, John Gurbacs, Diana Leavengood, Lisa Ward Landsman and Carlton Ward Jr., among others — remains on view through Jan. 8, when a new set of artworks takes its place. "We'd like to have more artists next time," Rojas says. "The theme of the show is always going to be aquatic wildlife, but each show will be a little different."
For more information or to apply as an artist, go to baystudios.com.
This article appears in Oct 17-23, 2007.