Jamey Grimes. Merge IV, 2007. Mylar, acetate, transparency film, thread. Courtesy DFAC.
This week in Creative Loafing:
These days, it’s hardly an exaggeration to call the evening news the stuff of nightmares. Between the implosion of Wall Street and the prospect of the other guy winning the election, the current state of national affairs might be enough [...]

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C. Wade Brickhouse, Paper Vessels, 2008. Courtesy Florida Craftsmen.
Most of you probably know the artists’ studios housed above Florida Craftsmen in downtown St. Petersburg as Artspace. I’m told by staff at FC, which owns the building, that a slight reorganization has taken place. The studios will be known as ArtLofts going forward, and the artists– [...]

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Uli Rapp, Chains, tricot textile, screen printing and rubber. Photo by Marina Williams.
When I first heard that Florida Craftsmen Gallery’s new exhibit would be all about necklaces, honestly, I was disappointed. I don’t know why—whatever the theme, FCG’s exhibits always manage to bridge definitions of art and craft, new and old materials and [...]

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Bi-polar bunnies by Coralette Damme, a.k.a. the Crafty Hag, at Saturday Morning Art Market.
In addition to the largely food-based Saturday Morning Market (where you can buy assorted herbs, plants, soap, batiked garments, etc., as well as fruits, veggies, prepared foods, baked goods, and so on), downtown St. Petersburg now hosts the Saturday Morning Art [...]

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A detail of the installation of Rediviva by Tampa artists’ collective Experimental Skeleton last year at Miami’s Locust Projects. On Friday, the same project opens at Flight 19. Sculptures, clockwise from bottom right, by: Bob Dorsey, April Childers, Gregory Greene, Jeremichael Bonds, Brian Taylor, Joe Griffith and Paul Pisoni. Image courtesy Experimental Skeleton. [...]

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Click the forward and back buttons to view the slideshow.
I always come back from Gasparilla Festival of the Arts with more questions than I had going in:
Could there actually be a market for as many black-and-white photographs of Europe’s cobblestone streets as I saw on Saturday? Or soft-focus pictures of [...]

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Inside Ybor’s Czar nightclub.
Saturday night, I went to Dirty But Sophisticated 4 with Avant Garde, the Tampa Museum of Art’s young professionals group. They had finagled a pre-DBS tour of artist Theo Wujcik’s studio as well as early entry to the main event, a collaborative art-and-fashion show featuring the work of 16 local artists and [...]

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A little late to throw this out there, but the Tampa Museum of Art’s young professionals group, Avant Garde, is offering an interesting opportunity to attend a VIP preview of Dirty But Sophisticated 4 tomorrow night.

If you are already a member of the museum, you can pay $15 for a year-long membership to AG that [...]

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Courtney Johnson
Survival Machines
Photographic emulsion on hand blown glass, 2007
Recommended by Bernice Steinbaum, Bernice Steinbaum Galleries
I have to issue a “hold the phone” for this one: Florida Craftsmen Gallery has a sweet little show up called Highly Recommended, which they cobbled together by asking arts industry insiders around the state to recommend a promising emerging artist. [...]

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I know I just gave Resist Today a shout out last week, but they sent out another email announcing even more fabulous handmade, screen printed wallets– these by the super-talented, Tampa-based Jay Giroux. Each wallet is one-of-a-kind (as in, a gazillion other people can’t buy it at Urban Outfitters) and sells for $84.
Ho, ho, ho…

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Local duo Resist Today, a.k.a., Dave Rau and Josh Bertrand, have replenished their online stock of handmade wallets screenprinted with humorously subversive artwork in time for holiday giving. Below: the Monkey vs. Mao wallet.

http://www.resisttoday.com/

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The fine ladies—and maybe even a crafty gent or two—of Crafting Out Loud will descend upon St. Pete’s Museum of Fine Arts Sunday to transform part of the museum into one of their trademark fun-and-funky urban craft fairs. If you haven’t been to a COL before, don’t miss this opportunity to cash in on free [...]

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