The Bostwick Building In Jacksonville, FL
Jaguar Murals
Artist Jim Draper
November 22, 2014



Jim Draper is the painter of one of two murals which I saw every morning as my bus went past the Bostwick Building at the intersection of Main and Bay Streets. The mural is painted on window boarding which has been there since the 1980's. The paintings are of our football team's mascot the Jaguar. This jaguar, because it isn't painted on the outer wall of the building but on the window arches, appears to be crouching inside with its face peering out at the passersby, mouth open and eyes intense. The artwork is so realistic it looks like the cat will jump out at any moment.

Now that the building is due to be renovated, the new owners will have to remove the window boards. I hope they will be placed together at some location so that the artwork will be preserved as well as the historic building. The ideal place for that would be on the inner walls of the building once it is repaired and opened to the public. The proposed use for the Bostwick Building has not been published so far. A restaurant has been suggested. That would make a wonderful setting for a restaurant, with the dramatic painting hung on the walls.

Reproductions of Draper's paintings are available online and one website shows 6 others which are canvas paintings. The images are mainly of Jacksonville's wild nature scenes and native animals, painted with the same photographic style realism as the jaguar. More of his work is available for viewing at CoRK Arts District, Jacksonville, FL I do love painting that is so realistic I am drawn inexorably into its world of beauty.




Preserving Downtown History: Why We Must Save the Bostwick Building - See more at: http://downtownjacksonville.org/blog/2012/10/03/preserving-downtown-history-why-we-must-save-the-bostwick-building/#sthash.VjsJfi56.dpuf

Jacksonville is in danger of losing one of its icons. The Bostwick Building, or as many Jacksonville residents know it, the Jaguar Building at 101 E. Bay St. is slated for possible demolition. This means that visitors coming into the city from the Main Street Bridge heading north could see a hole. An empty lot. A missing tooth in the urban landscape. Vacant since the early 1980s and home to the iconic jaguar mural by local artist, Jim Draper, the building has deteriorated significantly over the years.

In August 2012, the building’s owners applied for a demolition permit. We at Downtown Vision, and many other downtown residents and property owners, believe the building is important to our downtown landscape and should be saved from demolition. Built in 1902, and the first building permitted after the Great Fire, the Bostwick Building, originally know as the Guaranty Trust and Savings Building, is eligible for designation as a Local Historic Landmark. On September 27, the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission (JHPC) reviewed this eligibility and issued an advisory recommendation that the structure receive historic designation, thus preventing its demolition.

The City of Jacksonville is now preparing a report on the historical significance of the building, which will be heard at the JHPC meeting on October 24, 2012. The building has historical significance for a number of reasons:

• It is in a prominent location, at the entry to Downtown from the Main Street Bridge heading north.
• It was the first building permitted following the Great Fire in 1901.
• It is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
• It made the Jacksonville Historical Society’s “12 Worth Saving” list.
• It is located in perhaps the most intact block of historic buildings that exists Downtown today.
• It once housed the office of Henry Klutho, a noted architect who studied under Frank Lloyd Wright and designed many iconic Downtown buildings, including the St. James Building.

If the JHPC finds that the building meets its criteria for designation as a historical landmark, a public hearing will be scheduled and City Council will take up the matter.
 
Please continue to follow this blog as we share ways for our local residents to get involved and have a voice on preserving and revitalizing Downtown Jacksonville.




http://jacksonville.com/business/2014-07-21/story/dixie-egg-co-purchases-historic-bostwick-building-downtown-jacksonville

Dixie Egg Co. purchases historic Bostwick Building in downtown Jacksonville
By David Bauerlein 
Mon, Jul 21, 2014

The owner of the Dixie Egg Co. placed the winning $165,100 bid Monday for the historic Bostwick Building and said he will restore the long-vacant building that stands on a high-profile corner in downtown.

Jacques Klempf previously talked about turning the building into a restaurant, and he has some experience in upscale dining — he worked with partners to open Ovinte at St. Johns Town Center in 2012, followed by purchasing Bistro Aix in San Marco this month.

