The Public Art Program was established in July of 1998 to enhance the travel experience for our customers and to present a Florida, historical and cultural theme throughout our airports. The art committee, comprised of Aviation Authority personnel, art committee personnel from the City of Tampa and community members at large, selects art through a jury process initiated by a call to artists.
Tampa International Airport's Public Art exhibits are comprised of:
Permanent Exhibits
Art of the 60's and 70's
 
Location: Landside Terminal, Level 3
Description: A collection of paintings, sculptures, glass art and mixed media presentations
Artist: Various
Tampa International Airport is proud to own this brilliant fine arts collection. It contains examples of work by several outstanding Florida artists and craftspersons. Many of the outstanding professional artists represented in this collection were also teachers in Florida's art schools, colleges and universities. Originally, the collection was purchased for display in the Airport's administrative offices when the Landside Terminal Building opened on April 15, 1971.
Featured artists in this collection include Beth Arthur, Jack Brewer, Frank Colson, Harrison Covington, Gladys Kashdin, Daisy Koenig, Bruce Marsh, Robert McFarland, Harold Nosti and David Weidman.
The Art of Flight
Location: Airside E
Description: A collection of 7 WPA murals which were painted in the 1930's, restored, and are now being displayed in our new airside.
Artist: George Snow Hill
In the late 1930's, local artist George Snow Hill was commissioned to create these murals to adorn the walls of Tampa's newly built Peter O. Knight Airport. Hill artistically interpreted the history of flight through the contributions made by Icarus and Daedalus, Archimedes, The Montgolfier Brothers, Otto Lilienthal, Tony Jannus, The Wright Brothers, and a triptych, capturing the first scheduled airline flight in history.
The murals were removed from the walls of the Peter O. Knight Airport upon demolition in 1965, and restored by George Snow Hill himself. In 1971, they were relocated to the new terminal building, where only the triptych and the Wright Brothers mural hung in the airport's executive suite. The others were rolled and placed in storage, untouched for years.
Needless to say, the circumstances of their storage had an adverse effect on their condition, and upon rediscovery they were in desperate need of restoration. The airport began discussion of a mural restoration project in 1985. The new Airside E Terminal was designed specifically with these murals in mind as a place for this artwork to be showcased.
Bird Sculptures
Location: Ticketing Level--suspended above the escalators from the third to first floor.
Description: A collection of seabird sculptures made of copper, nickel, silver and bronze alloys.
Artist: Roy Butler, Plantation, Florida
On the Ticketing Level, view The Meeting Place a 15-foot Florida mangrove tree with a flock of 22 life-sized copper pelicans circling around and roosting in it.
Over the escalator wells, between the Transfer Level and Baggage Claim Level, view the pelicans in flight. Each bird weighs about 30 pounds and has a wingspan of almost seven feet. The entire bird collection includes some 63 individual fowl of five different species including gulls, herons. cormorants, anhingas and pelicans.
Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection
Location: Ticketing Level
Description: A collection of 28 cirkut images and approximately 20 8 x 10 photographs which record the unique history of the social and urban growth of Tampa and Florida's West Coast
Artist: Brothers Al and Jean Burgert
In 1899, S.P. Burgert and Son opened their studio in Ybor City. By 1918, sons Al and Jean were at the helm and the Burgert Brothers Commercial Photography Studio was providing services for the West Coast of Florida. Their studio remained open for business in various Tampa locations, with different heirs and employees in charge, until 1963. The brothers took more than 80,000 photographs. Their photographs appeared in national publications including Life and National Geographic magazines, as well as in local newspaper advertisements, promotional brochures and displays for offices and stores.
After the Burgert Brothers studio closed, their photographs and negatives were stored in a south Tampa garage. Heat, humidity and moisture destroyed many of the negatives. In 1974, the Friends of the Library Hillsborough, Inc., recognizing the priceless, historic significance of the collection, purchased it for the Library so that the photographs would be available for the public. Tampa International Airport and the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Libraries entered into a loan agreement to reproduce a collection of the Burgert Brothers' Cirkut and standard-size images. The nearly 50 selected images were produced to film and mounted on quarter-inch thick clear plexi-glass.
Most of the photographs in this exhibit were produced with a Cirkut camera. Introduced by Kodak in the early 1900's, the Cirkut process enabled production of panoramic photographs up to four feet wide by one foot high. Photos in the Airport's collection range from a team photo of the New York Yankees (1927) in St. Petersburg featuring Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig; the Gasparilla Invasion (1922); the Josiah Richardson Home (1923) in Sulphur Springs; to the Tin Can Tourist Camp (date unknown) in Central Florida.
El Movimiento del Mar
Location: Blue Baggage Claim
Description: Tile artwork adorning the top of the Marine Exhibit
Artist: Elle Terry Leonard and Josh Johnson
Light Passage
Location: Airport Chapel, Landside Terminal, Level 3
Description: Glass art adorning the entryway door and interior wall of the Airport Chapel.
Artist: Yvonne Barlog
Light Passage was the first piece of work commissioned under the Public Art Program. The Airport Chapel is a non-denominational quiet room that is open 24 hours a day.
Off Doolin
Location: Landside Terminal, shopping arcade to Marriott Hotel
Description: Watercolor on paper
Artist: Richard J. Frank
Over the Cities
Location: Outside the new terminal building at Vandenberg Airport
Description: A three-dimensional sculpture made of polished aircraft aluminum
Artist: Dominique LaBouvie, Paris, France
Tapestries
Location: Ticketing and Baggage Claim Level
Description: Collection of 22 tapestries, each 34' x 8'
Artist: Ronald Renmark, Renmark Studio, Virginia
Michael Reck, of Albert and Maria Reck Studio, Swaziland
The tapestries were made by 20 women from Phumalanga, Swaziland in Africa, under the direction of Ronald Renmark and Michael Reck. The tapestries depict familiar Florida nature scenes and serve a dual purpose of decoration as well as sound insulation.
