The meandering hallways leading through The Factory art collaborative are filled with handmade paintings and holiday gift ideas.
Then you come upon the Wild Space Gallery. Tacked onto the wall is a giant blue map, composed of dozens of hand drawn squares pieced together like a puzzle to form a map of Florida. But "State of Water" is not a typical map - there's no sprawling cities, no clogged Interstate Highways. Just flowing lines of aquamarine.
"So the only thing that's shown is the water of Florida," says Carol Mickett, as she shows off her creation before the gallery's recent grand opening. "And what's amazing is there's so much water. You even want to say where's there room for land? It makes you think about our state in a very, very different way."
The art gallery is the centerpiece of the new headquarters of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation. The nonprofit group is spearheading the preservation of a corridor to allow wildlife migration across Florida. They are racing against rampant development that threatens to isolate their territory, perhaps forever.
Mallory Lykes Dimmitt is the foundation's executive director. She says highlighting the work of nationally-known environmental artists like Mickett and her collaborator and husband, Robert Stackhouse, is an attempt to make people think visually about the struggle to preserve Florida's unique natural features.
"I think it is pretty new for nonprofit conservation groups to be hosting their own gallery and having it be so intimately tied with their mission," she said. "I don't know of too many other organizations that have integrated the gallery space with their offices."
Dimmitt conducts a tour of the new headquarters. The wall at the front entrance is adorned with giant depictions of a Great Blue Heron, Florida black bear and a Swallow-tailed Kite.
"So as we walk in from outside we come past this incredible mural from Ernest Maranje, and then you come into the space. And we want it to feel warm and inviting," she said.
They have transported the wild outdoors - with its interlocking webs of water and greenery - to the walls of this repurposed urban factory.
"This is a place where we envision all partners and people who are curious and want to learn about the wildlife corridor to feel at home," Dimmitt said. "And then, as you come into the gallery, it opens up into this sort of long, linear hall that is meant to be highlighting exhibitions that are on display that will change over time and continue to inspire people."
Noel Smith is the gallery’s curator. She formerly worked at the USF Contemporary Art Museum. She was drawn out of retirement to help promote the environmental education that is highlighted at Wild Space.
Smith points at the State of Water map and says Florida’s ecosystem, flush with water, makes it susceptible to environmental disasters, like what happened to Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina.
"This piece is very concerned with the idea of saltwater intrusion - and the idea of fragility, vulnerability," she said. "The fact that we saw what happened in New Orleans, right, with that wedge of saltwater going up the Mississippi. Well, that can happen to us, too."
Mickett said their exhibition - including a piece named "Ice Cubes in Tampa Bay" -- is directly linked to the need to preserve a wildlife corridor in the state.
"The more we heat up the waters, the more we heat up the atmosphere and things start shutting down, the animals in Florida will be highly impacted," Mickett said. "Even though you don't see a Florida panther or a bear, all of that's implicit in this show."
The exhibition featuring works of Mickett and Stackhouse is open to the public, with free admission, at Wild Space Gallery, located at 2606 Fairfield Ave S., Building #7, through January 13.
