Since he moved to St. Petersburg from Washington, D.C., in 1989, Dave Ellis has wondered why local museums show so little interest in an art form that many Floridians are crazy about: boat-building.
"When somebody can lay a keel by eye … that's sculpture taken to a high level," he says. "Not only does it sit in a room and look good, but it has to respond to local waters and how they affect its conduct."
To fill the void of art-world appreciation for watercraft, the Studio@620 co-founder has cooked up a new exhibit. The Water Is Wide, the Art of Boat-building opens Thursday at the downtown venue and — like every Studio undertaking — the month-long exhibit and event series promises a multidisciplinary romp that will challenge your preconceived notions of both art and boat-building.
That the latter is an effort worthy of the label "art" seems self-evident to Ellis, but he's prepared to convince skeptics. To help drive the point home, he has enlisted St. Petersburg artist Bob Stackhouse, whose works belong to the likes of the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center and the Art Institute of Chicago. Stackhouse's paintings and prints focus on evocative structures, often light-filled skeletal spaces, and boat hulls serve as a frequent inspiration.
Stackhouse, who will be the subject of two Bay area exhibits in January at St. Pete's Arts Center and USF's Contemporary Art Museum, will contribute a canvas to Water Is Wide; he'll also speak about his work in an interview at the Studio with his wife, Dr. Carol Mickett, on Fri., Nov. 14. But a single painting is about as conventional as this show gets.
Now, bring on the boats.
Sharing the Studio's gallery space with the Stackhouse painting will be three boats-as-sculpture, Ellis says. The first is a turn-of-the-century dugout canoe carved from a single 25-foot log of solid mahogany. On Sat., Nov. 17, catch a demonstration of the burn-and-scrape methods used to create dugouts with Terry Powell of the Dunedin Nature Reserve. Two cutting-edge kayaks — on loan from Bill Jackson's Shop for Adventure — show the latest and greatest in that type of boat-building. A camouflage-cloaked fishing kayak has enough bells, whistles and secret compartments to entice James Bond onto the Hillsborough; a razor-slim white racing kayak looks like a futuristic needle.
What do poetry, drama and singing have to do with boat-building? Ellis is glad you asked. Meet the Main Hatch Motley Crew, a rugged chorus of sea shanty singers who also build boats at the Florida Maritime Museum of Cortez, a historic fishing village near Bradenton. The group formed spontaneously during a boat-building session when one of the builders began to sing. Local university choral groups, the St. Petersburg College Madrigals and the USF St. Petersburg Singers will also perform. The Studio's other co-founder, Bob Devin Jones, will read his play, The 'C,' and poet Jeffrey James will read verses by Herman Melville and others.
There are also plenty of opportunities for children to get their hands dirty. Sea Quest Kids, a Delaware charity, will work with local youngsters to build a boat each weekend of the exhibit. At the end of the project, a drawing determines which of the participating kids wins the boat. (Contact the Studio to reserve a spot.) Older teens and adults can take part in a daylong model boat-building workshop with Roger Allen, director of the Cortez museum, or listen as Kendal Butler explains the influence of Bahamian design and construction techniques on 19th-century Florida boat-building.
The goal of such a diverse patchwork of events is to bring unlikely audiences together, Ellis says. Black, white, young, old, artsy, sporty — he hopes Water Is Wide will help the Studio draw as diverse an audience as when it combined paintings by the Florida Highwaymen with a concert of Chinese stringed instruments (July-Aug. 2006) or set Shakespeare's Hamlet to a U2 soundtrack (earlier this month). Whether you're already a fan of boats or don't know a keel from a prow, Ellis hopes you'll find plenty of evidence in this show that boat-building is indeed an art.
"We could have called it the craft of boat-building, but I think this is fine," he says.
Sketchbook
If it's November, it must be time for CraftArt, Florida Craftsmen Gallery's annual two-day craft fair held at the Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. On Sat., Nov. 17 and Sun., Nov. 18, visitors will encounter a wide array of works in clay, wood, fiber, metal, paper, glass and mixed media by nearly 100 artists and artisans. The exclusive show, culled from submissions from around the country, will be judged by Paula Owens, executive director of the Southwest School of Art & Design in San Antonio, Texas. A hands-on scarf-dying demonstration by fiber artist Marlene Glickman costs $10; a demo by clay artist Charlie Parker and a Sunday presentation on collecting crafts by Wendy Rosen, publisher of Niche and American Style, are free. Admission is $5, parking is free, and food will be available. Go to floridacraftsmen.net for more information.
Calling all artists: Opening Dec. 14, the West Tampa Center for the Arts (formerly Gallery 1906) presents REDUCED, an exhibit of work priced at $200 or less. Submissions must adhere to a restrained color palette of black, white and gray only. All media are welcome, but material works should be no larger than 5 feet by 5 feet; video, installation and performance-based pieces may be any size. The nonrefundable submission fee is $15, and the WTCA will keep 25 percent of all sales. [5]art's Kurt Piazza curates. To submit your work before the Dec. 6 deadline, call the WTCA at 813-453-4381, or e-mail wtca.art@gmail.com.
Also calling: St. Pete's Central Art Supply Company will team up with the Studio@620 to host a juried art show with the themes "common ground" and "coexist," Feb. 8-Mar. 1. Fifty artworks will be selected to appear in the show; three will be chosen to win a total of $1,750 worth of art supplies, cash and more. Entries may include paintings, drawings, sculpture and mixed media. Submissions are due by Jan. 8. Erika Greenberg Schneider, owner of Bleu Acier Gallery and a master printmaker, and William Jeffett, curator at the Salvador Dalí Museum, will judge. For more information, call Central Art Supply at 727-898-8300 or the Studio at 727-895-6620.
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2007.