View the video documentary
Tropical Fish Tile Collage
Location: Red Baggage Claim
Description: Tile artwork adorning the top of the Marine Exhibit
Artist: E. Joseph McCarty
World Traveler
Location: Landside Terminal, Level 3
Description: Glass, Internal graal and overlay technique
Artist: Duncan McClellan
Exhibits on Loan
Birds Leaving the Earth
Description: 20' square painting, with sound
Location: The rotunda at Airside A
Artist: Elizabeth Indianos
The painting is composed of nine panels in three rows. It is mounted on an 800-pound aluminum frame that is hung from the 40' high ceiling at Airside A. It was installed just before the 1998 holiday season, and is on loan to the Authority for five years.
Rotating Exhibits
Fiber Arts Take Flight
Description: Fiber arts and crocheted wire
Location: Arcade Walkway to Marriott Hotel & Transfer Level
Artists: Beyond Perfection Art Cloth Group, Liliana Crespi and Mary Zicafoose
Brochure: Fiber Arts Take Flight
Tampa International Airport embellishes the main terminal décor with fiber art – its newest rotating public art Exhibit, “Fiber Arts Take Flight.”
Twelve local artists of Beyond Perfection Artcloth Group create art cloth by layering cloth with dyes, paints, discharges, screen prints, stamps and foils. The group says that if they wanted cloth that was perfect -- they would buy something machine made. Something dyed with even colors, something with perfectly shaped and sized images. However, these artisans are seeking something Beyond Perfection, something individual and different. Beyond Perfection artists are: Carol Andros, M.J. Arnaldi, Sandra Blaker, Bonnie Bowman, Sarah Butz, Linda Dawson, Kathleen Fulmer, Kathy Hays, Laura Parish, Sharon Rophie, Sarah K. Snyder, Mei-Ling St. Leger and Judith Fernandez Woerner.
Also, on exhibit is artist Mary Zicafoose of Omaha, Nebraska who uses a loom and basic time-tested weaving techniques to create vivid, boldly colored weavings. She states, “There is something very timeless and inner-dimensional about the process of weaving. The work takes weeks.”
Liliana Crespi from Weston, Florida, creates her art with crocheted wire. Her sculpture titled Sanctuary is composed of thirteen pillars dipped in paper pulp and then spray painted. The pillars are installed adjacent to the Observation Deck, floating from the ceiling. Crespi’s work is a blend of traditional craft techniques using non-traditional materials such as wire.
The Airport exhibit is in concurrence with “Convergence 2008: Textures in the Tropics” which is scheduled June 22-28. This international conference is sponsored by the Handweaver’s Guild of America and is hosted by the Florida Tropical Weavers Guild. It brings together weavers, spinners, dyers, basket-makers, fiber artists and educators. Special events are being hosted at more than 40 galleries, museums and other sites in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Manatee Counties, as well as a few places in Gainesville and along the I-4 corridor.
For further information please visit www.weavespindye.org, www.MaryZicafoose.com, www.BeyondPerfection.net or e-mail LilianaCrespi@aol.com.
Aerial Innovations
Description: Aerial Photography Exhibit
Location: Airside A
Photographers: Colette Eddy, Matt Eichelberger, Mike Fulkerson, Tacy Briggs Troncoso and Julie Palermo Valdes
Brochure: Aerial Innovations
No matter how often you fly, whether it’s every day or once in a lifetime, the air offers a unique vantage point from which to view the small and large things on the ground. The photographs in this exhibition represent forms and shapes as seen from above Florida and the Caribbean. The images push the viewer to become an interpreter – to unravel a riddle.
Among the mosaic of images offered to viewers are turquoise gulfs and phosphate mining, construction work and reclaimed water. These are part of the many textures that can only be appreciated when the eyes have the perspective of flight. This exhibition reminds us, as we are looking up, to remember to look down and imagine every once in a while. These representations suggest and pinpoint the beauty in the shapes and fields of color that move beneath us as we fly.
While there is much in these images that is recognizable, there is also a meditative challenge issued to the viewer. While hovering above what can be understood, what happens when the mind wanders? Within the layers of straight representation there are facets of the surreal and the sublime. These photographs hold out a promise: when our perspective changes, so can the outcomes.
All of the contributors to this exhibition work for Aerial Innovations, Inc. - a Tampa-based photography company specializing in aerial imagery. Flying above the state in helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, the photographers take aerial pictures of real estate, engineering, and construction projects, along with images used in the tourism industry. Contributing photographers are Colette Eddy, Matt Eichelberger, Mike Fulkerson, Tacy Briggs Troncoso and Julie Palermo Valdes and the pilots that keep them in the air are Jim Bailey, Michael Hickox and Randy York.
For further information visit www.FlyThis.com or call 1-800-223-1701.
The Big Art Show II: Kites in Flight
Description: Four 6 ft high x 4 ft wide kites with 12 foot long tails made of fused glass and steel
Location: Airside A
Artist: Lisa and Joe Vogt
My view of the world is different.
I see pattern and form in everything. I am compelled to interpret what I see, make it my own, and then share it. For me the creative process is not a choice but a necessity. It is a journey that I embrace; for it has many rewards including self discovery, growth and an opportunity to raise my voice and speak through my art.
It is my hope that the kites lighten your load, bring a fond memory to your mind and sweep a smile across your face. Enjoy!
Welcome to my world.
Lisa Vogt
www.OriginalsInGlass.com
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