Client: SoHo Grove Café
Location: Tampa, FL, United States
Completion date: 2022
Artwork budget: $5,000
Project Team
lead designer/project manager
Elle Terry Leonard (Dean)
Architectural Ceramics
designing sculptor
Charles Dean
Architectural Ceramics
Client
August Vernon
August Vernon Galleries
assistant
Mike Cannanta
Overview
We created and installed three large-scale Gardenias, respectively, 24”, 36” and 48” wide, as part of the exterior backdrop for photo opportunities at SoHo Grove, a very lively bar and café, in revamped south Tampa.
Goals
The goal was to create welcoming and refreshing artwork as part of the branding for SoHo Grove an outdoor bar and café in South Tampa.
Process
August Vernon, artist and art constant for the SoHo Grove owners came to us to create durable
Art for the new café’s outdoor space. (See Pangaea and Genesis, other projects done in collaboration with Vernon). Much time was spent on the actual mechanics of how the pieces would be put into the kilns to be fired and how they would be attached to the wall when finished. Once that was established, all was a joyful exercise in sculpting huge organic pedal forms and assembling them into a flower. We did the actual on-site installation ourselves with the help of Mike Cannata, an artist in residence at The Morean Center for Clay.