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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Sheree Rensel. Twingo. Copper and mixed media on wood. 11-3/4″ x 11-3/4″ x 3″. Artist’s statement: “Twingo” is the unique and original tweet language of Twitter Tweople. Bio: BFA, MFA, Detroit artist born, NOW living and loving my art life in the real and virtual Universe.
If you’re following St. Petersburg artist Sheree Rensel on [...]

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Denis Gaston. Little Boxes. Mixed media on masonite, 20″ x 16”. Pictured below: Denis Gaston. Ground Control To Major Tom (Grab ‘n Go Art Collection). Ink on paper, 7″ x 5″. Images courtesy of the artist.
If it’s summer, it must be time for the Cool Art Show. Any other time of year, the region would [...]

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Tes One’s spray-paint-on-wood painting measures 10-ft. by 11-ft.
You know what they say: when the going gets tough, the tough get…bigger?
Despite the ongoing economic malaise—which seems to find Florida in a particularly compromising position—St. Petersburg artist and art party impresario John Vitale isn’t giving up. Though the muralist and owner of Vitale Studio recently downsized [...]

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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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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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C. Emerson Fine Arts’ latest exhibit, Under the Influence, showcases the genre of contemporary art often dubbed ‘pop surrealism.’

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Cone of the past, point of the present. Diran Lyons’ Goodbye Victoria Artifact 5: Notes Written In Gilles Deleuze Text, a photographic print from Five + 5. To watch scenes from Lyons’ Deleuze-influenced movie, to go http://www.youtube.com/user/LYONSPOTTER.
Good things are afoot at [5]art.
The West Tampa exhibition space — synonymous with the quintet of artists who [...]

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Flocas 2008 opens tonight in Tampa, and I’ll tell you—my reaction to this project (the consortium of Florida university masters degree programs) is like, why didn’t someone think of this sooner? Best. Idea. Ever.
We have some really talented graduate students in the state, and it breaks my heart when they leave after graduation. We need [...]

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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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Chris Parks, The Fleet of Doom, digital illustration, 2008
Saturday night marks the return of The Exhibitionists (the TMA young members group formerly known as Avant Garde) to downtown Tampa. Their show, Brand New Day, staged in the ground floor of Skypoint, aims to be an art party with a curatorial premise that actually holds some [...]

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A wall-mounted sculpture made of vynil records by Susan Janvrin of Papergeist.
Sooo… This is just a little recap of some things I saw last night for your reading pleasure.
I stopped by Art After Dark, the third Friday party-exhibit at the Tampa Museum of Art, to check out Sound Effects, an exhibit of music-related art [...]

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