00;00;00;02 - 00;00;12;14

Gene Coppola

I've been involved with art shows and so forth, and I really got to know quite a few artists and they just see things we just don't see. So if you listen to them and see them, you may be getting into this big secret that art is pretty cool.

00;00;17;16 - 00;01;03;14

Malaika Hollist

Hi, welcome to Season two of the Arts Axis Florida podcast. I'm your host Malaika Hollist. Each episode we amplify the voices of the diverse art nonprofit organizations in our community. Conversations Community and Connection is right here on the Arts Axis Florida Podcast. Support for Arts Axis Florida comes from Community Foundation, Tampa Bay championing philanthropy, encouraging and connecting givers to bring lasting good investing in education and economic mobility.

00;01;04;06 - 00;01;42;26

Malaika Hollist

Learn more at C F Tampa Bay dot org, that's C F Tampa Bay dot org. Today we chat with the director of the Palm Harbor Library, Gene Coppola. Gene is a champion of art and believes wholeheartedly that having access to art is essential in enhancing and creating a well-rounded person. Here on the Arts, Axis Florida Podcast, we couldn't agree more. We chat about how their library is not just a library, but an art centric center and moving the art scene forward in the Palm Harbor area.

00;01;45;16 - 00;01;55;13

Malaika Hollist

Gene, thank you so much for joining us this morning. The Palm Harbor Library is more than just a library. It's also a full art center. Would you mind describing that to us?

00;01;56;15 - 00;02;19;22

Gene Coppola

Absolutely. A public library is a public library is a public library. What Gertrude Stein probably would say, but it's not true. All public libraries differ depending upon the community it serves the temperment of the what's required by the governing boards and the philosophy of the library director irreproachable library. We are in a unincorporated community, which is extremely important to know.

00;02;20;01 - 00;02;53;02

Gene Coppola

There is no city infrastructure here. So we are really allowed to do a little bit more here and then what you maybe to do elsewhere. And and because it I've taken advantage over the past few years to to take that course to make this library more of an art centric type of facility, meaning that we are here not just to provide normal public library services, but also to be here to actively promote and support the visual and performing arts, which I think is extremely important in our society.

00;02;53;25 - 00;03;20;17

Gene Coppola

Math and science as important as they are. The art, in my opinion, plays as an important role and unfortunately doesn't get the praise that it should One of my roles here is to do something about that, because I think really people really do appreciate it. Sometimes they don't realize it and they do it. We have that opportunity to provide a lot of different services, and we're moving in that direction actively as well as passively.

00;03;20;26 - 00;03;44;11

Malaika Hollist

How do you feel that art has personally impacted you? Because I've recently been reading this book and I don't know if you've heard of it. It's called The Artist's Way, and it's basically about helping everyone every single person realize the artist inside of them, because some people think only certain kind of people are artists. But artists really is a term for being creative, and everybody can be creative.

00;03;44;20 - 00;03;52;07

Malaika Hollist

So I am interested to know how has art personally impacted you and what has made this be something you've wanted to make a career out of?

00;03;53;02 - 00;04;22;28

Gene Coppola

Well, frankly, it doesn't hurt when you're a Pisces like I am, and we love the arts. But besides that, I have found and I frankly to be quite honest with you, I didn't realize how much I enjoy art and how much it is impacted me until I was older. Maybe that comes with age. I don't know. Maybe I took it for granted when I was in my twenties and thirties, but I find that art is just a beautiful thing.

00;04;22;28 - 00;04;54;21

Gene Coppola

To see, to be immersed, to do an art can take in a lot of different directions. And I think you're right. I think there's creativity in all of us, whether we allow it to get out or to embrace it or whatever is up to each one of us. And I guess that's one of the things we're trying to do here at the library, is to give people of all ages, children, young adults, teens, adults and so forth the opportunity to to be embraced by the arts, to to be involved with the arts and being creative, it can mean just about anything at all.

00;04;55;03 - 00;05;16;25

Gene Coppola

Giving an example, my assistant, Cathy, she's a miniaturist she makes these wonderful little things that are so tiny that would drive me crazy. And they're a work of art and they really, really are. So what I have found is, is that it's it's giving me an extra. Art has really and a lot of my life, it's given me and a great, great appreciation to look at life.

00;05;17;13 - 00;05;41;11

Gene Coppola

You know, if you ever work with artists, they're a special breed, man. Yeah. You see, they see the world so differently from everybody else. I've been involved with art shows and so forth, and I really got to know quite a few artists, and they just see things we just don't see. So if you listen to them and see them and network with them, you may be getting into this big secret that art is pretty cool.

