Young adults – those between the ages of 18 to 35 – aren’t seen in any number in Vero’s art scene, whose audience tends toward those who reached the age of discretion decades, rather than weeks, ago.
And yet the young are the very people that need to be counted on to support theater, dance, music, literature and the visual arts after the grown-ups are gone.
Young art appreciators are very much present in Vero Beach. If they are not showing up at the established art institutions, it may be that, unlike their elders, they are not passive consumers of art. They want active roles in their art experiences.
Aimed squarely at a vernal audience, Project Space 1785 is an artist-run gallery that, according to its Tumblr blog, is “the starting point for a collaborative effort to open creative dialogue in the community.” The more people involved in the gallery’s collaborative events, the better.
Project Space 1785’s current venture, “A Collection of Strangers,” is just such an event. Created in two parts, it features the photography of local resident Taylor Beatty. The project was conceived of in two parts: Part 1, which was held on the evening of April 8, was the result of a social media call-out for participants willing to be photographed by Beatty. Part 2 will take place on Saturday, May 2 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., when the results of the photo shoot, 57 color prints, will be displayed on the gallery’s walls.
A crowd of about 80 showed up for Part 1. They were mostly young people, but a respectable number of hip older folks were represented in the mix. The latter included sculptor and former Miami real estate developer Ross Power; art and antiques dealer Harvey Kornicks; Idlewild Co. founder Katie Gastley and her web designer husband Tom Fletcher; artist and Indian River Charter High School instructor Liming Tang, and Off Island Studio partners Linwood and Saskia Fuller.
Fabric backdrops of various hues and patterns were hung around the space; participants more or less decided which backdrop they wanted to be photographed against. Beatty was kept busy traveling from one to the next with her tripod. Un-coached, her subjects presented themselves in attitudes that ranged from flamboyance to stoicism. In all, Beatty shot over 200 exposures during the course of the evening.
The idea for “A Collection of Strangers” arose spontaneously in late March when Beatty and two of the gallery’s youthful partners, James Barsalou and Jared Thomas, met up at the space for a brainstorming session.
Because it would be bad form to take sole responsibility for a totally rad idea, the three toss credit for the project around like a game of hot potato.
“It definitely wasn’t my idea,” says Jared.
He adds, “We all were involved with the planning of it, which sort of happened on a whim. I think James and Taylor had talked about it before I got involved.”
Barsalou, too, downplays his involvement.
“Taylor was interested in using her new flash, and was looking for a white wall to do some test shots. She asked Jared and me if she could use the space,” he says.
“… And like yeah, that would be awesome!” agrees Jared.
Beatty is certainly not taking credit for the awesomeness, even though it’s her show. Her part in the project, she insists, is modest.
“I wanted to do a little shoot and somehow display the photos,” she says, adding that she initially planned to ask “three or four” friends to pose for her.
Barsalou, Beatty, and Thomas met each other after Beatty visited “Immediate Delay,” Project Space 1785’s inaugural show. That was a whole two-and-a-half months ago, so their collaboration is youthful, too.
“I was super-excited talking to them,” Beatty says of their first meeting.
Born and raised in Vero Beach, the 24-year old is currently pursuing a degree in graphic design at Indian River State College. A professional skateboarder since entering her first competition at age 17, Beatty is recently back in town from a two-year sojourn in Long Beach, CA, “which is where everyone lives that skates,” she says.
“I was there, and I was working in the surf industry, in a warehouse, doing packing, shipping, managing one whole distribution center. Then I was traveling skating, filming, shooting photography, just being around,” she says.
Skateboarders often get into videography as well as still photography, says Beatty. It starts out as a way to document friends’ unique skating styles and repertoires of tricks. There are many exhibitions of skateboard photography in California, says Beatty, who cites the art of Ed Templeton as inspiration for her own work.
At 42, Templeton is a legend in men’s skateboarding. He is also a self-taught artist. His paintings, graphics and photographs relate to the freewheeling – and often gritty – skateboarding life. Beatty wears one of Templeton’s crazier creations, a one-eyed character known as “Transistor Sect,” tattooed on her arm.
She asserts that “skating is sort of a gateway to the arts and a lot of stuff like that,” but Beatty also credits a source closer to home for her interest in photography.
“My mom used to shoot a lot of film,” says Beatty, who recalls that she and her siblings, an older sister and a younger brother, were the subject of most of those photos.
Beatty marvels at her mother’s natural talent: “All of her photographs work,” she says.
Like her mother, Beatty is an autodidact who learned how to make exposures in the school of trial and error. She eschews digital photography in favor of 35 mm film and a Pentax K1000 camera, and looks forward to someday learning the darkroom skills of film development and printing, which for now she has done by a commercial lab. The 8 x 11 inch prints she will exhibit at Project Space 1785 will be for sale; purchasers will also have the option of ordering prints from Beatty in other standard sizes.
Beatty is pretty sure she will not be using frames to present the work, because she has sunk most of her budget for the exhibition into printing.
In addition to Beatty’s photographs, videos by others of Beatty’s skateboarding talents will be screened. These may include films by Beatty’s friend, videographer Hayley Gordon. Her “Summer Salad,” featuring Beatty and a dozen other young California skateboarders and surfers, was an official selection at two 2014 film festivals: the Honolulu Surf Film Festival and Women of The Seven Seas Surf Film Festival in New York City.
While skateboarding is still a part of Beatty’s life, it has of late become more of a weekend activity than a professional pursuit. She was invited to participate in a contest in Seattle next month, but Beatty is not sure that she wants to go.
“I’m just trying to focus on school right now, and this show,” she says.
As for Project Space 1785, Jared Thomas says that “unless anything drastic happens,” Vero Beach can look forward to events at the gallery through the summer months.
Project Space 1985 is located at 1785 Old Dixie Highway in the Len Mar Shoppes plaza. It is open by appointment only.
