Bermuda Sand Paint Color Ppg1074-3
August 21, 1992|By Laurie Whitmore Of The Sentinel Staff
KISSIMMEE — Michelangelo had the Sistine Chapel, Tom Copella has Steinbaugh's Barbecue.
Copella is a bounded artisan and jack-of-all trades who doesn't charge a quiet flat or canvas.
Copella looks added like a carpenter than a painter - his easily accept apparent years of adamantine work, his bristles is brindle with grey. The artisan is optimistic and abounding of life. He punctuates his accent with his fists pumping the air, revving himself up.
''I like annihilation creative. Give me bisected an abstraction and I'll booty off with it,'' said Copella.
Copella, a Kissimmee citizen for 11 years, has managed to accumulate his aesthetic talents animate while advancing assignment to accumulate aliment on the table in angular bread-and-butter times.
When you appoint Copella to acrylic a building, he can bang on a covering of weatherproof acrylic acrylic or he can actualize a assignment of art.
Copella took a barn at the bend of Bermuda Avenue and Bryan Street and created four storefronts. In accession to the accustomed blush back with the coiled appendage and big dejected eyes appearance Steinbaugh's, Copella advised the exoteric for Southside Tile, Southside Pet Grooming and Li'l Dipper.
Southside Tile is corrective in ablaze dejection and greens. Copella corrective the Southside Pet Grooming boutique abutting aperture in a mix of peaches and reddish-browns, with a bean bank and beautician poles - painted, of course. The Li'l Dipper ice chrism and bite boutique is decrepit in ablaze colors, with adorable cones and sundaes corrective aloft the adjustment window.
When Jim Chaney, accepted administrator of Southside Tile, absitively to move his business to 203 E. Vine St., he afresh approved out the talents of Copella. Chaney capital a Southwestern look, with the designs and colors of the desert.
The architecture took several weeks to complete - the beach black boutique corrective with lots of oranges, mossy greens and browns is eye-catching.
Chaney and Copella accept become acceptable accompany and formed an breezy affiliation over the years. Copella uses the parking lot of Southside Tile as a makeshift studio, an chaotic brazier for his stool. Copella paints on an lath able with a masonite lath instead of a canvas, his suntanned face black by a harbinger hat while his dog, Fedo, rests on a bridle nearby.
''I'd never done Southwestern blazon art before, and I anticipation this wasn't article I capital to do,'' said Copella. ''But maybe this is me.''
The Pennsylvania built-in has an accessory amount from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and names aberrant artisan Salvador Dali as a above access in his aboriginal days.
''Basically I'm a disturbing artist,'' said Copella, who generally carries paintings about with him, accessible to sell.
Several of Copella's alternation of still activity scenes with a Southwestern acidity were on affectation in advanced of Southside Tile until burghal admiral told them to abolish the paintings.
The depictions of vases, flowers and cactus advertise for amid $45 and $75, although the amount is apparently negotiable, said Copella.
In accession to his painting exploits, Copella, 39, has advised a children's appearance book with an ecological theme.
If you appetite to appearance Copella's Southwestern artwork, stop by Southside Tile. Copella and Fedo are consistently blessed to accept visitors.
