Crowds Come Out for “Cool” Art

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From left, Rebecca Skelton and her husband Joe Walles share a booth as a husband-and-wife team. Skelton specializes in sculptures with metal or beads, while Walles is an experienced photojournalist. Skelton is holding one of her pieces called “Taste.” It’s “a copper and bead piece that is sort of a goblet of water except the water is splashing up like a tongue,” she said. “So, you taste water but water might be tasting you as well.”  Walles is holding one of his matted black and white photo prints of a mural in New York City that became visible years ago when a neighboring building was torn down. “The mural looks like a Seurat painting of people at a picnic,” he said. According to the Art Story website, Georges-Pierre Seurat “is chiefly remembered as the pioneer of the neo-impressionist technique commonly known as Pointillism. The picnic work is considered one of Seurat’s most famous works and is entitled, “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” an island in the Seine River. True to his profession, Walles documented the moment. Both artists exhibit and sell their art year-round at Art Lofts Studios and Gallery in St. Petersburg.

The seventh annual juried 2Cool Art Show inside Gulfport’s Casino on Saturday, February 3 and Sunday, February 4, showcased 31 artists and their works to over 2,000 people – in spite of rainy weather and a rather famous football game, said Joyce Curvin, co-chair and artist.

The show is organized by the Professional Association of Visual Artists (PAVA) of St. Petersburg and co-sponsored this year by the city of Gulfport, the Gulfport Merchants Association and Northwest Federal Credit Union of Herndon, Virginia.

Using an all-volunteer staff, PAVA also provides the annual juried Cool Art Show each July in the St. Petersburg Coliseum. It’s been offered for about 30 years, she said.

The exact dates of the 2019 2Cool Art Show at the Casino have not been set but it will be near the early part of July, said Curvin.

For more information, visit pava-artists.org.

 

by Debbie Wolfe

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