Hot Temps, Cool Art at the Coliseum

If it’s hot outside, then it’s time for Cool Art at the Coliseum! This summer staple, held July 19 and 20 this year, is a wonderful time for artists, patrons, and enthusiasts to come together – in air-conditioned splendor – for one of the oldest indoor art shows in the ‘Burg.

Cool Art first started in 1988, when some artists had gathered after enduring a rainy, poor-performing outdoor art show. As they commiserated, the idea of an artist-run indoor art show emerged. The first was held in Fox Hall at Eckerd College, then moved to the University of South Florida Campus Activity Center. It found a more permanent home at the Coliseum in 2005.  

The show became so popular that an organization formed around it: PAVA (the Professional Association of Visual Artists). The mission of PAVA is to further art exposure to the public, art education, and to do good works with the public. The group has done many local art shows in the past, but has streamlined to focus most of its time on Cool Art. 

Photographer and current volunteer organizer of the event, Linda Stump, joined PAVA in 2012. “I was doing a show in Hyde Park in 2011. Another artist – Lorrie Mason, a jeweler – was across from me. She came over and told me to look into [PAVA] and this show in the Coliseum. And here we are,” Stump explains. “My first time organizing the show was in 2020 and it was a bit of a flop because, with COVID, it had to be online only.”

Stump’s experience proved the importance of an in-person art show. The following year, Cool Art was the first event to open in the Coliseum while following rules of social.

“We had to change the floor-plan format, moving from rows of showing artists to more spaced-out booth areas, but it turns out that the artists and attendees loved it. The first post-COVID show actually created a better walking pattern for us.”

The artists in Cool Art are selected by three jurors hired from throughout the Florida arts communities. Entries are scored on a scale of 1-7, and the top 68 rankings are brought in to present. This allows for a mix of new and more established artists, such as Peg Miller, a jeweler from Melbourne who has been at Cool Art since year one. Melissa Nece, another long-time PAVA artist, joined in 1989 and started doing Cool Art in 1991.

“It was never a show made for awards,” she notes. “Well, there were some early tongue-in-cheek unofficial awards, like ‘Least Sales.’ And for some years, there was a loose artists’ competition on a miniature golf course set up among the booths with hazards such as chairs and coolers.”

Joking aside, Nece says she displays “colored pencil drawings, and most of those are Florida beach scenes. I like to portray the light, the color, the action, the interplay of humans and nature. But I also have a group of abstract drawings which express things that want to be said in less obvious ways.”   

The selection process also makes room for new artists, such as David Jones, a woodcarver, who was a longtime patron of the show. He started to cultivate his own works and was accepted to be in Cool Art this year.  

“The Cool Art show is one of the premiere art shows in the area and has always been a showcase for some very creative artists and their work,” says Jones. “I am very excited to be recognized and invited to be a part of this show…it is an honor for me.”

New artists are one of the most exciting aspects of Cool Art, says Stump. “This is also so exciting for us. Every year, we get 15 new artists, so we have some new folks that we’ve never seen before – it’s a more diverse set of art.”

Also new this year will be a slight change in programming. “This year we won’t have demonstrations,” Stump notes, “but we have upped our interactive arts area. We originally started that as a kids’ space to do make and take works, and we have a PAVA artist who is a Florida teacher who coordinates it. But it became so popular that we opened it to adults, too…. We say it’s good for ages 6 to 99+.”

Future shows may have other new additions, as well. Spotlight artists and shared booths, with sample works from artists who have a more limited scope of work, are some ideas for next year.

“I want to see how the publicity and outreach we have done brings in a different audience,” says Stump. “We are always thrilled for new people, and we look to diversify the artists from all walks of life in St. Petersburg.”

Stump reminds attendees that PAVA is an all-volunteer organization, and the artists get 100% of their sales. “PAVA works to break even, and anything extra goes into our scholarship fund,” she explains. “We give out 12 scholarships every year in the Pinellas County School System.”

Come early if you can, says Stump, and bring your friends.

Learn more about PAVA and Cool Art at pava-artists.org.