Stay Tuned

WINTER GARDEN — You might notice something new when you’re walking around Winter Garden’s historic downtown this month. And if you’re a musician or a patron of the arts, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

In honor of Winter Garden MusicFest’s 10th annual event this year, 10 oversized guitar sculptures will be appearing throughout downtown, unexpectedly and one at a time. The first sculpture made its outdoor debut Sept. 5, and they will continue to pop up without warning until Oct. 3.

“10 Guitars” is the brainchild of Joe Alarie, owner of Alarie Design Associates on Plant Street. Alarie designs marketing materials for MusicFest, and last year, he got the idea to take this responsibility to the next level by getting fine artists involved.

Alarie built the 10 identical guitar forms, and WGAA announced a call for artists to submit their ideas. Ten finalists were chosen to bring their ideas to life.

The project is a collaboration of the city of Winter Garden, the Winter Garden Art Association and the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation, and each sculpture has its own story to tell.

1. “Jazz Up My Blues” by Colleen Ardaman

Colleen Ardaman is a Winter Park-based artist whose work has appeared in exhibits and galleries throughout Greater Orlando.

“My mission is to sell and donate my art for God’s callings and helping organizations raise charitable funds for their needs,” Ardaman said.

She plans to donate the money from her guitar sculpture to the Winter Garden Art Association.

Ardaman’s guitar is an ode to jazz and blues. She created an online survey and featured the top 10 jazz artists and the top 10 blues artists that her friends voted for, including Stevie Ray Vaughn, Muddy Waters and Miles Davis.

There is one musician whose portrait is on the front of the guitar whom Ardaman knows personally: Lennie E. Yarbrough. When Yarbrough’s sons were in a car crash, Ardaman was asked to allow the family to stay with her. While Ardaman housed Yarbrough’s family in her mansion, she got to know Yarbrough as a musician and friend. 

He later commissioned her for a custom piece of artwork, and Ardaman honored him in return by giving him a prominent spot on her guitar.

2. “Keeping the Sweet Sound Flowing” by Kristina Bryant

Kristina Bryant is a Winter Garden-based artist and art teacher, as well as a rock enthusiast. She put some of her favorite musicians and their album artwork on her guitar, including Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd.

“Everybody knows who they are,” Bryant said. “They’re pretty important musical figures in history, and so that’s where I wanted to go.”

Bryant had first created a guitar sculpture with a different idea, but it didn’t feel personal to her. So she changed the entire concept and created a second guitar to submit for the exhibition.

“I listened to all those (musicians) growing up, so I put those on my guitar so I could feel connected, and I was hoping that the audience would feel connected to that, too,” she said.

3. “A Dotted Melody” by Angee’ Ferrin

Angee’ Ferrin’s artwork is usually characterized by its bold and bright colors, and her piece for 10 Guitars fits perfectly with that signature style.

Ferrin said she was inspired by the idea of a symphony, in which many instruments and notes come together to form an overall work of art — similar to the idea of connecting the dots to form a bigger image.

Ferrin said she loves music and wanted her piece to represent the process of creating a work of music, more than an ode to any specific musician. “A Dotted Melody” took her about a month to complete, and she made the dots with the back end of her paintbrushes.

The Winter Garden Art Association has displayed Ferrin’s work before. Last month, she was the featured artist for the animal-themed exhibition “Beauty of the Beasts.”

4. “Dia de los Muertos — El Flaco” by MarcoAntonio Garcia

MarcoAntonio Garcia’s piece was inspired by his Mexican heritage. Though he grew up in Colorado, he remembers observing the Day of the Dead when he was a child.

“On that day, it’s first and foremost a celebration of someone you love that has passed on,” he said. “Here in our house, we made their favorite food, and we put pictures up of them, and we lit candles. We set it up with flowers and things, and we just talked about them and celebrated their life.”

Garcia is a caricature artist at Walt Disney World, and his guitar was influenced by his cartoon style. But he has also made paintings of Mexican towns and cultural elements, and he wanted the guitar to look more like folk art.

Garcia lives in Winter Garden, and some of his paintings have been in past WGAA shows.

5. “Acoustic Fruitfall” by Pearse Kelly

Pearse Kelly is originally from Ireland but came to the United States 35 years ago. He has worked with mosaics for about 15 years, but three years ago, he put his engineering career on hold to pursue mosaics full-time.

