Memories are made of the most outrageous moments of our lives. Truth Rumors and Fantasies attempts to capture some of the most memorable events that took place in and around those of us who inhabited the infamous Beaux Arts Coffee Shop and Gallery in Pinellas county near St. Petersburg, Florida. Adventures, discoveries and experimentation there drove a generation or two of artists to rebel and think outside the box before that term was coined and decades before digital media replaced real art and real life experiences. We live in the moment of a dying art and lifestyles without knowing it.
All that is left now is a sense of loss and a painful need to keep those memories alive for as long as we can. We hope to share some sense of what it mean to stop a war and demand civil rights for a new generation of rebels. The gentrification that started in Florida in the 1980’s when Beaux Arts was closed down, is spreading around the globe as the homeless tents multiply outside the empty homes around the world, followed closely by demolition and cranes behind chain link fences. Instead of locking people in, we lock them out, but, it amounts to the same thing.
Who can truly claim credit for efforts that won freedoms for millions and liberties that were won but are now under threat of attack on so many fronts? Who is there among us who will take up the banner of art as a wedge against intolerance and pure greed and evil?