Story and photo by Patrick Tobin
The scent of spray paint filled the air on the fourth floor of Station House, 260 First Ave. S, as USF St. Petersburg student Diana Bryson began a panel discussion about emerging artists.
While two muralists sprayed away, filling their 10-foot wooden panels with brightly colored lines and stenciled shapes, Bryson and six other local art community leaders sat in antique armchairs and spoke about the experiences and importance of young and emerging artists.
“Working with people that don’t always know what they want to do is very interesting – strange, sometimes frustrating – but very necessary,” said Denzel Johnson-Green, house manager of Studio@620. “For someone that’s coming out into the community and willing to express themselves… That has to be nurtured,” he said, stressing the importance of flexibility when working with emerging artists.
The discussion upstairs was just a small part of the much larger “Reveal: Emerge” event, which took place on Oct. 18 to celebrate Station House’s recent expansion into the Hyde Park neighborhood of Tampa as Hyde House.
Taking up four of the building’s five floors, the event was a joint effort by Station House, SHINE St. Petersburg Mural Festival and Ichicoro Ane.
While the panel came to a close, two floors down, crowds steadily streamed into the main event. Several live music acts, organized by Swamp Sister Booking, provided the backdrop for a celebration of art, music and culture.
Eventgoers sipped on cocktails and watched closely as a cluster of muralists filled their wooden panels with various scenes, shapes and colors. People rifled through racks of clothing set up along the walls from the many pop-up shops around the venue. An old, rickety elevator carried groups of people up and down the building, in which each floor had its own distinct feel.
Tucked in a corner on the second floor, down a short hallway, bright lights shone from a side room in the otherwise dimly lit venue. Here, in a small room with walls of mirror and glass, Bryson’s Emerge Art Exhibition took form on the walls, windows and floor.
Bryson, who is finishing up a bachelor’s degree in art history with a minor in entrepreneurship, has curated exhibits before, but she says this was her first time curating one where she didn’t personally know many of the artists.
“I worked on Instagram and I reached out to universities around the United States and around the globe,” she said. “I basically just reached out to them and I stalked them on the internet.”
The pieces in the exhibit range in style from the “fragmented shapes” of Rhonda Massel Donovan’s “Window Fences” – an oil and acrylic on unstretched canvas – to Matthew Campbell’s “Pantsy,” which looks like an oddly shaped pillow resting on the floor.
As a cover of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” played back in the dimly lit room, and more people wandered into the exhibit, Bryson described her purpose for the exhibit.
“I hope people walk away with kind of a new, fresh perspective on what emerging artists are creating,” she said. “I just really wanted to give people a shot that I felt like deserved it.”
