The 2021 edition of the annual Historic Kenwood BungalowFest in St. Petersburg, Florida, is all about gardens and art, including mine!
For over 20 years, the annual BungalowFest has invited the public to step inside a few select bungalow homes along the tree-lined brick streets of the Historic Kenwood neighborhood.
The homes and gardens are so stunning, Historic Kenwood was featured in a large photo spread in the 100th issue of American Bungalow Magazine this year. Oh, it also won a National Neighborhood of the Year title in 2020.
Because of Covid, the 2020 BungalowFest was cancelled, and the 2021 edition is taking place all outdoors. And each garden features art by one or more Historic Kenwood Artist Enclave members.
Personally, I like the focus on the gardens this year even better because the yards in this neighborhood are some of the most beautiful and diverse I’ve ever seen.
Also, the “Art in the Garden” theme gave me a wonderful opportunity to curate a fitting selection of my nature photographs and have them all made into large outdoor-ready metal prints. I’ve chosen mostly local birds and blooms with just a sprinkling of beach atmosphere.
In the words of the lab I use: “You’ve never seen a more brilliant and impressive print! Colors are vibrant and the radiance is breathtaking. Their waterproof, scratch-resistant surface makes MetalPrints our most hygienic and durable medium — also available on Performance EXT metal to give your MetalPrints an extended life in the elements!”
I’m super excited and grateful to be part of this event – and to be the sole featured artist at Zach’s beautiful home and garden at 2500 Burlington Avenue, which I had admired long before I knew I’d be showing there. It’s going to be awesome to add my birds and blooms up along the fence in-between and above Zach’s plants!
The only bummer: because the event takes place in about a dozen different locations at the same time, all of us artists or garden hosts won’t get to see the other gardens or art – or hang out with our artist and gardening friends. We were supposed to have a sneak-peek tour today, but it got rained out. But it won’t rain tomorrow. And there might just be an after party…
In the coming days, I plan to create an online album with the photos I chose for the exhibit. When I do, I’ll link back to this article. Just running out of time right now.
All my photos in the show will be available for purchase. I also plan on debuting the Limited Edition 2022 St. PetersBird calendar, which turned out even more beautiful than I had thought. That’s what you get when a photography lab prints your calendars!
2021 BungalowFest: Gardens and Art Saturday, November 6th 10am - 4pm Check-in: Seminole Park (Burlington / 29th St N) St. Petersburg, Florida
The whole Historic Kenwood BungalowFest works as a tour with a map of the 10+ gardens and the option of utilizing the trolley – or walking or biking through the neighborhood.
You can get advance tickets ($20) via historickenwood.org or IRL at Craftsman House Gallery or Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe. Day-of tickets ($25) will be available on Saturday at Seminole Park (Burlington / 29th Street N).
I’ve been keeping a misprint of the largest outdoor metal print (see the ghosting at the pelican’s bill) in my new backyard just to see how it does in all weather conditions, including today’s rainstorm. Yup, repelling rain as it should. Of course, I have a different pristine version of this iconic photo on display tomorrow.
Also marked on the map will be the 17 new Street Corner Finials. Finials are the public art pieces adorning street signs in Historic Kenwood. I will publish a separate post about that because two of those finials are bird silhouettes I created. You can see the pelican at 2nd Ave N / 30th St and the ibis at 2nd N / 22nd St.
Maybe in this context I should also add that we actually bought a house in this neighborhood and moved in this week, which is why I’m behind on everything including writing this post. But now that’s done – and I’m one step closer to being ready for tomorrow…
