Fishy Jazz Holiday poster surfaces (with that crab)

By EILEEN SCHULTE

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 16, 2001

CLEARWATER -- Maude the crab is back.

This time, the odd-legged ghost crab with the playful eyes is being tooted out of a saxophone played by a blowfish. The last time she appeared on a Clearwater Jazz Holiday poster was four years ago, when she played piano with her partner, Harold.

This year, she makes another appearance on a cartoonish Jazz Holiday poster called Bubbles, which was unveiled at a reception at Facilicorp in Clearwater on Wednesday.

"Maude rides again," said artist Gayle Deal, who created the design, winning the jazz festival's annual poster contest for the second time.

For 21 years, the Jazz Holiday Task Force has encouraged artists and art agencies to create a design that symbolizes the event. In May, Deal beat out more than 90 competitors and won $2,000. Her design will be put on T-shirts, hats and other commemorative items that will be sold during the festival Oct. 18-21 at Coachman Park in downtown Clearwater.

This year's Jazz Holiday will feature an international lineup including headliners Jane Monheit, Nnenna Freelon and Boney James, and artists Irvin Mayfield, Cecil Brooks III, Los Hombres Calientes and Mayfield and Bill Summers.

Admission is free, thanks to the merchandise sales -- especially the posters and T-shirts, which go for $15 each.

"It's a 3-D effect," said Deal, co-owner of Adamson Deal Advertising in Tampa, who said she has always loved animation. "I did it on the computer."

The bright colors Deal used appealed to the nine-member selection committee, said Karen Vann, festival director. "It's not necessarily the creatures," she said.

Deal put Maude on the 2001 poster as sort of an inside joke. She unwittingly created a small stir in 1997 when some people complained that Harold and Maude were not anatomically correct because they had six legs instead of 10.

Deal took it in stride. It was a design decision, she said, creative license. After all, Mickey Mouse shouldn't even have hands, she noted.

Still, when she designed the octopus for this year's poster, she gave it eight legs.

"I've learned," she said and laughed.

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