Public art can be joyful, provocative, informative or disappointing. It enlivens our public spaces and jolts our urban core with color and meaning. At best, it exhilarates. At worst, it causes folks to wander by muttering, “What a waste of public money.”
Downtown St. Pete has been leading the mural parade for the last few years, its popularity prompting Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn to challenge his staff to compete.
The mayor spoke at the dedication of the "Stay Curious" mural, pleased with this signature project painted on the Poe Garage. “I thought, ‘Why not create a gateway to downtown?’ I saw the garage as a blank palette, an opportunity to create a welcome sign.”
The Poe Garage is visible from the Interstate, the Hillsborough River, Ashley Drive and the Straz. To create a coherent series of images on such a rambling structure was quite the design challenge.
Luckily, Robin Nigh, manager of the City of Tampa’s Art Programs Division, selected two recognized muralists for this daunting commission, Tes One and Bask. Their collaboration on such a massive structure is impressive, tying together disparate images (a dancer, a child, the words “Stay Curious”) with a vibrant color scheme. As Tes One explained, ”We were inspired by the creativity around us!”
(Savvy budgeting note: The garage had already been scheduled for repainting, so the mural’s $100,000 budget didn’t have to include the underpainting.)
Less than four blocks away, a bronze sculpture of a blanket-wrapped homeless man sleeping on a bench elicits a very different response. Commissioned by Hyde Park United Methodist Church’s second campus, The Portico, and created by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz, this life-size, realistic rendering is even more jarring when you observe that his uncovered foot is marked by a deep cut, the stigmata of Christ’s crucifixion — hence the sculpture’s title, “Homeless Jesus.” A hauntingly commonplace figure, it is infused with the realization that we are too often oblivious to our fellow humans.
”Not only does this provocative piece of art invite us to see God in the edges of society, but it also invites us to see God in the darkness and edges of our own lives,” explained Justin LaRosa, director of The Portico and minister of Hyde Park UMC's emerging downtown congregation.
An abrupt shift of mood occurs nearby at Perry Harvey Park, located next to the new Encore mixed-use redevelopment district, where 16-foot-tall green painted concrete figures are making music and dancing under red and purple umbrellas. The Red Grooms-esque sculptures mark the entry to this 11-acre public park, which now stands where Central Avenue once did. The musical theme is meant to evoke the time when Central was central — the heart of black Tampa’s commercial and cultural scene until it was demolished in 1973 to make way for the construction of the Interstate.
The jumpin’-and-jivin’ oversized figures, with their dogs and jukebox, created by artist James Simon, are the first of four sets of public artworks gracing the Park. All of the art was selected by a jury from a national pool of 350 applicants.
The large open space of the Festival Lawn is enlivened by a realistic bronze life-size sculpture of Perry Harvey, Senior, by Joel Randall. Park namesake Harvey was a strong leader in Tampa’s black community, founder of the Longshoreman’s Union and its president for 35 years.
A series of 14 granite markers placed in the Park’s sidewalk note the evolution of this area from the original homes built by freed African-Americans after the Civil War through the riot of 1967, urban renewal, and the park’s original creation in 1979. The Walk gives a sanitized version of Tampa’s painfully racist past.
Leader’s Row is a cobbled walkway curving through the Park’s center, with sandblasted earth walls and hand-cut aluminum imagery of some of black Tampa’s most significant leaders. Michael Parker, whose giant mural adorns Adamo Drive south of Ybor City, is the artist.
Rufus Butler Seder uses optical glass in his design for the History Walk, in which eight themed panels address the area’s history in well-selected vintage photos. The images seem to change as you pass, encouraging you to pass by again.
The park contains a variety of spaces for both active and passive uses, ranging from basketball courts to a re-creation of the Bro Bowl, a legendary destination for skaters, which was torn down to make way for the new park design.
The best cultural tribute to our authentic places, music and art? Preserve them! But recognizing the destruction of the neighborhood and eulogizing its loss with art is much better than nothing.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2016.