Portion of St. Pete Artworks' artists moving to new location

Some St. Pete Artworks' artists join new location

FOX 13 Photojournalist Barry Wong highlights St. Pete Artworks’, an art co-op featuring thirty-two Bay Area artists selling their artwork from the gallery. The co-op is moving to a new location at the end of February and only has the space to bring some featured artists to its new location.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A cooperative of local artists at St. Pete Artworks is no stranger to changing locations.

For the fourth time in the co-op’s existence, the artists will be relocating at the end of February thanks in part to rising rent costs.

"The hardest part is kind of seeing the enormity of this and what it's grown to kind of diminish," St. Pete Artworks Executive Director Judy Vienneau said. "It is sad to part ways with some of the artists who aren't going to stay with us at the new place."

The Gulf Coast Arts’ Alliance (GCAA) is the non-profit that oversees St. Pete Artworks. For the last eight months, the GCAA has had a second location on 1st Ave. N.

It’s a smaller event space that will be reformatted to accommodate about a third of the artists from St. Pete Artworks. The new space will now be called GCAA Artworks.

"We're not going away. We're just changing," Vienneau said. "You just have to adapt and think positive about moving forward."

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Thirty-two local artists currently call the Central Ave. location home. Each artist pays a membership fee to rent out gallery space of varying size. Some rent 4x8 feet of wall space. Some have studios.

The artists take turns working in the gallery and handling customers from the community.

"It gets people's art out, seen in the community. The artists have enough to showcase their work. Of course, everyone wants to sell their work," Vienneau said.

Artist Jillian Holladay joined St. Pete Artworks last year. She says she’s currently exploring options to continue showing her work. She is St. Pete Artworks' final featured artist.

"One of the things I'm going to miss about the gallery closing is talking to people. When it's my turn to tend the gallery, I would sometimes stand outside the front door and just invite people to come in and view the gallery," Holladay said. "You can see sometimes people are very excited they've been invited in, and I can talk to them about not only my art, but other artists there that I admire."

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The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Barry Wong.

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