Ten Tallahassee artists are showing and selling their best work later this week. The “Big Art Sale” happens Friday and Saturday at Dorothy B. Oven Park.
One of the ten artists is Mary Apple, who takes a somewhat eclectic approach to painting.
“If you learn oils, you can transfer that to acrylics, you can transfer that to watercolor and I like pastels, too,” Apple said.
Meanwhile, her artistic colleague Rosemary Ferguson described herself as more of a specialist.
“I love watercolor because it doesn’t leave you much room to make mistakes. And so I always say my biggest collector is the City of Tallahassee because if I mess up it gets thrown in the trash.”
Both Apple and Ferguson are part of a coalition of sorts called “Ten Artists, Limited.”
“Since 1985, originally started by ten buddies in Rhineauer’s, started at the café where they had those wonderful little muffins. And as people would drop out or die or leave, the group maintained integrity and brought others in,” said Apple and Ferguson, almost in unison.
For the benefit of those who are not old-time Tallahasseeans, Rhineauer’s was a high-class department store, originally downtown and then in what used to be the Northwood Mall. Today, that’s the nearly all-office Northwood Center. Apple and Ferguson said the group even has a few original members.
“We have two; we have Vivian and we have Judy Nable and Vivian is 99 years old. She’ll be 100 in June and she still paints.”
This Friday and Saturday, the group is bringing literally hundreds of its best works to the Dorothy B. Oven Park for the Ten Artists Limited Big Art Sale.
“We’ve brought everything out of our studios, we’ve cleaned under our beds, we’re bringing everything out and hoping to have a giant sale!”, said Apple.
And unlike so many art sales in which there’s not a lot of product diversity, Apple and Ferguson say this event goes way in the other direction.
“I think it’s just the variety of subject matter, of artistic expertise, of medium, it’s very representative across the board. I think we have something for everybody,” Ferguson added.
The Big Art Sale is at Dorothy B. Oven Park this Friday (March 13) evening from 6 until 9 and on Saturday (March 14) from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.