“You can see that the aim is to take something that is an eyesore and make it a focal point, make it something beautiful,” says local artist James Hartzell as we stand in the parking lot behind Florida Craft Art, formerly the Florida Craftsman, in downtown St. Pete. Taking up the entirety of the building’s rear is an enormous mural created by muralists Sebastian Coolidge and Derek Donnelly.
At the time of its conception in 2014, the idea was for the mural to just cover the Florida Craft Art’s fire escape – a portion of the building that was constantly being tagged and vandalised by local graffiti writers – but it was soon extended to fill the whole façade, with Coolidge and Donnelly painting it over the course of 11 days, using just brushes and 25-foot long poles until a local window cleaner intervened and kindly loaned them his scissor lift. While the act of decorating this one corner of St Pete perfectly fits James’ description of using art to transform something beautiful from an eyesore, it’s also a statement that could refer to this area of St. Pete as a whole.
In the early 1900s, St. Pete and Clearwater were the playground of the rich and famous. Reaching its heyday in the roaring ’20s, during the Gatsby era, people were drawn to St Petersburg as a city of leisure, a city of pristine white beaches, palm trees, and cultured Mediterranean-style architecture. The art scene also thrived.
Almost as soon as the city was incorporated in 1903, it attracted artists. The Florida Winter School opened in 1916 and just a year later, what is now known at the Morean Arts Center became the first art gallery in Florida. Many other institutions followed suit. In 1965, the city gained its first fine arts museum in a Palladian-style building on Beach Drive and in 1982, after a wide-ranging search by a Cleveland couple looking to donate their expansive Dali collection, the Dali Museum was inaugurated beside St. Petersburg’s harbour. This crowning jewel in the city’s collection of museums hosts around 2,000 of the surrealist’s works, including some of his most celebrated pieces, in a structure – a contorted, geodesic mass of glass, steel and concrete designed by one of the architects who helped create the Louvre’s famous glass pyramid – that is almost as impressive as the art that it contains.
“The aim is to take something that is an eyesore and make it a focal point, make it something beautiful.”
However, despite the city’s constant influx of artists and museums, it was still a long way from the creative hub that it is today. Following World War II, the city was mostly marketed as a retirement haven for those old-timers looking to escape the frigid winter months in the north and live out their days in the near-constant warmth of the sunshine state. Before long it gained the joking nickname ‘God’s waiting room’ and had a distinct geriatric vibe, a fact that is ironically memorialised on one wall by Derek Donnelly in his image of a skateboarding granny. By the late 80s and mid-90s, central St. Pete was very much in decline, overgrown with many of the beaten-down storefronts that make up the city’s 600 Block boarded up.
It took a huge renovation effort to turn the fortunes of the block around. Local artists held yard sales to raise funds and spent days cleaning up the area. Luckily the city of St. Petersburg saw the potential of their cause, deciding to repopulate the 600 block with art galleries, available at reduced rent prices. More than 200 people applied for the spots. By the end of the decade, St. Petersburg introduced their monthly ArtWalk, when galleries and art studios could open their doors to visitors and display their works. What started as a small endeavour to showcase local artists now covers five distinct art districts with a dedicated trolley service carrying visitors between them.
Now, the central alleyway that runs behind the 600 block of Central Avenue is covered in dozens of murals like the one that covers Florida Craft Art. On one wall is a solemn, doe-eyed image of the model Twiggy, a reference to the iconic 1966 photograph by Barry Lategan, stencilled in black and white by Chad Mize and covered in an iridescent sheen. Just a few feet away is a colourful and cheeky-looking Frida Khalo, and at the end of the block, an entire wall is painted blood-red with a wide-mouthed great white shark appearing to take a bite out of a metal security gate. In the centre of it all is the image that kickstarted St. Pete’s love of murals; Derek Donnelly’s tribute to the late Bill Correira.
Bill Correira, affectionately known as Woo, was one of the first to take up the city’s offer of a gallery space. A much-loved local figure, Woo was known for his intricate paintings of marine life, and also for his community spirit: he frequently created paintings at fundraisers and could occasionally be found with his easel out on the street, entertaining passersby with his painting.
Woo sadly died after a five-year struggle with brain cancer on Nov. 26. 2012. Between the news of his passing and his funeral, Derek Donnelly began painting an image of Correira, paintbrush in hand with arm outstretched, on the 600 Block to act as a tribute. Eventually, 40 other artists came together and added their own touch to the mural, embellishing it in their own styles with paintings of the marine life that Woo loved so much.
