Pinellas Park artists invite visitors to step into ‘The Attic’

Boo Ehrsam. Photo: Facebook.

Longtime Pinellas Part artist Boo Ehrsam, well-known for her elaborately-staged Halloween haunted houses, has devised an exhibition and installation that includes similar creative elements.

The Attic, taking place Friday and Saturday at Derek Donnelly’s Saint Paint space, 5705 Park Blvd., consists of paintings, sketches, graffiti-style art, fabric art and more from Ehrsam and several of the more artistic members of her family.

The centerpiece (the “crown jewel”) is a full-sized reproduction of an artist’ studio – cluttered and dusty, with unfinished works, sketchbooks and dried-out paintbrushes everywhere. It’s a mysterious attic.

For Ehrsam, it’s a portal, “building on the concept of things one stores away beyond the material things, like ‘forgotten dreams,’ ‘mislaid hopes,’ ‘caches of pure genius,’ ‘lofty thoughts and high ambitions.’ We artists of all disciplines do that.”

Along with Ehrsam’s whimsical and mystical works, The Attic will include works by her graffiti-painting grandson, Evan Ehrsam, fabric and textile art (of the spooky, spider-webby, haunted house-variety) by Carla Kaufman (Boo’s niece) and the animal-themed paintings of Laura “Miss Crit” Spencer, who is Kaufman’s sister.

The event will include Tarot readings from Miss Rebecca, Boo’s sister (and the girls’ mother).

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Spencer and her Aunt Boo are both obsessed with the novel The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern, a book-reading adventure story – sort of like Indiana Jones and the Neverending Story.

“We’re extracting some of the imagery and some of the concepts from the book,” Spencer said.

“It’s about a character who finds himself in this underground realm. And it is like the most fantastical library you have ever seen. There are books lining the walls, there are rooms full of books, there are stories written on scrolls tucked into the cracks and crevasses of walls. There are stories to be read at the booms of teacups, or on the underside of a napkin.”

When a visitor enters the attic, Spencer explained, “You enter the artist’s workspace. You’ll see a drafting table in the corner, and piles of sketchbooks opened, easels and empty frames, and maybe a wastebin overflowing with crumpled pieces of paper. There’ll be an old rug rolled up and leaning in a corner.

Miss Crit (Laura Spencer). Photo: Facebook.

“It’s kind of that idea of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or something, you going into the armoire and all of a sudden you’re transported into this different place.”

The Starless Sea, she said, is “a very odd, beautiful, incredibly magical story about storytelling – it’s about a mythical place where everything is about books and stories, and sort of romantic ideals.”

In creating the attic/portal, Ehrsam said she include an “homage” to the world Morgenstern created. “There will be stacks of books, many, with battery powered candles on them,” she explained. “I tossed some National Geographics in, because what self-respecting attic doesn’t have those to peruse in there?”

Visitors, she said, might like to poke around in there and play the “find the old stuff” game. The attic is itself a work of art. “It may help them ponder their own aspirations they may have shut away in the attic of their minds. Maybe a time to reflect on those things.”

Most if not all of the featured art will be for sale, Ehrsam added. “And as artists after two hurricanes, we could use some public support! It should be a nice celebration after those storms.”

Gallery owner Donnelly, a painter, muralist and another longtime fixture on the art scene in Pinellas County, didn’t have to be asked twice to give two nights over to The Attic and the Ehrsams.

“It’s a celebration of them, all of their collective commitments to the creative community over the decades,” he said. “It’s definitely the kind of thing we’re going to be proud to showcase here.”

The Attic is on view 6-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday (Dec. 6 and 7). Admission is free.

TigerLily, by Miss Crit.