SOUTH TAMPA
Charles P. Hessemer, 90 years young and about as sharp as the palette knives he paints with, finds artistic inspiration in the costumed-clad revelers of Tampa's favorite annual event.
The details in Hessemer's oil painting series, the Spirit of Gasparilla, are striking: feathered hats and fishnet stockings, sunglasses and red Solo cups, beads and beer.
"People are going to recognize themselves," Hessemer said.
When the Krewe of Queen Anne's Revenge identified their members in a piece, they immediately posted the artwork on their website.
Each canvas is painted from a compilation of multiple photos Hessemer took along the parade route. Some paintings have as many as 12 figures in them.
"I couldn't pose anybody because they wouldn't let me on the street," he said. "So I took pictures and composed them on my computer."
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Hessemer, has captured Gasparilla scenes for two years, "for historical reasons and what it means to our community."
The impressionistic style results from the knife pushing color into color, building depth with the point or the edge, unlike a brush. He paints in his bedroom studio, standing at his easel, listening to classical music.
"They're very difficult to paint. I'll spend 150 hours on one of them," said Hessemer, who has been called a modern Van Gogh for his brilliant color sense. "What it is, is we both paint from the heart."
The retired advertising agency art and creative director always has enjoyed Gasparilla since moving his family to Tampa in 1972, recruited from Chicago where he created trendsetting promotional campaigns at six prestigious agencies, including BBDO, the largest in the world, and MacManus, John-& Adams, where he was responsible for the American Oil, Meisterbrau Lite and other major accounts. The Republican Party of Illinois was also a client.
Disappointed with the ethics of the agency that lured him to Florida, Hessemer started his own firm, Village Adsmith, which evolved into HKLW and Hessemer Lawrence-& Ardelean (HLA) among others, serving clients such as the Tampa International Airport, Celotex, Malio's, Stamas Boats as well as several major banks.
In 2006, Hessemer retired from Creative Fields, the ad shop he started with his youngest son Eric.
"At one point, all three of my sons were in the ad business with me," he said.
Through the years, Hessemer estimates he's sold 300 paintings - figurescapes, nudes, still lifes and seascapes - in galleries from Maui to Sante Fe, N.M., to Dallas, Chicago and Palm Beach.
"He captures the light beautifully and his colors are amazing," said architect Sol Fleischman, who has known the artist for 40 years and owns three of his paintings.
But the Gasparilla originals are not for sale.
Digital prints can be ordered online at colorsofhessemer.com and they are available in bulk to local retailers. Hessemer expects to donate a percentage of the profits to a homeless charity.
"Not everyone can have a painting, but anyone can own a print," said his son Eric. "Ultimately, we'd like to find a home for them in one of the area museums for people to appreciate them."
Hessemer is absolutely convinced his dual degrees in fine arts and commercial art was divine providence. Having completed basic training, the U.S. Navy tapped him to work in an "ultra top-secret compound" in Washington, D.C., post-World War II. To this day, Hessemer will not speak of his sensitive government work but he'll gladly talk about finding a sketchbook "How to Draw the Figure," in a drawer of his otherwise-empty desk.
"Divine intervention ... that book was absolutely left there for me," he said. "I had no idea what I wanted to do and I really didn't know anything about fine art."
Within a week of opening that drawer, Hessemer was taking classes at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the art department of George Washington University. After his hitch in the Navy, back home in Jackson, Mich., he signed up for a Famous Artists correspondence course. His work took top prize in a county fair where a judge urged him to enroll in the American Academy of Art in Chicago.
Today, well over 150 canvases line the walls and fill the closets of his south Tampa home, including more than 50 of his favorite model and muse, his late wife Norine.
More are coming. The nonagenarian started a new Gasparilla painting, Beads Over You, just last week.
"I need to get a photographer's pass to be on the street," he said, "So I can truly continue the Spirit of Gasparilla."