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Artist Revives Work From Ashes Of Gallery Fire

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: May 24, 2008

At first, the blank art paper did not bring inspiration.

Marilyn Jones stared at it. "I don't know what I'm going to paint," she sighed.

Slowly, she picked up a paint brush and began covering the paper with orange acrylic paint.

A few seconds later, she appeared deep into her work. She added purple, gently rocking the paper so that excess water would smudge with the orange.

She was still at work 30 minutes later on what had become a beach scene.

It is part of the new burst of creativity that has inspired Jones since all of her work was destroyed in the fire that destroyed the Imago Art Gallery in the early hours of Dec. 9, 2007. Investigators believe the fire was deliberately set.

The popular gallery on Douglas Avenue was the creative workplace for Jones and 14 other artists. "I remember standing in front of it in total shock," Jones recalled. "You could see right through it. I went home and just cried."

The Pinellas Sheriff's Office estimated the damage to the 5,200-square-foot building and its contents at $500,000. Jones' own loss was about $25,000, including frames, mats and other art equipment.

She was not insured. "I never felt I needed it."

The fire also took away Jones' sanctuary. After raising four children and getting a divorce, she felt Imago had answered her dream to be a part of an artist colony.

Imago both revved up her creative juices and gave her an artistic family. "We were supportive of each other," she observed. "If someone needed help, someone was always there."

The fire marked both an end and beginning for both Imago and Jones.

Imago now operates in a city-owned building at the intersection of Main Street and S. R. 580. Artists stay there rent free, paying only utilities and insurance.

The city put Dunedin Fine Art Center in charge of overseeing the utility and insurance payments.

"The city stepped forward right away," said Dunedin Fine Art Center Executive Director George Ann Bisset. "I don't know of many cities that would have done that."

The property, at the eastern entrance to the city's downtown retailing and entertainment district, is slated to be developed into a commercial center, the Gateway. For now, artists seem to be happy with their temporary home. In April, they started holding their monthly open house there.

As for Jones, she has departed from the Chinese brush painting on rice paper she had done for 22 years.

Those paintings were in water color. Their simplicity – achieved after sometimes as much as two months work on a watercolor – appealed to her.

"It was so disciplined," she explained. "It took years for me to develop."

Her new ones are acrylics. She introduced them in April at Imago's first post-fire open house.

"They loved it," she said of the people who attended the open house. "They loved the detail before, but this is something refreshing. This is something new and bright."

The disciplined watercolor painter had become an artist who gleefully plays with lush colors and bold strokes.

"I was like a little kid painting for the first time," Jones remembered. "This was much more freeing for me."

Still, the delicate touches of the watercolor painter can be seen in feathery palm fronds in one of her paintings.

Jones gazed at her new paintings.

"They are beauty out of ashes," she said.

Cheryl Bentley can be reached at 727-815-1069 or cbentley@suncoastnews.com.

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