00;05;41;11 - 00;05;52;13

Gene Coppola

There's a lot of great stuff out there, even though regardless of what you would see, it's impacting me greatly in so many ways. And I feel more fulfilled.

00;05;52;25 - 00;06;12;17

Malaika Hollist

That's great. I think I agree. I think, you know, I grew up dancing a lot and I had parents who played a lot of instrument art and music, and I feel like it added like a I don't know, a sensitivity to me that maybe I wouldn't have had if I hadn't been involved in so many arts and met so many artistic people.

00;06;12;17 - 00;06;31;12

Malaika Hollist

I think art can make you a little bit more a little bit more empathetic and a little bit more understanding of people around you because you you you find yourself around more people and more diverse people usually. So I think that's another really important reason why art should be for everyone.

00;06;31;25 - 00;06;36;08

Gene Coppola

Oh, yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more with you. You hit it right on the head. I agree.

00;06;36;24 - 00;06;50;26

Malaika Hollist

So at the Palm Harbor Library, you guys also have a lot of different things that you offer. Like, for example, you have a children's art center. Would you mind explaining just some of the different programs that you have going on? There?

00;06;51;01 - 00;07;10;17

Gene Coppola

Right off the bat, we have the children's art makerspace, like you just mentioned, that particular we carved out an area in the children's area where children are allowed to come in up to a certain age. I think it's six, seven, something like that, or eight where they can go in in this area. Parents are not allowed in this area.

00;07;10;17 - 00;07;28;16

Gene Coppola

They're not allowed to tell kids what to do with art. We allow the children to create their own art. We give them all kinds of stuff like googly eyes and all kinds of stuff. They create their own thing. We have easels in there for them to paint and whatever. They create their own thing and they have a great, great time doing that.

00;07;28;24 - 00;07;52;15

Gene Coppola

But some of the other things we do actively, which you library card we allow, you can borrow instruments, musical instruments, all kinds of things. And as a SNL aficionado, yes, we do offer cowbells so you can bargain with your library card. Also, we have an art book club at the local art museum library at the Museum of Art where we meet there every other month.

00;07;53;27 - 00;08;18;04

Gene Coppola

My head of youth services goes over there too, and there's a children's art story time. We also have an outside sculpture that years ago Pinellas County, through the Art Council, was able to provide to us with a $50,000 grant, and I wanted to make sure it was outside and lit so you can see it 24 hours a day making a statement that this is a place for art.

00;08;18;28 - 00;08;44;04

Gene Coppola

We also have a juried art area where we work with the library at the Museum of Arts, a curator, art curator, and she helps us pick artwork throughout this area that is juried quality. They were on display for a couple of months. We also have murals on the outside the library. We had a muralist paint some local scenes on the north side of the building and recently we had a palm tree painted on the west side of the building.

00;08;44;04 - 00;09;14;25

Gene Coppola

So we're attracting murals in that way. And recently since we don't have a city and we rely on the county to help us out in some regards, Creative Pinellas provided assistance last year when we sponsored spacecraft. Spacecraft was this a genius idea where these artists purchased these two shipping containers and made them into art areas where they were planted on a parking lot, where you can walk through it and they provide all kinds of art activities for kids and adults?

00;09;15;04 - 00;09;38;08

Gene Coppola

It was one of the coolest things we ever saw. Then, of course, as you know, we had a right on the parking lot. Very, very cool. Also, in addition to that, we do have the Artfull evening, which is an annual fundraising event right, where we have ten artists not just exhibit but demonstrate the artwork. So you can come up close and really get together with the artists and see what kind of work that they do.

00;09;38;18 - 00;09;46;15

Gene Coppola

And it doesn't hurt that we have a 15 piece swing band at night. So that really helped out. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of art.

00;09;46;16 - 00;09;47;11

Malaika Hollist

That sounds fun.

00;09;47;27 - 00;10;06;28

Gene Coppola

And you know, we have a few other things, but that just gives you an idea that, oh, and the other thing I want to mention to the new endeavor we created and I may have told you this previously, but I'm very anti beige and tan. I mean, those colors are just so boring when you go to the library, just, oh my gosh, it's like the kiss of death.

