The December Art Walk is the most heavily promoted Downtown Art Walk of the year, because it gives people a chance to buy distinctive and unusual artwork as gifts. Profiled here are four very different artists out of the many you’ll find at the December 6th Downtown Art Walk starting from 5:30-9PM, downtown.
For a guy who makes his living mostly from art, Jimmy Pines struck me as a straight forward kind of guy, comfortable kicking back a cold one in a bar. And, in fact, we met to talk at the London Bridges Pub downtown, where some of his newest art work is being displayed and sold. His colorful, pop-art, cartoonistic paintings are becoming fashionable enough that he has started to devote all his time to his art. “I started out doing cartoons…I was the cartoonist on the school paper…Later, when I was trying to paint, I took it so seriously and didn’t enjoy it as much…Then I just thought: ‘Why don’t you just paint the stuff you’re drawing?’”
Most of Pines’ paintings on the wall at London Bridges are round and painted on wood that he has sanded and sometimes spackled over. In some of the paintings, he uses the natural grain to create interesting texture, but most are smoothed. The round paintings are quickly snatched up because they are portable and their shape makes them unusual and eye-catching.
When Jimmy speaks about his life to this point, it’s as though all of it has just been preparation for living as an artist. In ’92 he was an amateur skater, the same year he painted 30 paintings and started knocking on Jacksonville gallery doors. He learned from the graffiti he saw in the city, and even created his own graffiti art. He’s worked construction, which makes him comfortable working with the wood for his paintings. He’s also worked as an amusement park background painter, painting looting pirates for a pirate ride and other background scenes for various rides.
At 215 North Laura Street, in front of a soon to be opened bookstore, you’ll find the eclectic blend of Naomi Becker-Pannell’s art. Three examples of her skill at portraiture hang on the outdoor easels, a painting of herself as a child on a tablecloth, a pencil sketch of her grandparents and of a baby in a bathtub. A painting of a Kabuki actor, an explanatory painting of the coyote (which looks like one of those old nature cards) and a remarkable koi pond acrylic rounds out her collection of 2-D art. The koi pond is rendered so skillfully and is layered so meticulously that at first glance, you’d mistake it for an oil painting. “I like a little bit of everything,” Pannell says “and my art is like that too.”
I meet her later, at her Avondale apartment to talk to her about her art while she fries up fleisch kiegle (with a side of sauerkraut) and later bottle feeds a lost kitten she’s taken in, much to the chagrin of her dog, Tibet, who seems to have grown tolerant of the kitten’s playful swats.
Her latest work has been in little 3-D Southwestern style adobe houses, which she carves out and then glues in figures she’s created or found. She’s going to have a number of the fun, kitschy miniature dwellings at this December’s Art Walk.
For the past two years, Ali Fuderer has painted pictures of brightly colored houses, many with a skewed perspective, making a 3-D image of the house more flattened. She taught kindergarten for a year and says that she “was very inspired by my student’s artwork because of the freedom and spontaneity in their drawing. For the past few years I have been working in a museum teaching kids about art history and leading studio projects.” She uses acrylic on canvas and paints patterns to give the illusion of collage. Fuderer says that each house or subject has “a figurative quality allowing the viewer to sense a personality or emotion associated with each house. The painted patterns represent memories and tell stories about specific people or time periods.” Raw, primal and unstructured, these paintings are filled with vibrant bursts of colors. The size of her works range from just four square inches to five feet wide by six feet tall. She will be showing her work at the main library downtown.
These artists, and many more will be showing affordable art at the Art Walk, from artists who are world renowned to artists just kicking off their careers.
Lush is the word for Gordon Meggison’s work. His gardens are enveloped by Neo-classical lines and Greek architecture. When he paints these massive murals of garden scenes, he is searching for the archetypical garden with his brush. He seeks Eden; he looks for a Paradise where you may forever be young. His work is, by turns, crisply realistic and stunningly abstract. “I…define the garden as a symbol of Paradise, a state of mind, a place complete and tranquil.”
He has painted wall murals all over the country and you may have seen his work in one of the 70 Olive Garden Restaurants that he was commissioned to paint. The TV show Designer Show Houses regularly features Meggison’s sculpted abstract and classical faux wall treatments.
You can find Meggison and his work from 5-9PM at the left door gallery (223 N. Hogan St.) next to Hemming Plaza Jewelers, upstairs. Hors d’oeuvres and wine will be served and there will be live entertainment.
Just as the St. Augustine and Seattle Art Walk were a partial inspiration for the Downtown Art Walk, the Downtown Art Walk has been an inspiration for other neighborhoods to do the same thing. Five Points has their own collection of artists showing on the night of Art Walk one of which is Kelly Eason at Anomaly. Her most recent, finished series is named Sugar Rush, after the sweet subject matter used in the paintings, namely candy wrappers and candy packaging from Italy and the United States. She painted most of candy on-site in Venice during a week long art study trip. Despite the pop-art subject matter, Eason’s brushstrokes are Impressionistic, as though she were painting a landscape rather than candy packaging. “We’re bombarded by consumer culture,” says Eason “and I just wanted to do a sort of consumer culture comparison …maybe look at these common things in a different way.” It’s not the first time Eason has used mass produced sweets as subject matter. She’s also painted Little Debbie Snacks, which Eason claims are “the epitome of mass produced consumables.”
The First Wednesday Art Walk in Downtown Jacksonville was developed and promoted by Downtown Vision, Inc., to bring the general public downtown and to underscore Jacksonville’s creative talent. There are several independent sites, serving as galleries featuring local, original work. All locations are approximately within a 6 block radius of one another. A map of the galleries can be acquired at any of the venues, including the Jacksonville Landing, and Art Walk Headquarters at 100 N. Laura Street. As many as 4,000 people have shown up to the event, bringing much needed foot traffic to the shops downtown. Parking shouldn’t be problem because meters are free after 6PM.
Tony Allegretti, who is part of Downtown Vision, was the driving force that got the Downtown Art Walk started in November of 2003. The event was inspired by Seattle’s art walks, which infused the city with culture and art. Allegretti and Downtown vision settled on Wednesday because, he says, “We thought that trying this event on a Friday or Saturday would be too competitive with other events. At the time there were very few people coming Downtown during the weekends. There was no precedent for an event like this. When asked on the day of the first Art Walk (by the board of DVI) how many people would come out, I had to guess. I said 250. We have never had a walk …with less than 1000 walkers.”
|
