The Gulf Coast Museum features six permanent collection galleries, open year round, displaying a diverse representation of art by contemporary Florida artists and makers of fine crafts from across the southeast.  From realism to abstraction, focused permanent collection exhibitions explore a range of thematic issues artists are addressing in their work today, such as approaches to the landscape or to figural representation, and the use of visual metaphor for social, political, or personal expression. Beyond the permanent collection, exhibitions organized by the Gulf Coast Museum featuring prominent local artists, craftsmen, and private collections are regularly on view. 

The Gulf Coast Museum also welcomes the addition of two new accessions in 2008, both of which are currently on view.  In May we acquired Raven Brooch (2007) by the jewelry artist Carol Jenrette.  This elegant pin, made of sterling silver and denditric graphite and embellished with a pearl, is on display on our craft gallery.  The artist, who is known for her unique style inspired by forms and shapes experienced in nature, donated this work at the closing of the spring 2008 exhibition, Liquid Metal: Carol Jenrette, Jim Liccione and Robert Coon. 

Jenrette’s inspiration for her metal work is drawn from her early years in dressmaking. In college, she found that her experience in clothing construction, the process pattern making and draping, very helpful in translating her drawings into a three dimensional work.  As Jenrette finalizes a drawing of a miniature masterpiece, she creates a paper pattern and clay model to estimate the size and shape of the fine silver sheet that will be used to create the art form.  Fine silver is preferred in this process because of its malleability. After the forms are completed, pieces are fit and soldered together and the edges are sanded and polished. Jenrette currently lives in Seminole, Florida.

A stunning etching by the acclaimed master printmaker, John Costin, has also recently joined our collection.  Everglades Snail Kite (2005) was selected from our recent exhibition, John Costin: Wings of Splendor, staged at the GCMA in the fall of 2007.  Although his background is in contemporary art, John Costin has pursued life size imagery of Florida’s wildlife using a format reminiscent of the well-known works of the nineteenth century printmaker, John James Audubon, in his attention to detail and technical rendering.  As a master printer working from a studio in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, Costin explores the details of traditional wildlife representation through etching techniques, using delicate detail and lush tones and texture.

Everglades Snail Kite is one in a series of sixteen Florida birds that Costin has been compiling into a limited edition book of hand-colored, large-scale etchings.  A work in progress since 1989, he anticipates finishing this book in 2008.