00;10;07;08 - 00;10;33;10

Gene Coppola

So what we've done here at the library is whatever we can do to make it as colorful as possible. One area that eluded me for a long time, but now we've been able to resolve it. When you go into a library, you see those large book ranges, and at the end of each book-ranges, what they call an end pattern holds up the range, actually, the simulated wood grain look to it, which is, oh, my God, it's just horrible to look at it as far as I'm concerned.

00;10;33;18 - 00;10;51;18

Gene Coppola

So what I came up with an idea and it really worked out well. We work with a local company and on several of our new end panels of our book ranges, we now have art wraps. What we've done is we picked an artist in public domain and had one of his or her paintings put on the end panels.

00;10;51;18 - 00;11;06;00

Gene Coppola

Now you see art at the end of the book ranges, so it makes it even more colorful. So yeah, and we're putting on it, we're going to put on a QR code to let you know who the artist is and their works and stuff like that. So, so we are looking at doing a lot of things like that.

00;11;06;06 - 00;11;13;04

Malaika Hollist

I like that. I'm picturing it in my brain because all libraries kind of have a similar look and I haven't seen that before. So that's really cool.

00;11;23;25 - 00;11;30;12

Malaika Hollist

Back to the children and their kind of art exploration. So they have complete free reign when they're in there.

00;11;30;24 - 00;11;31;12

Gene Coppola

Absolutely.

00;11;31;23 - 00;11;52;11

Malaika Hollist

So they know there's no rules. They just have them come in and say, Create whatever you want, correct? Ooh, that's very fun. They probably they probably love that why do you think instilling art in children is so important, instilling that kind of like autonomy, like just create what you want. There's no rules whatever comes to mind is good.

00;11;53;19 - 00;12;19;00

Gene Coppola

It's extremely crucial to have art in your lives. And I wish it was instilled in me at a younger age, frankly. And the reason why I say that is as important as math and the sciences are, and they are extremely important. Of course, I truly, truly believe that you cannot be a well-rounded citizen unless you also include art in your lives.

00;12;19;13 - 00;12;51;12

Gene Coppola

That gives you a total perspective of your community, art and sciences. I mean, math and and science. You do play an extremely important role in what we do as a society. But art is what makes gives the quality of life to a community. And art can take an various forms. And we need to get it done early with children, especially if you go to a lot of schools, art departments, and I hate to say library services are the first things to be cut.

00;12;52;03 - 00;13;27;28

Gene Coppola

And because they're not seen as important as the other classes, not to say they're any better, but I say there as important. So what we're trying to do is fill in the void of those areas where art has been abandoned by schools, not out of choice, but society and we're trying to fill that void. I honestly believe if you expose a child to the arts dancing, as you were saying before, painting, playing music, whatever it may be, I truly believe it enriches the child's life and it gives them added value to life and eventually, hopefully added value to the community.

00;13;27;28 - 00;13;31;20

Gene Coppola

Where they grow up is extremely important, and that's what we're trying to do here.

00;13;32;04 - 00;13;52;23

Malaika Hollist

Yeah, I definitely agree. I think I think that 1 thing that I thought of while you were talking is, you know, I remember in school, you know, taking math and science and history and English and all those things were, you know, I was one of those kids who kind of liked school I just liked learning. But art is probably the I took a lot of art classes.

00;13;52;23 - 00;14;14;06

Malaika Hollist

I took guitar, I took ceramics, I took sewing, I took I was musical theater. And art is the only class. It's mostly subjective. Like there's no you know, most classes have set rules and their set knowledge and facts. And I think having something subjective that you're working on and doing every day is important because life is very subjective.

00;14;14;06 - 00;14;36;00

Malaika Hollist

Like, I think often with life and the issues that we have every day is people are trying to put rules on other people in certain situations. And that's not really realistic because everybody has a different view of the world. So I agree that I think getting involved in any kind of art, not even necessarily just the ones that are the first to come to mind, can be really helpful.

00;14;36;06 - 00;14;48;29

Malaika Hollist

And expanding your mind and your growth as you get older. And so since this is something you're so passionate about, what does changing the current art scene in the Palm Harbor area look like to you?

00;14;50;05 - 00;15;11;25

Gene Coppola

I don't think maybe changing is it so much is making more people aware of what we can do. If you look at Pinellas County right now, the hot spot and deservedly so is Saint Pete. Oh, my God, what an art mecca that is. I salivate at the idea if I was a library director down there, I would be doing so much involved with the art scene.

