Paul Wislotski doesn't want this story to be about him; he wants it to be about his collective art project. But it's impossible to ignore Wislotski, something I'm realizing as we stand next to a large 7-by-8-foot wooden easel he's set up on the sidewalk next to Club Prana in Ybor City. Passersby can't help but stare at the rotund 48-year-old with the wide grin and bushy red beard, loudly soliciting them in his booming New Jersey accent to draw on his canvas.
"Come on, take a minute!" he begs the thirsty Saturday night crowds heading down Seventh Avenue. "It doesn't cost a thing. It's a chance to be creative on the street!"
Wislotski's undertaking seems as simple as his materials — a wooden easel made from scrap wood, an old bed sheet from a local hotel and oil pastels. But to Wislotski, his new take on collective art is a holy crusade.
It was 1979 when Wislotski discovered God. He was leaving a friend's house after purchasing a bag of marijuana when a St. Petersburg police officer stopped him. Wislotski panicked, ditching the weed and fleeing on foot. He didn't stop until the officer took out his firearm and pointed it directly at him.
"I almost got shot over $10 worth of marijuana," he recalls. "I got on my knees after that."
Two years later, Wislotski decided to take his faith on the road, hitchhiking and spreading the Gospel as a traveling Christian missionary. In 1994, he ended up at Bethel '94 — Woodstock's unofficial 25th anniversary festival — and found a man who had set up a canvas and several notebooks for music lovers to expound on their Woodstock reunion experience through words or pictures. When Wislotski returned to Florida, he tried the idea at a few local events to great success.
"I saw this need at festivals and events — people need to be creative," he says. "Everybody's creative. Everybody's talented. You just have to bring it out."
The next year, Wislotski took his idea to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame grand opening. The following year, he traveled to Atlanta for the Olympics and Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. Each event pushed Wislotski to expand on the idea and share it with more people.
"The more I traveled, the more I saw how important people saw the art pieces and how much they loved the idea," Wislotski says. "Once they started you could see the stress — it just left them. It was like a light shining off these people."
His voice lowers to a whisper. "It was an amazing sight."
In 1999, Wislotski set out on foot to bring his collective art project to each state's capital city. For the next two years, Wislotski hitchhiked cross-country, constructing his crude easels and setting up outside Wal-Marts, universities, capitol buildings, NASCAR races, jazz festivals and football games.
Then Wislotski had another epiphany.
"The war had just started, and I thought [U.S. troops] needed to know that the communities were behind them, because the media wasn't showing that," he says. "They needed to see America was behind them with our hands."
So, in 2004, he initiated H.E.R.O.S. — Handprinting Experience Recognizing Overseas Soldiers — and instead of collecting freeform art pieces from scribblers across the country, Wislotski amassed people's traced handprints filled with positive messages and art, sending the final piece to a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I tried to keep it local, so that local hands would go to local soldiers," he explains. He's lived in Clearwater for a while now, working construction jobs and driving a taxi until he's ready for his next pilgrimage.
Wislotski, who has a nephew in active duty, says he's completed 250 sheets so far. And tonight, he'll send one more to a Tampa man serving in Iraq.
"Later? Later? If I had a nickel every time I heard that, I'd be a millionaire!"
"Hey, bring the little girl over here and scribble!"
"It's free! It don't cost nothin'! We're doin' it for the soldiers!"
Wislotski bellows like a firebrand preacher to the Ybor City crowds heading up and down Seventh Avenue. It doesn't take him long to draw a crowd, and for most of the night, people are lined up on either side of the easel, drawing their visions in oil pastels. For those who choose to stop, Wislotski is right on top of them, offering suggestions and pushing them to add more colors to the canvas or create more depth. Although Wislotski admits he is not an artist, he uses the volunteers like paintbrushes.
He instructs newcomers on the guidelines: Be positive, no signs or symbols and refrain from covering anybody else's artwork. Most importantly, he says, parents must participate with their children.
He moves back and forth to both sides of the easel (one side is for the handprints, the other for freeform art), keeping an eye on the artwork and making sure none of the guidelines have been violated.
"I haven't done this in a while," he says, sweat dripping from his chin and staining his shirt. "This feels good."
Street art is not without its nuisances. Several passersby make snarky comments when Wislotski asks them to support the troops.
"I have been against this war from the beginning," he says, "but we need to support our soldiers."
During one of the lulls, two artists from Phat Katz Tattoo across the street join the project. One of them, Jason Sorrow, works intensely to transform his handprint into a red, white and blue eagle. After he finishes, Wislotski learns Sorrow's brother, Christopher, is currently serving in Iraq.
"He's in the hot zone," Sorrow says. "He's doing six missions a day."
After nearly four hours, there is no space for even a child's handprint. Peace signs and "good luck" messages dominate the cloth as the white gives way to small and large multicolored handprints. On the free-form side of the easel, impromptu artists have turned half the sheet into a surrealist playground full of boats, disembodied heads, clowns, mushrooms and flowers. Wislotski carefully cuts the sheet down and takes it across the street to a grateful Jason Sorrow.
"He'll start crying probably," Sorrow says about his brother. "He really will."
As Wislotski packs up his pastels and breaks down his easel, he shares his plans for the future: an exhibition of the freeform pieces he's collected, a H.E.R.O.S. program for public schools and a trip to begin a collective art project in a third-world country.
"I'm a Christian missionary," he explains, raising his oil pastel-stained index finger. "I'm always on a mission."
This article appears in May 16-22, 2007.