Title

One more story from the Palm Harbor arts show…

 John Mascoll is a native of Barbados and a trained engineer, but what he really loves is turning wood. And his wood working is so beautiful that it takes your breath away. It’s so good, in fact, that he won Best in Show at the recent Palm Harbor arts show.

We don’t really know John, but we have a connection to him — my husband Bill works with John’s wife, Jannice, at St. Petersburg College. Bill spotted John as we walked through the arts show last weekend, and he managed to get a couple of pictures, which I’ve posted here.

John, who lives in Safety Harbor, does very precise wood turnings, producing vases and vessels of all kinds as well as smaller works. He likes to use exotic woods that offer gorgeous grains and shades.

Jannice says that John’s father worked in wood back in Barbados. Once he moved to the U.S. and settled in Georgia, he started going to meetings of woodworkers and learned the craft.

John Mascoll exhibits his work at a lot of arts shows around the area. If you see him, stop by for a minute and take a look.

Tags: art show, Palm Harbor

Carol Elder Napoli’s art

Carol Elder Napoli

About three or four years ago (when the real estate market was really good!) I was looking for some art — we had just bought a new house and we were interested in doing some decorating.
This is never easy for us; both of us are of the Lyndon Johnson School of Art. He once had his presidential portrait done, and he didn’t like it at all. When someone challenged his opinion, he said, “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.”
That sort of describes our collective art knowledge. However, we do usually have pretty strong opinions about the art we see. We both like abstract paintings, and we both tend to like bold colors.
So, several years ago, we went to the annual Palm Harbor art show with an eye for the right abstract painting. We had pretty much seen everything without much success when we came upon a booth that displayed a number of paintings that we liked immediately. We spent some time looking them over, and then we realized that the artist, Carol Elder Napoli, was the same artist whose work we had admired several months previously at another art show in Sanibel.
One painting really appealed to us; we bought it and took it home, and it has really stood the test of time for us. We like it more the longer we have it.
So two days ago we were walking through the Palm Harbor art show when Bill spotted a painting in one of the booths. He realized right away that it was one of Carol’s paintings, and it turned out he was right.
Carol remembered us, and we spent some time talking to her and her husband.
Carol’s work carries strong spiritual and emotional messages. She works in bold acrylic colors, which you may be able to tell from the picture above.
Here’s a little bit from her website:
“While painting, the work and I enter into a dialog adding to the mystery of how the work will be completed. Much of the result depends on an emotional, intuitive response to the paint and various images, color and marks that together form a composition. My paintings fit into the “abstract” genre, but they are not to be considered non-objective works. I paint with a purpose and desire to touch the viewer at a place of recognition, perhaps even within a narrative.”
You can learn more about her at her website, http://www.napoliarts.com/ . Carol Elder Napoli lives and works in New Smyrna Beach, and she attends many art shows around Florida.

Tags: art, art show, Palm Harbor

Palm Harbor art show

I mentioned in an earlier post that this weekend is The Big One — the annual Palm Harbor art and craft show.

This first weekend in December is the traditional date for the Palm Harbor show, which closes down the main drag in Old Palm Harbor for two days. Arts and crafts types from all over the state and beyond come to town to show and sell their wares.
There’s ceramic craftsmen, painters, sculptors, metal workers, jewelers, carvers and more. It’s a great time, and we try to go every year.
For the past two or three years, the show had been moved to the St. Petersburg College campus in Tarpon Springs, mostly because of lengthy road construction in the downtown Palm Harbor area. But this year the show was back in Palm Harbor, and everyone seemed pretty glad about that.

Tags: art show, Palm Harbor