Kelly lives in Sarasota, but used oranges in his guitar because of Winter Garden’s agricultural history. But oranges also happen to be a classical motif in mosaics.

“It behooved me to use some classical mosaic opus,” Kelly said.

Unlike painters, who can manipulate their medium to create nearly any color they need, Kelly has to search for the specific colors and textures he desires, but he said he enjoys the challenge.

Because they are made from glass, cement and other materials that do not easily degrade, mosaics are suited well for the outdoors, and many old mosaics around the world look about the same as they did when they were first put in place.

“I love making things that will last and hopefully brighten up a space for a long time to come,” Kelly said.

6. “Ode to Winter Garden” by Patty Kuzbida

After Patty Kuzbida retired from her career as a lab technician, she took a job at an art museum in Baltimore. Her experience there inspired her to consider herself an artist and start expressing herself in creative ways.

Years ago, Kuzbida found out about the Winter Garden Art Association and entered her first piece in an event at South Boyd Gallery.

“SoBo Gallery has been so nice to me, and I’m so impressed that the town supports the arts,” she said.

To honor Winter Garden’s beauty and history, as well as the way it has welcomed her time and time again, Kuzbida decided to literally dedicate her piece to the town.

While in Baltimore, she made a 6-foot crab sculpture for an outdoor exhibition.

“I think public art is the best thing since buttered bread,” she said.

Kuzbida has made pieces similar to this guitar in the past: two ukuleles, a theremin and a different guitar, all covered with mosaic.

7. “It’s Not Over Until the Fat Lady Sings” by Mike Malloy

When Alarie asked his good friend Mike Malloy to consider doing a piece for 10 Guitars, Malloy was glad for the opportunity to support the WGAA.

“It took a lot of work by all the artists in making this happen, and I hope that the public recognizes this effort and demonstrates respect for it,” Malloy said. “I would like to see it become an annual happening.”

Malloy has a bachelor’s degree in illustration and design. He has built a career as a freelance artist and print broker and owns a graphic arts printing business. In the 1980s and 1990s, he owned Times Printing in downtown Winter Garden.

Watercolor and acrylic are Malloy’s usual media of choice for paintings, and he used acrylic for his guitar. But he combined them with found objects to create depth and texture.

His other connections to the area include Friends of Lake Apopka, the West Orange Chamber of Commerce and the West Orange Times, for which he was an award-winning editorial cartoonist.

8. “Homage to Sgt. Pepper” by Mark Seppala

Mark Seppala spent 25 years as a Disney artist, designing merchandise for the parks, resorts and cruise line. It had been his dream to work for Disney since he was a child.

He still is involved at Disney, but he now works with his partner, John Sullivan — who also created a piece for 10 Guitars — at Sullivan and Seppala Studio, producing photography, illustrations and paintings.

Seppala describes himself as a big Beatles fanatic and has seen the band three times, so the idea for his guitar was obvious for him. He used a cartoon style to depict the band as seen in the album artwork for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Seppala added depth by putting a laser-cut submarine in relief and adding a drumhead-like feature on the front of the guitar. He also put crystals on Ringo Starr’s rings for texture and shine.

9. “Rock n’ Roll’s Most Famous Covers” by John Sullivan

Sullivan had never made a collaged sculpture before, but he decided to try out the technique in order to saturate his guitar with pop and rock album covers.

“I wanted people to reminisce about their favorite albums,” Sullivan said. “I tried to get a spattering from Elvis and the Beatles, up through Metallica and AC/DC, and some pop, like Madonna … and there’s even some Lady Gaga.”

Sullivan was once a singer and performed frequently, so the music-related project was naturally relatable for him.

But his background as a designer is in landscape architecture, specializing in theme park and resort design. He has worked for local attractions such as Discovery Cove and Aquatica.

10. “Light of Shards” by Holly Tharp

Holly Tharp decided to dedicate her piece to one musician in particular: Stevie Nicks.

“I knew I wanted to paint a woman artist,” Tharp said. “I think Stevie Nicks has stood the test of time and is really one of the best ‘songbirds’ in the industry.”

Because of Nicks’ song “Rhiannon,” Tharp put Celtic symbols and birds on her guitar, which symbolize the Welsh goddess Rhiannon.

Tharp is an avid fan of music and has been painting some of her favorite musicians for various shows and commissions in the past few years.

“I have been working on loosening up my style more, but keeping my love for textures and mixed media,” she said.

Contact Catherine Sinclair at [email protected].