In March of 1989 Ybor City was just beginning to transform into a destination for arts and entertainment in the Tampa Bay area. Artists were converting derelict buildings into galleries and studios, new restaurants and shops were cropping up here and there. There were plenty of empty spaces, their owners waiting for the “market ” to make them valuable. It was in such an empty space that painter Marsha Hammel launched her first public exhibition. With the help of friends she brought in lights, hung seventy five paintings and invited three hundred people to attend a gala opening with all the trimmings.

Half of the paintings were purchased during the one night show with many of the others bought from her studio over the following few weeks. Thus began the journey which has taken this artist all across the country and over the pond to the UK and Europe.

Returning twenty years later to exhibit new work at Interior Motives Gallery in St. Petersburg at the end of January the artist brings the variety of that experience to share with both new and long-time audiences.

“Music and musicians have been a recurrent theme in my work since I lived in New Orleans back in the 70′s. As a figure painter I see the interaction of musicians playing together as composition in movement and I am always challenged to capture the atmosphere of their environment.”

The Boca Raton Symphony is featuring ” Yellow Cello ” as its program cover and as a print edition to raise money for the orchestra. Two original paintings by Marsha Hammel will be displayed on Opening Night, which is 11 January 2009. The original painting is a 60″x72″ oil which resides in a private Tampa collection.

“The idea of ‘Cello’ has stayed in my mind’s eye for a long time and this summer I began a series of ‘Concert in the Garden’ paintings. A friend who collects and plays Renaissance instruments inspired the compositions which are filled with light and the color of a clear day outside. I am bringing several of these new paintings to the show at Interior Motives Gallery.”

The original “Yellow Cello” is a 60″ x 72″ oil on canvas and is in a private collection in Tampa, Florida. The owning couple have been collecting Ms. Hammel’s work since the seventies and have purchased over 20 originals.

“Yellow Cello” is being used on the cover of this season’s program and on all printed material, marquee, web and special events of the Boca Raton Symphony Orchestra. A limited edition of 50 in 16″x20″ size of “Yellow Cello” is being offered to the patrons of the Symphony.

Interior Motives Gallery in St. Petersburg– Marsha Hammel’s new gallery in the Tampa Bay area– will have the only 4 artist proofs of this editions available. If interested, call the Interior Motives Gallery right away for to reserve one. The price is $150.00, and part of the proceeds go to the Boca Raton Symphony Orchestra.For the February 8th 2009 connoisseur concert series, Ms. Hammel will be in attendance as artist in residence for the evening, signing and dedicating the limited edition.

Throughout the fall and winter Marsha has been working on an large collection of Jazz themed paintings for her dealer in London, Felix Rosenstiel’s. Her work is well known in the UK and she’s enjoys some modest fame there. Next summer Marsha plans to spend eight weeks in England and to travel up to Edinburgh for the annual Jazz Festival which takes place every July.

“I would like to live and work abroad for a few years. The United States is rather a closed set and it would be good for me to expand my horizons artistically and culturally. So, this summer I plan to visit some locations in France which interest me…Honfleur in particular, is a charming “Artist’s Town ” at the mouth of the Seine and only a days drive from London, thanks to the Channel Tunnel.”

The artist will spend the first couple of months of 2009 in a Sarasota studio then in the spring returning to her home base in Western North Carolina. The canvases on her easel are compositions drawn directly from the model…actually two models, one dark and exotic the other an angelic blue eyed blond. ” The models bring inspiration to the process, each one has her own energy and is a real participant in the creative process. I hope to have a painting of each of Rhi and Abby to show at the Interior Motives Gallery at the end of January. ”