Page 9 - Florida Sentinel 1-14-22

Feature
Friends Combine Art And Service To Bring Black Art To Bay Area
BY MONIQUE STAMPS Sentinel Staff Writer
Back in 2015, the two women that would lead the Tampa Art renaissance had no idea how much their lives would change. As Co-Chairs of the Arts Facet for the Tampa Chapter of the Links, Inc., Casey Curry and Kendra Frorup have built a tremendous Arts program and a deep friendship in pursuit of fine arts in the Tampa Bay area.
The culmination of five years of work will come to the public in the form of VERDE: Poetics of Shade.
The signature event will be on exhibit from February 10, 2022 to July 24, 2022 showcasing 5 African American female artists, including Kendra Frorup, and Shannon Elyse Curry, daughter of Casey Curry.
The Tampa Museum of Art has supplied the sponsors and raised the money for the show- ing. Showing in a museum set- ting is a prestigious moment for an artist, and showing at the Tampa Museum is a highly sought-after and hard won achievement.
Curry and Frorup both say that the VERDE is a labor of love, with their goal is to expose the community to art and sup- port emerging artists.
Curry joined The Links, In- corporated in 2010. Five years later, Frorup would join the or- ganization. In 2014, the organi- zation hosted a Literary Links event hosting author, Curry for her debut novel, Promises.
The duo started their suc- cessful partnership in 2015. The previous Chair of the Arts Facet of the Tampa Links chapter was stepping down and wanted to pass the baton to Curry. At the request of the then President, Kay Andrews, and the former Chair, Curry was asked to work with Frorup as co-chair. Nei- ther knew the other, but each one was determined to make it work.
They soon discovered their complementary styles was their strength. In late 2015, the Arts Facet won first place in the Southern Area and the National Poster Art Contest. The winners art was exhibited at the Robert Saunders Library.
In the following year, 2016, the Facet presented The Art of Wine, highlighting African American wineries and hosted an African American Level 2 sommelier, Kelvin Pye. They
CASEY CURRY
also introduced Phillip Ash- ley Rix with the Phillip Ashley Chocolates – the nation’s pre- mier African American Choco- latier.
As they worked together, their friendship moved to sister- hood. Both said that they would not, and could not do the work they’ve done with anyone else.
“We disagree all the time! We can have a conversation, fight about it, and make up within minutes. We know each other so well, and we both want the same thing. I don’t mind doing the administrative work. Kendra flourishes with the cre- ative side, the curating side,” states Curry.
Frorup agrees, “The only other person that I can argue like that with is my actual sister! Casey doesn’t mind if I call her at 11 p.m. with a random thought. We talk everything through and that is the secret. To freely express yourself, and have the other person hear you.”
More accolades came in 2018 as the team won first place in The Links, Incorporated Na- tional Young Masters Writing Contest.
The Facet team wasn’t just winning awards, they hosted several programs for the clubs sisters, as well, including: Paint & Sip events; a 2017 Art Exhibit by Kendra Frorup – at HCC Ybor; scarf printing led by Frorup, and in 2019 the Arts Facet hosted the chapter for Baubles and Bubbles/Cham- pagne and Caviar with African American jewelry maker, execu- tive banker, and Links member, Hosetta Coleman.
Despite the devastation of the COVID pandemic, the duo didn’t slow down. In 2020, the team presented Sphinx Virtuoso Concert at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and hosted Art in the Atrium – Women and Diversity at the Tampa Museum of Art.
In the fall of 2020, they rolled
out the Film Noir Series while supporting ‘Soul Popped Pop- corn’ created by an African American female small busi- ness.
Last year saw the Arts Facet go into overdrive, winning a 2021 Southern Area Artist Noir Grant. The grant fulfilled the Reverberations on the Boulevard Arts Integration per- formance in the fall. A Black art appreciation zoom, “Black Art: In the Absence of Light” and presentation by Dr. Melanee Harvey at the Scarfone Hartley Gallery was open to the public as a guide to purchasing black art.
Finally, they presented the 2021 Film Noir, documentary, and Black literary arts event with the documentary, “High on the Hog” and Toni Tip- ton-Martin, author of the na- tionally renowned book, Jubilee.
KENDRA FRORUP
Curry states, “Kendra and I have been very intentional about supporting African and African American artisans, au- thors and artists. We have sup- ported visual artists, filmmakers, Nollywood Nigeria films, The McBride Sisters win- ery, Maison Wines, Phillip Ashley, Uncle Nearest,
SoulPopped popcorn, authors Dr. Jessica B. Harris and Toni Tipton-Martin, Som- melier Kelvin Pye, Poet Wally B, and more.”
Kendra Frorup is an asso- ciate professor of Art and De- sign at the University of Tampa. Born in the Bahamas, she is an established artist. Her work has been in major international col- lections including Art Basel; Lit- tle Haiti Cultural Complex; Musée International des Arts, and Modestes in Sète, France. She is married and the mother of one daughter.
Casey Curry is retired from the Hillsborough County School System, where she was the Di- rector of the Creative Writing program at Howard W. Blake Magnet School for the Perform- ing Arts. She is a proud Navy wife and mother of three daugh- ters.
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