Artist Seeks to Create New Portrait of South St. Petersburg
By Karen Sanborn
Studio No. 13 has its own weather patterns. Wind blows faintly from a floor fan. Bits of light glow dimly from the lamps. And in this small studio are signs of an angry hurricane gone by. Boxes of art tools litter the paint-speckled floor. Boards of simple sketches line up like schoolchildren at the bell, and brightly colored, completed pieces mingle above them on the drafting table. Nearby, the possibility of a couch lingers underneath heaps of rummage.
The only sign of life in studio No. 13 is Herbert Davis, the maker of the messes and the masterpieces. He spends 10 to 12 hours a day here at Salt Creek ArtWorks, happy to be in the quiet company of his pastel pencils and acrylic paints. Ten years ago, Davis moved to south St. Petersburg from Tampa because space was cheaper and the art scene more vibrant. But in the last year, he's worked at a breakneck pace not only to make a living but also to help others refocus their image of south St. Petersburg.
Davis said he noticed that media coverage of south St. Petersburg tended to be negative, especially below Central Avenue. He said newspapers and television focus constantly on violence and crime, two words he feel define the south end unjustly.
"It's one of the things that amazed me about St. Pete—that line down the center of the city, called Central Avenue," Davis said. "The south is predominantly black. The north is predominantly white. It was sort of odd to me that it's called "Central" and it divides people."
This realization piqued his interest and became the driving force behind a project he said was designed to "counterbalance" the stereotypes about south St. Petersburg.
Two years ago, Ken Rollins, the executive director of the Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo, believed Davis would be a good candidate for GCMA's "Alternative Space Exhibitions," the museum's annual effort to support artists in St. Petersburg. He and Davis hatched the idea for "South of Central," unfolding a concept that would document a common ground between south St. Petersburg and the rest of the city.
"In essence, no matter where they are, people want to educate children, support their churches and have positive development," Rollins said. "We approached the exhibition to point out similarities instead of differences."
Davis launched into work, using his trademark pastel technique to create 20 drawings. He exhibited at Gallery Enormous on Central Avenue in 2003. Rollins said the gallery's opening night generated the response he hoped for: pride in the south St. Petersburg community.
An artist's greatest hope, Davis said, is that viewers will be influenced by the vision and take action on their own. When the city purchased 19 of the 20 drawings shortly after exhibition, Davis could be assured that people would have the opportunity to see "South of Central" for many years.
"At this stage in my life, I know the value of positive thought," Davis said. "You get more out of life."
Some artists haul pencils along in the car, scribbling the colors of a neighborhood for reference. When Davis started work on "South of Central," he toted a camera. For six months, he photographed the people of south St. Petersburg, people, he said, from "all walks of life." Sometimes he clicked from the car, and other times he shot from property perimeters. Most always, it was from a distance. He wanted to avoid poses.
Through the lens, Davis became a student of the neighborhoods. He learned about businessmen, hairdressers and car washers. He learned about the community's commitment to their churches by the sheer volume of people who flooded out of them. He learned that basically every famous jazz musician once rocked the Manhattan Casino.
Six months' worth of photographs swam before Davis. Ideas melded into one another; what appeared on the negatives didn't necessarily translate to the canvas. Davis transferred one girl, whom he had captured as a spectator at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, to a lonelier spot in the drawing.
He drew her in front of the Jordan Park housing complex and titled the piece "Good Grief." It's his favorite in the whole collection because of the expression on her face, he said. And in "Good Grief," he said the meaning and technique harmonized.
"Sometimes," he said, "all cylinders are firing on one picture."
His voice lilts when says this, exiting from his usual soft-spoken road of conversation. The technique behind his work does a lot of talking for him.
Davis is known for his skill with pastel pencils. His drawings, such as "Raynetta at Maggori," are intricately textured with thousands of short brush strokes. His drawings look like they're covered in finely chopped pieces of multi-colored string or like a rainbow-clawed cat went on a scratching rampage.
Each little line is drawn meticulously by hand. He sat and he scratched, blending the oranges and pinks of Raynetta's bangle bracelets into the color of her nail polish. This texturing identifies Davis in the local art world just as the melting clocks do Salvador Dali worldwide.
"When I came here," Davis said, "one of the first things I learned was if you're trying to be an artist, and you don't have something unique, you'll just be like a million other artists."
Davis started out like lots of kids: drawing superheroes and cartoons. In eighth grade, an art class dangled and he took the bait. From then on, he was hooked, all the way through two years at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.
He graduated in 1981 and moved to Tampa where he worked as a commercial artist. Twelve years burned him out. He moved to St. Petersburg, choosing to "go out on my own because it was better for my personality, to find peace within myself," he said.
In the city, he had noticed a budding art community. During the past 10 years, Salt Creek ArtWorks has gone from housing a handful of artists to 25. Central Avenue saw galleries popping up on every block, the same Central Avenue that Davis had identified as an intangible divide. This division fueled his desire to portray the positive aspects of south St. Petersburg.
During the project, Davis said he sometimes had difficulty "finding a bright mixture," particularly with young black men. As he snapped photographs, he simultaneously built an image of what the drawing might look like. At times, the process became, as he said, "difficult and labored."
He took this tension and went to work, creating a drawing titled "Young Black Man: Missing in Action?" To Davis, the interrogative title was as important as the art itself.
"Young men today can be so far behind the eight ball," Davis said. "That means getting involved in the wrong things. The question is: Is he gonna be able to mature even with all that extra weight he has to deal with?"
It's a question he wants all viewers to ask of the particular drawing. All he can hope for is that the answer will be yes.
Davis prefers to work alone. If it weren't so hot, he joked, he'd keep the door to studio 13 closed so it would be just him, his pastels and about 1,000 R&B records.
Solitude has to do with his focus, and focus is key in making a living as an artist, Davis said. He can work on three projects at once, but that's the max. Though he might like to explore other mediums, his name is attached to the pastels.
"It's not a regrettable marriage," he said. "But once you start working, there's value in your name and what you do. If you go off and do a lot of things, that audience may or may not like the new direction you're going in."
With the city in ownership of "South of Central," Davis has moved on. His next big project will be to start the entrance mural to the Royal Theatre on 22nd Street South. The theater served solely African Americans from 1948 to 1966, closed for nine years and reopened in 1975 as a youth center.
Now an historic landmark, the theater is benefiting from a $1 million refurbishment and renovation into a performing arts house. If Davis' design is approved, renderings of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Judith Jamison and Louis Armstrong will greet the theater's patrons.
He's glad to be part of projects like this and "South of Central," a collection that includes pieces called "Waiting" and "Mother and Child," words very different from "crime" and "riots." They are drawings everyone can understand, above or below Central Avenue.
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