TPA Debuts New Public Art Work 'Greetings From Tampa Bay'

TAMPA, FL — Tampa International Airport's public art is meant to create a sense of place for passersby, providing a first look at what Tampa Bay has to offer or sending them away with one last memory of their visit.

And that's exactly what artist Sheryl Oring has accomplished in her piece, "Greetings from Tampa Bay," located on the Main Terminal transfer level near the walkway to the long-term garage.

The exhibit features 171 Polaroid images from the region along with 123 stories gathered directly from those who call this area home.

The 48-foot display creates an unfiltered and intimate depiction of the Tampa Bay region. The stories are fun, surprising, heartwarming and, above all, honest, said Oring.

Oring is an internationally renowned artist and professor and chairwoman of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University in Detroit.

"'Greetings from Tampa Bay' plays off the idea of trying to tell the story of this place," Oring said. "I have developed a framework of working, doing public performances with a typewriter, where I go out to a location with a question. I ask people who are just passing by to answer that question."

In this case, she asked people to share stories of Tampa Bay.

"I went all over the region with a team of typists. We were all dressed up in early 1960s attire, we had manual typewriters and just invited people to come and talk to us," Oring said. "I set up in Ybor City, in St. Petersburg, all around Tampa and people shared their stories about the region, about their history, about their experiences. Sometimes they were really poignant – little family histories or things about why they came to Tampa."

She said one story was stuck with her was told at the Tampa Museum of Fine Art.

"This lesbian couple came up to me at the Tampa Museum of Art. They moved here from Pennsylvania. They never felt comfortable being out in any other place they lived, and they had come to Tampa to retire," Oring said. "They felt very comfortable being out with each other here. It just kind of gave me goosebumps. They lived their whole lives in the closet and then came here and felt comfortable just being themselves. I heard a lot of stories like that. People felt like they could be themselves here. That was really striking. It feels like an accepting place – and a fun place. Definitely fun. There are also a lot of stories of people coming from different parts of the country and leaving their lives behind and starting over. They are embracing a certain joy of living here."

Another memorable story was about the Paradise Grill on St. Pete Beach.

"They have this really sweet tradition where they ring the bell at sunset," Oring said. "I love that so much, and every time I come here I try to get out there at least once."

Those stories helped inspire the photographs she shot for the exhibit.

"To go along with the aesthetics of the typewriter and the whole project, I used Polaroid film – it's a type of special film that has a round image. I just liked the aesthetic of that and how it kind of looked like you were looking through binoculars," Oring said.

Once she had her images, she scanned them and printed them out on aluminum, which is more permanent than printed paper.

"My idea was to paint a picture of a region and to show that portrait in the airport," Oring said. "I'm not from here. It was research, essentially. It was a way to understand the place."

To complete the project required her to take more than a dozen trips to Tampa.

"I was here so many times just trying to understand the place. The travel was really an integral part of the work, in the sense of trying to understand the region," she said.

She was excited to find out her exhibit would be on display in the Main Terminal where it would be seen by thousands of passersby including all the fans flying in for the Super Bowl.

"I'm really super pleased with the location," she said. "It does feel like this could be a welcome, in a way. A welcome to this place. My hope is that some of these pictures and stories will awake those memories and that type of feeling in others. It's meant to extend that moment of joy."