Just Another Sarasota Day

The original plan was to stop by Stakenborg Fine Art gallery on Main Street to see the one man show of our friend, Nikitas Kavoukles, before we channeled Boulevard Saint-Germain and lunched outside at the neighboring café, C’est la Vie.

Greek music, provided by the artist (born on the island of Kalymnos), poured out the front door of the gallery. It set the mood for our voyage into the beautiful fantasy world of Mythos, Nick’s series of jewel like paintings.  His rich palette and deft use of glazes makes these paintings vibrate and glow as if they are lit from within. Images may be recognizable in each work but the dense layers of paint form into abstractions and possibilities that encourage viewers to linger happily in the playgrounds of their imagination.

Painting by Nick Kavoukles

Chris Stakenborg is obviously attuned to his clients’ appreciation and has decided to always keep a Kavoukles or two, including monotypes and pigment prints, on permanent exhibit at his gallery.

Maybe it was our stay on Mythos or the liberating effect of the music, but for the visitors who happened to be enjoying this show that morning, a sudden camaraderie developed during our Kavoukles Klatch.  Besides talking about Nick’s work, some other topics discussed were: the necessary ingredients of a good scotch; the use of solar panels; receding hairlines; and future residential planning for the artists and seniors of Sarasota.

Finally we reluctantly left the gallery only to be met by the motorcycle festival, Thunder by the Bay, taking place steps away on Main Street and beyond. Images of Nick’s mystical landscapes gave way to the bad boy beauty found in rows of parked Harley Davidsons lined up like so many Warhol Campbell soup cans.

As I stopped to buy a skull and bones doo rag for my daughter and a sticker for myself that read “She only looks like a good girl” (to be pasted absolutely nowhere but perhaps carried in my wallet for private encouragement), images of lushly painted fantasy worlds and brassy biker beauty mingled freely in my thoughts.  (Along with my astonishment that black leather chaps really do flatter the wearer.)

Just another Sarasota day.

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Helen Frankenthaler Packs a Punch

HELEN FRANKENTHALER  (born, December 12, 1928 – died, December 27, 2011)

Thirty years ago, when I met the abstract painter, Helen Frankenthaler, I was aware that I was a young woman standing before a legend.

The art gallery where I worked sent me to deliver a painting to her.  Ms. Frankenthaler introduced herself warmly while she scanned me head to toe; I felt she saw right through me.  And although I didn’t think I had the right to believe so, she felt familiar to me as well.

She spoke in strong statements and direct questions. While our conversation seemed harmless enough, I had the sense she was about to tell me my own secrets.

“What sign are you?” she asked, out of the blue.

“Sagittarius,” I replied.

Apparently our birthdays were one day apart.

“Ah, I thought so,” she pronounced.  And then I saw a wistful smile and sad eyes transform her expression as she said without further elaboration, “How we love and how we suffer.”

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

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