Clearwater, Art and Photo Museums, Salvatore Dali, Columbia 1905

Update - March 10 to March 16, 2019

-- Visits to Tampa Museum of Art

By Robert Indiana

On Sunday, we went to two great museums in the Tampa area. The first was the Tampa Museum of Art, which is along the River Walk. The second museum was the Henry B. Plant Museum on the grounds of the University of Tampa.

The Tampa Museum of Art moved into a brand new facility about ten years ago and is itself, a piece of art, having won some awards for its architectural design. Its collection of ancient art, as well as modern art, is extensive.

By Michael Pavlik

Featured during our visit was an exhibit of famous American artist, Robert Indiana. You may recognize the "iconic" use of the letters LOVE in a stacked format with the letter "o" tipped at an angle. This piece was not copyrighted by Indiana back in the 1960s and so has become a bit ubiquitous. He was also famous for his creation of a large piece of art which spelled out: "eat." That's all. It was hung on one of the exhibits at the New York World's Fair in 1965 and created a virtual riot when folks began to assume that the building it hung on was a lunch counter. It was not. It was art. Many works of art were on display from artists from around the world including the glass structures built by Michael Pavlik. 

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-- Henry B. Plant Museum at The University of Tampa

Minarets 

Library of Tampa Hotel

Henry B. Plant is equally famous as Henry Flagler for their efforts to turn Florida into a destination for visitors during the early part of the last century. In fact, Plant is credited with having more railroad track, more trains, and more hotel rooms than Flagler. Plant seemed to work the north and west coast while Flagler worked the east and south coast including Key West. When Plant built his famous hotel in Tampa, it wasn't finally constructed when he expanded its requirements to include over 500 guest rooms. Each had its own bathroom (except on the opening day when three rooms to a bath were the norm until everything was finally finished.) The Hotel prospered and then later, with the depression and war it began to decline. It fell into the hands of the state, which finally turned it over to the University of Tampa, which used it for dormitories, classrooms, and administrative offices. Up to this day, it still functions for administrative purposes, but the west wing is totally devoted to a museum that describes the history and grandeur of the heyday of luxury hotels in Florida.

-- Visit with Relatives in Clearwater

After our tours of the Tampa Museum of Art and the Henry B. Plant Museum we drove out to visit relatives who live in Clearwater. Patti's nephew is a graduate of Maine Maritime and has been working for years installing gas turbine engine systems for power plants around the country. They gave up life in Orlando for the more peaceful pace of Tampa a few years ago, and we have to agree that they live in a wonderful neighborhood in a great city.

--  Salvadore Dali Museum in St. Petersburgh was Unusual

Dali Museum

Why should we not expect the Dali Museum to be unusual? The works of Salvadore Dali reside principally in a museum in Spain that he established and in this museum in St. Petersburgh that was established by a married couple that had spent a lifetime collecting his finest works for their private collection. They lived in Chicago and were invited by someone to endow and donate a museum devoted to Dali and his style of art so that the collection could be kept together. The outcome is a rare type of museum for such an established artist. There is no lack of room to accommodate his work and works by others of his contemporaries and new artists that carry on his vision.

A special exhibit was in place when we visited which provided a dedicated look at the two most celebrated surrealists of our age: Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. The exhibit shows the alternative view of the world that both artists wanted to show and compares how they compare and contrast in their approach, technique, and vision. It helped to see Dali's work in comparison to another artist to better understand what he was trying to do. It's also interesting to realize that as he got older, the artist tended to move away from his most severe surrealism toward a more conservative approach to art.

-- Florida Museum of Photographic Art

FMoPA

We have often found that photography earns only a passing treatment at art museums as if photography was a secondary medium for painting and sculpture. But, this museum devotes itself exclusively to photography, and that focus really adds to the depth of the presentations. There were various themes on display, but one gallery was called Lost and Found in America and featured three artists that have specialized on the nature of "self" in their art. It was fun to see the compositions created often featuring the artist him or herself as the focal point of the art. Each of the artists has messages they are creating. Expressions of their views and opinions, if you will. Some of it was disturbing, and some were confusing, but enough of it came through that we found the exhibit imaginative and inspiring.

-- Vacations Bring Out the Need to Eat

From left to right: 
Patti enjoyed a Mojito at the Columbia Cafe on the River Walk; this time upstairs in what is actually a restaurant and bar servicing the Tampa History Museum. It was very hot outside, so we elected to eat inside instead of on the outside deck. On our exit day, Tuesday, we had an early lunch at the original Columbia Restaurant - 1905 in Ybor City, which features seating for 1,700 in 15 rooms. By the time we left, the place was almost full. And just before flight time, we stopped at the International Plaza near the airport and had a hamburger at the Taps restaurant. They feature a lot of interesting beers, but we went with cocktails and wine. "Taps" was an appropriate place to end our visit to Tampa as we were airborne before midnight.

-- Home At Last and a Visit from the Girls

Olive with her Toys

We got home on Wednesday and on Thursday had the granddaughters visit. Olive was in a good mood all day, and Papa had a chance to feed her one of her bottles. Lucy was her usual energetic self and spent a lot of time playing with the stuffed Easter bunnies, the Bubble Maker, the Lego farm animals, the pillow castle/fort in the playroom, entertaining Olive with peek-a-boo, sliding the wheeled hassocks around as race cars, stomping on the snow-melt on the deck as we watched the snowman dissolve, play hide-and-seek with Papa, plus a good amount of reading including two new books, Stuck, and Lost and Found. Paige visited in the afternoon and helped with more reading to Lucy. She also shared her phone app that has the filters Lucy likes to play with to make funny faces. We limited that to a 10-minute session; otherwise, she would sit with the phone for hours.