It’s a credit to the city of St. Petersburg that they decided to embrace the burgeoning art and mural scene rather than criminalise the artists that were adding a splash of colour to its streets. They decided to spotlight the scene, creating the annual two-week long SHINE mural festival. Now in its 5th year, SHINE has resulted in over 50 murals going up around the city (although estimates for the number of murals in St. Petersburg as a whole go as high as 500), with the local authorities creating a fund to go towards the creation of murals and fees to pay artists. Normally, between 15 and 20 new works are produced each year, but for 2019, 26 local and international artists were selected, importantly, with a call going out to the St. Pete art scene for local artists to be featured and selected on the strength of their portfolio.
It’s this dedication to the local scene that adds character to the work dotted around the city. Like Donnelly’s Woo mural, numerous pieces are nods to the people, history and character of the region. Across the parking lot from Florida CraftArt is a landscape mural by Roger Kelso showcasing key moments and locations in St Petersburg’s history; A famous sailboat race that took place from St Pete to Cuba in the roaring 20s; The Million Dollar Pier that is currently under reconstruction; and the iconic Don Cesar hotel on St. Pete beach. Lastly, there is Don Wheldon in his indie car, a local driver that is famous for winning the St. Pete Grand Prix but sadly died while racing. Elsewhere, on the façade of the St. Pete Brewing company, Derek Donnelly has covered the entire frontage in spray-painted banyan trees, a nod to the mighty trees that stand in North Straub Park. Flying alongside the Banyan is an image of a plane, depicting the first-ever commercial flight, undertaken by Tony Jannus from St. Pete to Tampa on the 1st January 1914.
The community focus of the scene has also helped foster incredible talent and elevate some of the artists to stardom, at least in street art terms. We finish our tour on a vast, monochrome piece by Bask. Alex Bask Hostomsky has an interesting back story. He fled communist Czechoslovakia in the 1980s and spent his formative years in St. Pete. A young delinquent, he was ordered to perform community service at the Salvador Dali Museum and here his passion for art blossomed and he quickly began work on creating a career for himself as a professional street artist.
Bask has gone on to become a giant of the St. Pete street art scene, with his work being featured in Iron Man 3, which is a testament to just how popular and mainstream his pieces have become. The story goes that Robert Downey Jr called Hostomsky himself to request the artwork, although Bask initially hung up on the actor, assuming it was one of his friends playing a prank.
Artists like Bask are a testament to how art and, in particular, street art can transform a city on a large scale, but also transform individual neighbourhoods, businesses, and lives. Walk down St. Pete’s Central Avenue now and it is a far cry from ‘God’s waiting room’ or the rundown neighbourhood that it once was. The city has more than its fair share of galleries and museums and alongside this, microbreweries, cool boutiques, pop-up shops, craft markets, and hip eateries line this once dishevelled thoroughfare to cater for the influx of young creatives that are flocking to St. Pete. Mostly, it is a testament to the city’s willingness to embrace art and creativity, their plan to take something that is an eyesore and make it something beautiful.
Tour information
The mural tours in downtown St. Pete take place on Saturday mornings from 10 am and last for 90 minutes. The meeting point is Florida CraftArt.
The cost for the Mural Tour is $19 for adults, $11 for children ages 6-18, and free for children under 5.
For more information and to book a tour, click here.
A portion of the proceeds from the tours will is used to fund future murals.
Where to Stay in St. Pete & Clearwater
Wyndham Grand Clearwater Beach
There are myriad luxurious hotels lining Clearwater beach, but the domineering dual glass towers of the Wyndham Grand stand out. Offering 343 guestrooms, many of which offer views out into the Gulf of Mexico, the Wyndham has spa and pool facilities and is just a few metres from the sparkling sands of America’s best beach. It is also home to a restaurant featured on this list: Ocean Hai. Serving Asian fusion cuisine and spectacular sushi, Ocean Hai is one of the best seafood restaurants in Clearwater.
ST. PETE
The Don Cesar
Built in 1928 during the Gatsby era, people were drawn to St Petersburg as a city of leisure – pristine white beaches, palm trees, the cultured Mediterranean architecture – and the Don Cesar gained renown as the playground for America’s pampered rich. Its grand ballroom has even hosted extravagant parties by the likes of Scott F Fitzgerald and Al Capone. Sitting beside the pristine sands of St. Pete beach like a pink, art deco behemoth, the beautiful Don Cesar remains one of St. Pete’s most exclusive resorts.
I visited St. Petersburg as a guest of Visit St. Pete and Clearwater. However, all opinions are my own.
One Response
Appreciate you putting my mirrors on local media I’ve been painting St Pete since 1979 I believe I’m one of the oldest artists I’ll be 69 this year and I still love to paint everyday thank you for putting my name out there it was an honor