Customers browse at the Tampa Artist Emporium in South Tampa. Pictured below: Boggs stands behind the Emporium’s front desk.
Two years ago, Tampa photographer Shelby Boggs took a gamble. Inspired by the Kress Emporium, an historic building in Asheville, NC, that serves as a marketplace for more than 80 regional artists and craftspeople, she set [...]

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Artist Brandon Dunlap at REAX Space.
The historic district’s visual arts cred just went up a notch, thanks to the launch of two new art venues: REAX Space, a boutique for artists’ prints, t-shirts and other products that also houses offices for the popular music magazine, and Arts On Ninth, a nacent community arts center. [...]

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I became a fan of Tampa-based fashion designer Ben Chmura after seeing his work at Dirty But Sophisticated 4. (He was also featured in last summer’s installment of Wearable Art at the Dunedin Fine Art Center.) Chmura describes his design aesthetic as “retro-futuristic” and lately has been incorporating the influence of ancient global cultures into [...]

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Us I abús (Use and abuse, 1990) by Pere Noguera with texts by Carles Hac Mor. Tin box containing two glass bottles with stoppers and an instruction manual.
When does a “book” consist of a pair of vials in a metal tin, a triptych of glass “pages” or a cardboard box filled with pamphlets, drawings [...]

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Thomas Allen. Fancy, 2006. 20 x 24 inches, chromogenic print. Courtesy Foley Gallery.
Who says pop-up books are for kids? Just check out artist Thomas Allen’s sly constructions, crafted from pulp fiction book covers and beautifully photographed to produce images that resonate with adult concerns: eroticism, repression and the enticements of nostalgia’s mirage.
Learn how to [...]

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Tomorrow, Tampa Bay Creative Network (not the same as Creative Tampa Bay, a different local group whose advisory network I sit on) presents Jelly, a casual co-working experience. More and more of us these days (especially artists and creative industry workers) seem to be living the free agent lifestyle, either out of layoff-driven necessity or [...]

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Rendering via tampabayhistorycenter.org
The newly constructed Tampa Bay History Center is now set to open Jan. 17. (Up until last week, I’d heard December, but the History Center’s PR person recently sent me the January date.)
This is not only exciting news for those of us who live in downtown Tampa and are glad to see the [...]

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Wolfmother poster and album art by Keith Burnson
Last week, the second round of Artistik Envy - the online reality show about ten International Academy of Art and Design students competing to be named the best - focused on a 70s revival challenge. Two of the previous contestants Corey Garlow and Jerrodoemie Winters, were eliminated. (That’s [...]

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A lot of what I’m doing – and what I assume other people are doing – during the Sarasota International Design Summit is listening for great ideas and thinking about to adopt and adapt them in my own practice. Two of the summit’s late morning panelists today were great sources for inspiration in regards to [...]

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Courtesy Sarasota Int’l Design Summit/Pininfarina
Today and tomorrow, the Sarasota International Design Summit continues. (Click here to read an earlier overview of the event.)
At this point, the ideas start coming fast and furious, which is why the summit’s “visualization maestro,” Tom Wujec of Autodesk, plans to recap yesterday’s big ideas (memes, if you will) in sketches [...]

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Greetings from the Sarasota International Design Summit, where I’m sitting in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton Sarasota listening to the summit speakers.

Bruce Damer (pictured) just finished discussing his work, including the development of the iDoublet—a renaissance-inspired garment that holds all of your “wearz” or gadgets, like iPods. (In addition to several music players, Damer [...]

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Obama t-shirt design by Bluelucy
We already knew that Obama is synonymous with good design. (Which gives me hope that when he launches the interactive government documents database we’ve all been waiting for, it might actually be user-friendly.) A pair of local designers– Chad Mize and Phillip Clark of Bluelucy– are offering their own contribution [...]

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