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Take a tour, help a school and see garden fairies serving lunch, a sword swallower and other creative touches.
By TERRI D. REEVES
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 15, 2003
So you thought all home tours were, might we say, a bit stuffy?
Hah!
The fifth annual Artists' Home Tour 2003 is meant to be anything but.
Dubbed "Livin' & Lovin' Art," it is a six-hour bus tour to some of the area's most outlandish lawns, brilliantly colored bungalows, and interesting interiors.
A few of the highlights one might expect to see: A circus banner artist swallowing swords. A bathroom ceiling decorated with McDonald's restaurant toys. Volunteers dressed as garden fairies serving the progressive lunch.
"This is not to be confused with a studio tour or gallery hop," said Patti Spence, owner of the Something Fishy Art Gallery. "This tour reflects the artists' compulsion to not live within the confinement of white walls."
Spence is currently working with the city of Clearwater trying to establish an artists' district where brightly decorated businesses would not break city codes.
The tour begins at 9 a.m. Sunday when four air-conditioned buses donated by Morton Plant Hospital will leave Something Fishy Art Gallery, 913 N Fort Harrison Ave., Clearwater. The buses are scheduled to visit seven homes from Belleair Bluffs to Safety Harbor to Tarpon Springs and return about 3 p.m.
Tickets are $45. Proceeds benefit the Country Day Montessori school in Largo to help it fulfill its goal of building an amphitheater for the student body.
"Arts are a big part of this school, and so there's a nice correlation to the nature of this fundraiser," said Ted Gillette, the school's head. "We are deeply appreciative of the generosity of everyone involved."
The first phase of the school's 2,000-square-foot project is estimated to cost $40,000. The school is scheduled to break ground on that phase this summer.
"Everything has been donated," Spence said of the tour. "We're on a zero budget with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the beneficiary. The community has really pulled together on this."
More than 160 raffle items and 50 silent auction items have been donated. Grillmarks, Pastino's, E&E Stakeout Grill, Sweet Tomatoes, and Cherubs restaurants are donating the food. Live music and an opportunity to meet the artists are part of the event. The artists include Johnny Meah, Todd Ramquist and Kiaralinda, Kathy Capone, Shannon O'Leary-Beck and Heather Richardson.
Meah lives in a quaint cottage in Safety Harbor where he paints and is a technical consultant for HBO. He has a comedy act that includes swallowing swords, eating fire and hammering nails and ice picks into his nasal cavities. But it is his circus "show painter" skills that have made him somewhat of a cult figure.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, his banners hawked oddities of nature found in carnivals such as Otis the Frog Boy, the Eight-Footed Horse, and "Electra Defies Death in an Electric Chair."
Nearby local legends Ramquist and Kiaralinda will open their Whimzey House, also known as the Bowling Ball House, to the tour. A mosaic pathway leads up to the house, crazy with color and sawtooth trim. If anyone loves lawn ornaments, it is this couple.
Bowling balls painted in rainbow colors edge the lawn. There is a tree, but instead of green leaves, the branches support empty cobalt blue bottles. Hawaiian totems and large globes decorated with broken mirrors announce the entrance to the side yard and tiki hut.
Capone, an artist living in Tarpon Springs, did not follow in the violent footsteps of her distant uncle, notorious Chicago mobster Al Capone, but expresses herself through art. She has developed an extensive line of brightly colored interior design products and is branching out into new jewelry. She is involved in several large-scale licensing agreements with Disney and the Amscan Corp.
O'Leary-Beck has traveled throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, South America and Hawaii. The beauty of these places inspires her murals, faux finishes and line of whimsical furniture. She and her husband have created a mosaic waterfall that cascades into their pool.
Richardson teaches others how to make pottery, glass patio stones, clocks and mosaics. She is a member of the local "Garden Fairies," a group of adventurers who spend many a weekend turning ordinary lawns into tropical paradises. Recently they converted her wheat-colored lawn into a lush and colorful landscape.
For reservations for Sunday's fifth annual Artists' Home Tour 2003, call Something Fishy Art Gallery, (727)461-3474.