"Last week Covivant Gallery owner Carrie Mackin announced that she's leaving Tampa, though her current hope is that the Seminole Heights gallery continues to exist. Ideally, Mackin says, the space will transition to nonprofit status under a new director -- and she is looking for suggestions as to who that person might be. In the meantime, Covivant will host a final exhibition and sale of art by Bay area artists from May 19 to June 4. One of Mackin's most noted contributions to the community, the Family Values Portrait Project, will go on display again (following its debut at Covivant last fall) at the Tampa Museum of Art from June 9 to July 23 and the Arts Center from June 9 to July 8. The portraits celebrating unconventional families of all kinds were inspired by the Hillsborough County Commission's ban last year on demonstrations of gay pride in public places."
Keep your eye on her name in the art news. She is certain to become an important player in the New York art scene.
Hey, Arts people. Any suggestions as to a new director? How about David Audet of Cuban Sandwich Show fame?
Carrie is a neighbor of mine and will be sorely missed in the community and in my little corner of the 'hood. I wish her the best of luck in the Big Apple!
ReplyDeleteIt sucks that so many of Tampa's most successful creative people wind up going to NYC. Tampa is losing a lot by Carrie's leaving.
ReplyDeletereagansmash - the issue isn't that artists (and I'm talking every discipline here, not just visual arts) start to get successful and leave, it's that they spend years and years not to mention immeasurable time and energy and often personal expense to make things happen, typically with little return.
ReplyDeleteI know artists of all disciplines who reached a point here where they felt like they'd hit a glass ceiling. Tired of working 2 or 3 jobs to support "their habit" and tired of being underpaid and underappreciated, it's easy for them to decide to pack up and go somewhere where people will "get them." Or where they can earn a better living doing what they do (or at the very least have better odds at it).
Recent studies have again proven that this area does not support the arts on par with other major areas of the size, and they don't support not-for-profits via donations on par either.
You really can't blame the artists here. I know, I'm one of them. I've watched folks move on that I idolized when I was younger or people that I fought in the trenches with here. People who do work I greatly respect. I (and many others) are staying here and trying to do our best, but without a shift in culture by the people who live here - including the media, our governement, local corporations, private donors and even the general population - things are not going to change.
I'm willing to work my ass off for that change, and I know others who feel the same way. That said - everyone has the point the reach where they have to objectively ask themselves why they're fighting the fight, and seriously look at their quality of life and potential as an artist. I'm realizing more and more I may have that point too, and I hope I don't get there because I feel like in the long run I'm doing more meaningful work helping to create something out of nothing. Places like Austin, Seattle, Boulder, Portland - they weren't always big-time towns when it comes to the arts, but enough people stuck it out there to really create some thriving areas. I'd really love for Tampa to end up on that list ...
Err ... that previous comment was mine. Don't know why it didn't sign me in.
ReplyDelete