Published September 8, 2010
S/ART/Q Print Party
5-10 p.m. Sat., Sept. 11, The HuB, 1421 Boulevard of the Arts, Sarasota, 330-4838 or sartq.com, ringling.org, free, $5 per print.
A little over a year ago a professional artists’ collective emerged from the shadows of Sarasota’s contemporary art scene going by the name S/ART/Q. Their first exhibition was held in November at the former DK Vogue space downtown, followed by a second exhibition at G.Wiz Science Museum in March. But the original event that introduced the group to the community was a screen-printing party held at the HuB incubator in the Rosemary District last August. The nonprofit collective will now return to their humble beginnings for a second installment of their Print Party, a fundraising event where each artist offers a custom made design for screen-printing onto any cloth item you wish for only $5 a print.
Many of the artists involved in S/ART/Q are former Ringling Art School grads, but few have remained as close to the institution as Dave Piurek, a conservation technician and gilder for The John and Mable Ringling Museum. After receiving his BFA from Ringling College in 1998, Piurek landed a job as assistant preparer for the museum, actually working under fellow S/ART/Q artist Joseph Arnegger, hanging the priceless works of art that had been acquired by John Ringling. An avid art collector, Ringling had purchased over 13,000 pieces, many of them prominent works from all periods of art history, which now make up the vast majority of art on display at the Museum. (more…)