00;15;12;13 - 00;15;31;08

Gene Coppola

But I operate in North County and there's a lot of great stuff happening up in North County. I think just people need to be made more aware of. For example, there's a lot of great stuff happening and needed a lot of great stuff. They have the art they need arts I think it's the Art Council. I forget what the name group is over there, but there's a wonderful artist indeed.

00;15;31;18 - 00;15;48;13

Gene Coppola

There's a wonderful artist living right here in Palm Harbor. I think one of the problems that we have here in North County, which I'm trying to help, is that since we're unincorporated, as I mentioned before, and we are not part of any kind of city infrastructure to give us support, we have to rely upon the county to give us any support at all.

00;15;48;23 - 00;16;16;00

Gene Coppola

And I was very, very happy to see the public artwork on the intersection of Belcher and Alderman. Very cool piece. Very, very cool piece. And I just wish there was more public art up here. I just wish there was more venues and opportunities to promote and support the arts other than besides a library, of course, Library and Museum of Art, which is a wonderful institution we are trying to do more here.

00;16;16;05 - 00;16;40;17

Gene Coppola

We're kicking off a brand new program. We're doing this on a quarterly basis in our libraries activity center. We're calling it the library lounge. Now what it is, it's a quarterly after hours event, small venue for maybe 2530 people. You have to register for it and then we're having in June, we're having bossa nova music. In September, we're going to be having Beatles night on the guitar.

00;16;40;25 - 00;17;02;18

Gene Coppola

And in December we're going to have our harpist playing holiday music. So we're, we're going to try to do that after Hours Cafe thing. And that's just another way we're trying to create that. I really love to see more opportunity for people to come in and really enjoy the arts. We don't have a Dali Museum here and we don't have fine arts, but we do have to leap around, which is a great, great institution.

00;17;03;00 - 00;17;14;02

Gene Coppola

So maybe not so much changing, but maybe making more aware of the rich culture and art that we do actually have here. And I would love to see more public art if it's if that becomes available.

00;17;15;07 - 00;17;25;14

Malaika Hollist

How can people find you? Were are some places that they can go, they can go to your website. Is there any other places that they can find out more information about what you guys have going on?

00;17;26;08 - 00;17;35;18

Gene Coppola

Well, first of all, our website address, very difficult to remember so make sure you write this down. WWW dot Palm Harbor Library dot org.

00;17;35;24 - 00;17;36;13

Malaika Hollist

haha

00;17;36;18 - 00;18;00;20

Gene Coppola

Go there, you'll find everything that you need to know physically. We are located at 2330 Nebraska Avenue, very colorful. You'll see the sculpture, you'll see the murals. Yeah. It's a can't miss type of thing. But a website is probably the best thing. And then we have this wonderful new road sign. We have some great graphics and whatever. So I'll let you know a lot of activities going on over there.

00;18;01;08 - 00;18;04;14

Malaika Hollist

So, Gene I hear there's a special event happening on April 1st.

00;18;04;22 - 00;18;35;07

Gene Coppola

Believe it or not, we're having our open house on April 1st. I blame I have to blame my the founder of our library that we were founded on April Fool's Day. But, you know, that's the way it goes. But believe it or not, on April 1st, this library will be celebrating 44 years of service on our own. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's very cool because it's kind of interesting where we are in a county facility and a county building, but we are not operated by the county.

00;18;35;07 - 00;18;57;23

Gene Coppola

It truly is. And it truly is a community library where it's supported through local tax dollars and by the community members. It's it's an amazing thing that we've done together is as a group. So yeah. 44 years, we're open house from five to 7 p.m. We're inviting everybody come in and look at your library, look at what you're supporting and love to meet you and shake your hand.

00;18;58;06 - 00;19;22;00

Malaika Hollist

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Gene for being on the podcast today and we really appreciate your time. Gene cares so much about the arts and is really making change in this community. You can find the Palm Harbor Library at 2330 Nebraska Avenue in Palm Harbor. We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of the Arts Axis Florida podcast.

00;19;22;12 - 00;19;50;25

Malaika Hollist

You can find more information on today's guests in the show notes. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching Arts Axis Florida or go to our web site, Arts Axis Florida dot org to get access to the arts. That's Arts A X I S F L dot org. Our show is a product of WUSF Public Media and made possible by our sponsors Community Foundation Tampa Bay and Gobioff foundation.

00;19;51;14 - 00;20;00;21

Malaika Hollist

A special thanks to our editor Scott Wachtler and many more who make this show possible. Copyright 2022 WUSF Public Media.

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