Robert Stackhouse, Indigo Way (1986). Watercolor on paper mounted on linen, 98-3/8 x 167 in. Courtesy of the John and Maxine Belger Family Foundation.

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of speaking (via conference call from their studio) with Robert Stackhouse and Dr. Carol Mickett. Read the article in Creative Loafing.

Stackhouse is a widely known and highly regarded artist who happens to have grown up in Polk County (though a New York City-area native). He’s known for a multi-disciplinary practice that reaches across mediums and delves into a very personal—even deeply spiritual, I think—iconography with archetypal resonances. In 2002, Stackhouse and Mickett, a former philosophy professor, radio host, and documentary producer who is now his wife and collaborative partner, moved into a 25,000-sq.-ft. warehouse on St. Petersburg’s waterfront. They’ve been working together and gearing up for a series of exhibitions (once planned to be five, now three) of art by both Stackhouse and the Mickett/Stackhouse collaborative team that opens throughout the Bay area this month.

Dr. Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse at work in their St. Petersburg studio. Photo by Beth Reynolds, courtesy of the Arts Center.

Actually, Swimmers and Floaters, a 30-year retrospective of Stackhouse’s work at the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland is already open—and it’s the place to start for a primer that will prep you for Robert Stackhouse: Editions Archive at USF’s Contemporary Art Museum, opening tonight from 7-9 p.m., and Waves of Meaning, a collaborative Mickett/Stackhouse project, at St. Pete’s Arts Center. (Waves of Meaning opens last—on Jan. 18—so you might as well familiarize yourself with his solo work first to better appreciate the complexity of the collaboration.)

Swimmers starts with a four-frame narrative drawing that recounts a key encounter between Stackhouse and a garter snake shedding its skin; afterwards, the snake became a potent but ambiguous symbol of life, power, good, and evil in paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures by the artist. One wonderful early (1969) example is Great Rain Snake, a just-post-Minimalist sculpture that Stackhouse assembled from wood beams and carved wood that clearly suggests a snake despite its undisguised materiality (and impressive, 40-ft. length). From there, the exhibit takes visitors through a selection of paintings and drawings featuring snake, boat, and A-frame structure elements, all recurring motifs in Stackhouse’s work.

At the Arts Center, Stackhouse and Mickett are building a newly designed A-frame structure large enough for visitors to walk through. Several large-scale paintings and small scale 2-D works– all new– will also be on view. St. Petersburg photographer Michael Conway has been documenting production of the installation. Click here for a gallery of his photos.

The Waves of Meaning installation under construction. Photo by Michael Conway.

Conway also documented Peace O’Eight, a sculpture/performance/public art project Mickett/Stackhouse debuted at the First Night New Year’s celebration in St. Petersburg earlier this month. Participants– i.e., folks on the street celebrating– wrote their New Year wishes with a Sharpie marker on the sides of a specially constructed boat, which was then set aflame. Click here for the photo gallery.

Peace O’Eight by Dr. Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse. Photo by Michael Conway.

One of the reasons it’s so thrilling that all of this is going down in the l’il ole Bay area is that Stackhouse, still going strong after nearly 40 years of success, is trying out something totally new by collaborating with Mickett. With the wisdom of someone who has “been there and done that” (i.e., seen his work enter prestigious national and international collections, taught at respected universities, won awards, etc.), he explains that the collaboration is simply what’s next for him– for them, I should say. A few Stackhouse quotes from our interview:

On teaching young artists: “An awful lot of young artists are so focused on trying to make their art look like art that they forget that art doesn’t look like art. If you make it look like art, then it’s not new. Your job is to make new art.”

On collaboration: “I could keep making that same stuff [i.e., past work], but it’s not really all that exciting anymore. We’re looking at this whole new body of work with a new sense of energy. In a way, for me it’s another start. It’s a start for both of us.”

On what other people think: “I have known a number of artists that have tried to do radical change well into their successful careers, and they’ve gotten a lot of grief for it. People who don’t understand how art’s made and why people make art—they just don’t understand it. In the art world, if you think you don’t understand something, it becomes a problem for you… When people are skeptical, it’s because they haven’t seen the work. Wait until you see the work.”

Amen.