By Nanette Wiser
SHOP LOCAL
With all the hubbub about do your holiday shopping early, blah blah blah, we humbly suggest that you support your local artists and give gifts of art from local galleries, museum shops, indie and holiday markets, ETSY or even commission a poem or haiku. Lars-Erik Robinson’s illustrations of you or your pet are priceless as are his amazing rock ’n’ roll caricatures. larserarts@myportfolio.com
2022 is the International Year of Glass, so why not look for gifts at The Imagine Museum and Duncan McClellan Gallery?
“Cerulean Glow Foglio” is one of the many new works of art by David Patchen, made with UV reactive glass for that cool glow-in -the-dark effect at the Gallery. Another fave? Raven Skyriver captures the fluid nature of molten glass and transforms it into this lifelike work of art, “Sprint,” whose young eyes glisten with life and vitality.
ARTIST KUDOS Some of PN’s favorite folks have BIG news. The Conjuring’s Eugenie Bondurant just back from the Paris runway for Balenciaga, an international superstar! Sharon Folta’s film about her father Louie Armstrong, “Little Satchmo,” aired to great acclaim in Greece and Croatia and makes its U.S. debut November in Miami. She stopped in Washington D.C. to meet with the Library of Congress curator which now houses her father’s papers. James Suggs played a Louie Armstrong tribute to her father this fall at The Palladium in her honor.
Sarasota recently honored Matthew McGee as Favorite Local Actor/Actress in sarasotaout.com’s 2021 OUT Awards. “Some of my most amazing experiences as a theatre artist have been in Sarasota at Asolo Repertory Theatre. I love Sarasota audiences and treasure the friendships I have made there,” McGee says.
TAPESTRY MEMORIES
Local author Deb Carson grabs lunch regularly with one of Tampa Bay’s most amazing talents. She shared this news with PN: Cuban-born and longtime St. Petersburg resident now living in Tampa, Maria Emilia-Faedo, is devoted to the arts and has worn many hats–a talented teacher (USF), a former arts administrator (Ringling Museum, Florida CraftArt, city of Clearwater, The Morean Arts Center) and a prolific working artist.
Her art appears in public and private collections in the U.S. and around the globe and now one of her two creations in Smithsonian’s American Art Museum’s permanent collection will be featured in an exhibition April 22-Aug. 28, 2022 titled “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women.”
The exhibition features women artists who mastered and subverted everyday materials to create deeply personal artworks. Of her featured work, a quilt, “A Matter of Trust,” Emilia-Faedo says “I collected secrets from friends and strangers, sealed them in ordinary envelopes, and sewed them into the quilt’s pockets.” The envelopes containing the secrets are known only to their authors and were never read by Emilia-Faedo. Also, part of the permanent collection is her work of graphite on paper sewn to wool with steel wire entitled “The Birthing Album.”