- Your favorite pair of shoes? Gina Shoes
- 3 favorite cds/albums? 1. XTC - Black Sea 2. Beatles - White Album 3. Radiohead - OK computer
- What would your one message to the world be? Melt the guns and never more to desire them!
- What if anything do you think the Tampa Bay area needs to do/have to be more supportive of working artists? It is a very complicated issue, I think Tampa being a town of tourists and students as well as professionals has never really grown up. I dont think it has, or maybe never will, have the culture it so desperately lacks. There is still a plantation mentality, i.e the status quo, that prevails here. I also think people want something for nothing. And the Internet has really changed the complexion of the world and Tampa is no exception. I think that if more people would take one night away from their reality TV programs and maybe read a book or try to learn about artists and music in their own backyard it might be a start. Tampa Bay Muse is also a great idea to communicate through the web and maybe reach a few lost souls in the sea of mediocrity
- Spam or Tofurki? Tofu, although spam does come with it's own key!! .
all artwork (c) Robert Wegmann
Robert Wegman circa 1982
local
art: Robert Wegmann 
Local
musician/artist Robert Wegmann has been a mainstay of the local Tampa
arts community since the early 1980's when he joined his first band "Triple
XXX Girls",
a popular new wave local fave. He produced his first solo recording, a
7 inch vinyl single, "Love Book" shortly after that now calling it "forgettable"
(editor's note: that happens to be in my collection and I still love it).
He then joined local musician's Bill Bechtal's band 360, while continuing to work on his solo work releasing "Dangerous Curves" and "Poisoned Paradise", playing most of the instruments himself as well as designing his own cover artwork. After leaving 360 Wegman released "Down to the sea in ships" to great national and international acclaim and followed up with "The Wild Party". Then as Wegman puts it, "I took a rest for a few years".
Wegmann returned, recording a solo disc, "Red Hair", and doing a collaboration with Tim Mullally called "Mayfly Glimmer". Wegman says, "" In-between all this I produced a hand full a people, played on many discs and of course I drew." He also was employed for a comic company called Millennium where he did pencils and colored for them. Robert has recently returned to the local arts community, showing his paintings as well as working on finishing his latest musical opus "Keeper of the Bees" which he promises "to be a doozy".
What
medium/s are you working in now?
Well, as of late I have shifted from pencil and inks to oil on canvas,
however the oils are not really a conventional type used in pantings.
I am using a paint called One Shot, it's a lead based paint, it is really
designed to be used for lettering and such on outdoor signs.
Who
are some of your musical as well as artistic influences?
Musically I am into David Sylvian, King Crimson, Bill Nelson, Owsley,
Beatles, XTC, Finn Brothers, Squeeze to name a couple as far as artists.
I love Edward Hopper, Magritte, Dali, Rembrandt. I also have a couple
cartoonists I like, Matt Howarth and Mark Sylvestri.
I
believe you are currently working on portraits of famous musicians. What
else do we have to look forward to from you in the future? Also tell us
about your musician portraits.
I guess the musician thing is born out of my own love and involvement
in the music industry. I am really on a pop icon thing now. I just did
3 paintings of a VW bug, a VW micro bus, and a Vespa Scooter, all pop
icons of a sort really. I am going to do women next Betty Page, Blondie,
and Lauren Bacall. I actually love drawing women so I might just stay
in that area for a while. As for the music thing, I am in the final stages
of the next one "Keeper of the Bees". There are a couple musicians who
I have admired that are adding some tracks to it as well so that is really
exciting to me.
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