By Caron Schwartz
Treat your friends to Fairgrounds St. Pete. You don’t “look” at Fairgrounds. You meander through a labyrinth of rooms, each designed by local artists and technologists to whisk you into different dimensions of weird and wacky Florida. A welcome relief from reality! Wandering through the Mermaid Star Motel reminded me of my family’s Miami vacation when I was six.
The neon pastels, boomerang Formica countertops and terrazzo flooring weren’t trendy mid-century modern back then, they were just decor. Mermaid Queen Iona Parris reigned supreme in her dressing room with her hand-crafted seashell crown and other baubles arrayed on her vanity. Behind her glimmered the shell-and-jewel-encrusted wall created by Fairgrounds co-founder and CEO Liz Dimmit and her mother.
My favorite? Mike Hicks’s Mysterious Portal to the Bay. You poke your head through a literal hole in the wall and suddenly you’re under a bridge looking at an unidentifiable brightly lit skyline on the far side of the water. Sounds of traffic overhead, gently rippling water below, a breeze in your hair. All of this evoked a long-ago boat ride in Shanghai. Mesmerizing!
Liz Dimmit told me she dreamed of creating Fairgrounds for about 20 years. Why “Fairgrounds”? I noted that the building, a former window-film factory, is on Fairfield Ave., but Dimmitt said there’s much more. “The name Fairgrounds references traditional fairgrounds and their role as a place for exhibiting new ideas, as well as recognizing talent, creativity and innovation.”
Plus, fairness is the basis of the business model. “Fairgrounds is a play on words referencing our mission to compensate artists fairly for their contributions by paying not only for their work, but also a portion of the profits from ticket sales while their work is on view.” For more information and to buy tickets see www.fairgrounds.art.