Morgan Chambers Art's Fest

As I was walking through Art’s Fest, I saw many stands with paintings, but one man’s artwork caught my
eye among the rest. Although the beauty of many artists’ work seemed out of place in the bland
downtown and campus area (bland to me because I have grown up here), this man’s work stuck out in a
different way. The beautiful blue sky and gorgeous palm trees immediately brought me back to Florida.
Do you know when you smell a certain scent and it somehow is able to take you back to a very specific
memory? For example, you catch a whiff of freshly-baked apple pie, and it is able to take you back to
being eleven years old at you grandma’s playing hide and seek with your cousins. This painting did that
for me. Because my aunt lives down there and my mom adores the heat, I have visited the Sunshine
State on multiple occasions, and every trip has brought back new memories that I would cherish
forever.  The images the artist painted all took me back to my trips to Florida because some of his other pieces
included brightly painted boats on the water or vibrant umbrellas in the sand.

After asking to make a photograph of his amazing artwork, I asked the artist why he began painting. He
laughed and told me painting came naturally to him. As a child, he always had been more interested
than art class than any other elective while most kids enjoyed burning their energy during physical
education. As he grew up, he tried different art techniques, but painting was his true love (For good
reason! Do you see this man’s artwork?!). He had always loved painting, a natural talent. After discussing
his inspiration for becoming an artist, I asked his inspiration for the piece of which I made a photograph.
Another simple answer, he was born and raised in Tampa Bay. The palm trees, sailboats, and umbrellas
I had observed in the tent were all images of places he had seen and loved from his hometown. The
painter painted what he knew. He did not want to be like the painted who threw odd shapes onto a
canvas and called it art. Instead, he wanted to capture an image that looked real. When I got to his
stand, the tent was filled with people admiring his talents, and when I left his stand, the already large
crowd seemed to have grown, just like my admiration for his art.