Art & Artists

Elke was a flight attendant from Paris. Richard was an engineer from California.

It’s a long way from the small, plastic Kodak Brownie with no film that he acquired as a 6-year-old to the incredible collection of world-famous cameras he owns today, but Larry Wapnick wouldn’t trade that journey for anything.

Her art form is called assemblage – a cross between sculpture and collage that involves more cutting and fitting than the traditional skills of molding and carving.

Rita Bernstein is a lot of things, a regular tossed salad of visual artist, educator, singer, storyteller, actress, dollmaker, icon painter, art collector, aromatherapist, chef and caterer.

Cuban artist Carlos Pérez Vidal is a recent arrival in Vero Beach.

Sapphires. Rubies. Black spinels. Diamonds. Emeralds. With a rainbow-hued palette of gemstones and gold – lots of high-karat, luscious gold – one Vero Beach woman has made her dream of designing fine jewelry a reality.

From December 5, 2009, through January 3, 2010, the public enjoyed the opportunity to view the Indian River Photo Club’s annual print exhibit at the Vero Beach Museum of Art.

Italian-born Ivo David is an artist for whom the mantle of “maestro” is neither heavy nor constrictive; indeed, the term clings to him as gracefully as a hand-tailored Armani suit. And why shouldn’t it? The term was made to order for Ivo, paid by him over a lifetime of experience with the cold, hard currency of work.

Just one month after its official opening, Vero Beach’s Youth Transition Center, which provides a home for young people ages 18-23 who have “aged out” of the foster-care system, held its first major event.

British actor and writer Julian Fellowes arrived at the pinnacle of his life’s work in 2002 when he won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Gosford Park.

"Love and work...work and love, that’s all there is,” said Sigmund Freud. But how many of us can combine those seemingly divergent realms of meaning and state that we love our work?

The fiesta has already started, but you’ve got an open invitation so don’t worry about being late.

Wanted: Good-humored men and women from all walks of life who like to work with their hands.

His paintings are as mesmerizing as the sea itself. Composed of thousands of crescent-shaped wedges of oil paint, Francis Mesaros’s canvases contemplate the eternal theme of sea and sky.

“I don’t understand this. I can’t tell you what this is,” Ron Van Sweringen is saying about his abstract paintings. He pronounces his words with the soft vowels of a Southern aristocrat, the emphasis of an old-time revivalist and the rapid delivery of a man with no time to spare. The work in question is a composition of tangled strands and splotches of color that seems to float in the inky blackness of outer space.

Potter and graphic designer Sean Clinton is reticent to talk about himself. He’s not shy, exactly; the tall, 44 year old exudes a boyish enthusiasm when talking about art and life.

Nancy Blair is a woman with a history – a herstory, that is. A frank feminist, the 50-something is a sculptor in ceramics, glass and mixed media; an author with five published books to her credit; an educator who teaches ceramics at the Vero Beach Museum of Art and hot-cast glass at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington state; a scholar whose specialty is the goddess-centered religions of pre-history and a business owner who started and operated both a successful restaurant and an art reproduction company.

They make it seem so easy – the “they” being Lee LaPointe and Ann Webber, who can look at a work of art and begin to envision one or more floral arrangements with similar colors, line and form.

“It’s a race against time,” Charles Caito says. “You struggle to find film – they keep threatening to discontinue silver film and they’ve discontinued my favorite paper.

George Paxton is someone who looks before he leaps but, once committed, will pursue the course without flagging. His current goal is to create figural sculptures that resonate with the passion of his heroes: Michelangelo, Bernini, Rodin.