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Young Artists Will Shine In Spotlight At Gasparilla Festival

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 20, 2008

Updated: 02/18/2008 06:34 pm

TAMPA - For the third year in a row, the Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts will feature works by school-age artists from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

At Lykes Gaslight Square Park during the two-day festival, the Young Artist Showcase will spotlight the talents of more than 100 students from magnet schools for the arts.

The media featured will be as varied as that represented in the main show: painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics, sculpture, glass, mixed media and more.

The artists range in age from elementary through high school, but only the middle and high school students will be judged for awards.

"Elementary school work isn't juried because it has the potential to discourage," said Young Artist chairwoman Brenda Gregory, who selected works from nearly 200 applicants. "And all their work is fabulous."

New this year will be an interactive mural painted on site during the festival by Lockhart Elementary students and volunteers from fourth through 12th grade, Gregory said.

The 4-by-8-foot mural will include more than 100 individual canvases of varying sizes, positioned like tiles. Each tile is removed to be painted and then returned to the mural.

"It will be more like a coloring book, so the kids will have an opportunity to do what they want with their tile," Gregory said. "But we'll have a poster-size image of the completed photograph so they'll have something to aim for."

The picture outlined on the mural is a modification of a photograph of old downtown buildings taken by Gregory's husband, Steven, a festival participant and Tampa's 2006 Photographer Laureate.

"We added newer, more contemporary buildings to it," Brenda Gregory said.

She said a destination hasn't been selected for the finished mural.

"I'd like to option it or see it displayed somewhere where the public can see it, but we haven't established that yet," she said.

Continuing with a tradition also begun three years ago, about 30 adult artists participating in the downtown arts festival March 1-2 will visit schools Feb. 29.

For information on the Young Artist Showcase, e-mail Brenda Gregory at brenda.gregory@earthlink .net.

The arts festival, which is sponsored in part by The Tampa Tribune, is seeking volunteers to help set up and run the event. Opportunities vary, from handing out brochures to strolling through the exhibits to assist patrons and artists.

For information, visit www.gasparilla-arts.com or call (813) 876-1747.

USF Professor Offers Insights

University of South Florida Professor Robert Snyder will speak at 7 p.m. Feb. 27 at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, 200 N. Tampa St.

A professor of American studies, Snyder also is co-author of "Pioneer Commercial Photography: The Burgert Brothers, Tampa Florida."

His talk will focus on the 24 panoramic photographs of Tampa taken by the Burgert brothers, which are on exhibit at the museum.

Admission is free for museum members and Friends of the Library members; $4 for others.

For information, call (813) 221-2222 or visit www.fmopa .org.

Correspondent Esther Hammer can be reached at (813) 835-2108 or ehammer@tampa trib.com.

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