‘Bare-bones authentic’: Chad Mize finds his SPACE

When he’s worked up about something, Chad Mize can’t stop smiling. And at the moment he’s positively beaming about a funky new art venue he’s curating and will unveil March 10, on Second Saturday ArtWalk weekend.

He’s calling it SPACE because, well, it is one, and it’s got a lot of space. While Mize isn’t sure of the exact square footage, it’s a whole lot bigger than the tiny Mize Gallery he walked away from in December.

You could probably fit 12 or 14 Mize Galleries into this new place, in the Warehouse Arts District – 855 28th St South, a stone’s throw from The Factory. It’s a nondescript collection of impossibly long, tall concrete rooms that used to be maintenance bays for Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority buses.

The place is industrial, spartan and nontraditional, and therefore to Mize’s way of thinking the ideal venue to showcase art that challenges, and defies easy classification. He calls it “bare-bones authentic” and doesn’t intend to over-spruce it up before the March 10 opening. No state-of-the-art gallery lighting for this place.

“This is a dream for me, to have a space this size,” says the artist and entrepreneur. “What I can do here with my own art, and also show large pieces, installations, sculpture … those are things I couldn’t do in my little tiny gallery.”

The PSTA garages are part of the 23 acres owned by the Iafrate family, whose St. Pete Distillery is on the other side of the massive property, on 31^st Street South.

After he closed his gallery, Mize says, “I wanted to take a break because I had done that for five years.” His commission work – murals, paintings and designs – keeps him busy, and the grind of keeping regular venue hours was wearing him down. “But this was an opportunity that came into my lap, and I couldn’t say no to it.”

Mize had done work for the Distillery owners in the past. “They caught wind that I was shutting down the gallery, and they were like ‘We have this space that we’d really like to see an art element on.’ And that’s what led to this.”

“When I first moved here, 20 years ago, we were doing a lot of these warehouse parties. There wasn’t a lot of stuff happening at that time in St. Pete. So it’s like this whole nostalgic kind of vibe.”

It’s not, he stresses, a gallery. “My idea is to do, for myself, four shows a year, including a big opening weekend, and just be open for that weekend. So it’s kind of like, you have to come and see it that weekend.

“With the gallery, it was like retail. I had to be there every weekend. I didn’t want to do that again. This is just one weekend, four times a year, put all your energy into that one weekend. And then, it’s like one of those things – if you miss it, you miss it.”

He sees himself as the venue’s facilitator; he wants to grow it, so that others can use it when he’s not in there curating. Artists, musicians, filmmakers, whoever has a good idea.

The “pop-up” nature of this new endeavor appeals to him. “This is kind of like old-school St. Pete,” Mize explains. “When I first moved here, 20 years ago, we were doing a lot of these warehouse parties. There wasn’t a lot of stuff happening at that time in St. Pete. So a lot of the guys then – the Vitale Brothers, Bask, Tes One, we were all doing that 20 years ago. So it’s like this whole nostalgic kind of vibe.”

The center room – the bay where the buses would roll in for under-carriage oil changes – will feature work from some 30 local artists, including paintings, sculpture, installations and other things that were too big to put up in the old Mize Gallery.

Mize and artist Andrea Pawlisz, his partner in the transformation from PSTA bays to “pop-up” art venue.

In another unpainted, windowless room, muralist Bask (a.k.a. Ales Hostomsky) will be the featured artist. “We like the raw nature of it,” Mize says. “Bask and I were looking for a large venue to showcase his work. And this just speaks of him. ‘Cause he’s a street artist – his work is grimy and dark.”

Projection artist Bryan Nichols’ video light installation will take up residence in a third room, where bus tires were rotated in the dark old days.

Mize is keeping a small room in the back as a studio for himself.

The big reveal – the opening reception – will be from 7 to 11 p.m. Friday, March 10. The planned bells and whistles include live art demos, food trucks, DJs (he’s putting them up in the industrial loft), live T-shirt printing and a craft cocktail bar from the St. Pete Distillery.

SPACE will be open from 4-10 p.m. on March 11 (for the Second Saturday ArtWalk) and from 11 to 4 on Sunday the 12^th.

After that, it won’t be around until the next event, timed to coincide with the Pride celebrations in June.

If you snooze, you lose.

“This is a moment in time,” Mize enthuses. “I feel like this is going to be developed, like everything else in St. Pete. But you can’t find a building like this, to use for this type of thing.”

Correction. He found it. And he’s hoping SPACE’s introductory event is a big success.

“I even had fliers printed, which I haven’t done in 13 years,” he laughs. “Back in the day, that’s what we did, before social media. You had to print fliers to get people to your events.”