One of those partners, Chad Munsey, said in an interview last week that at some point the group might open a steak house.

The century-old Bostwick Building is located at Bay and Ocean streets, which is the joint of The Elbow, a collection of restaurants, bars, clubs, shops and art galleries spanning several blocks.

“Our goal is to restore the building so the community can enjoy a piece of our city’s history and to promote economic development in downtown Jacksonville,” Klempf said in a statement issued by his office.

His office said he wouldn’t go beyond the statement Monday in terms of his specific plans for the two-story building, which originally was a bank building.

Chris Hand, chief of staff for Mayor Alvin Brown, called Klempf’s winning bid for the Bostwick Building a “big deal for downtown redevelopment,” made possible by the administration, City Council and Downtown Investment Authority working together.

The building, which stands out because of the jaguar mural painted on its side, faced potential demolition when its former owners, the Bostwick family, said the structure was too far gone to make renovation financially viable.

The City Council refused to grant the Bostwicks a demolition permit and the city filed a foreclosure lawsuit to recover $71,000 in fines assessed for code violations. A judge granted the city’s request for a fast-track ruling on the lawsuit, clearing the way for the foreclosure auction Monday.

The city needed the winning bid to be at least $78,774 to cover the fines owed to the city and the city’s attorney fees related to the lawsuit.

Klempf and business partners in Ovinte had a contract to buy the building last year from the Bostwicks, but that deal fell through. Klempf said in May 2013 the building was at a “great location” and renovating it for use as a restaurant “may even create a domino effect” for restoring other downtown buildings.

It’s not clear whether Klemp’s partners in Ovinte and Bistro Aix will also be involved in the Bostwick Building. The winning bid Monday was submitted by Foodonics Equities LLC, which is related to Dixie Egg Co.

Aundra Wallace, CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority, said the agency is “extremely excited” about Klempf’s purchase and looks forward to working with him on the property.

David Bauerlein: (904) 359-4581




http://www.eujacksonville.com/story2.php?storyid=2453

JIM DRAPER nature to nurture
Jim Draper Paints Pre-Ponce de Leon Florida at His CoRK Studio in Riverside
by JON BOSWORTH
published: January 3, 2012

“Art communities are like animal hoarders. It’s a lot like a cat lady,” says Jim Draper while laughing at the suggestion. “There are good parts and there are significant challenges,” he continues as he describes the new CoRK Artist Community from his own CoRK studio.

Perhaps one of Jacksonville’s most celebrated artists for the caliber of his paintings, the weight of his vision, and his active role in the community, Draper is widely known for his impressionistic palms, rich riverscapes, and even sublime portraits of farm animals. He is also known as an advocate for indigenous Jacksonville culture. He helps local musicians stage shows in the city’s beautiful and under-utilized spaces, he supports up-and-coming artists, ushering them into Jacksonville’s larger art worlds, and generally supports people making art. He is that rare case of a commercially successful artist that makes his living with his painting while creating uncompromising work rich with texture and meaning.

And this isn’t his first rodeo. Draper has been part of Riverside’s art scene for decades. He’s seen these art communities come and go over the years. CoRK, however, is unlike its predecessors in many ways, one of which is that it is home to an artist such as Jim Draper.

“It’s nice having people around. I don’t have to have saws and stuff; if I need something like that I can just run down to Donald. Or Dolf can weld, he has a welder. You can get stuff fixed fast. It’s kind of like ‘it takes a village.’ But it actually works.”

Draper’s favorite aspect of his studio at CoRK is space. It’s a vast open space with giant walls. He has works-in-progress hanging on these walls that are more than seven feet tall and fifteen feet long. CoRK has allowed him the privacy and space to immerse himself in his work.

How’s this for immersion: When you were sitting around a tree unwrapping gifts or sleeping late this Christmas, Draper was kayaking around the southern tip of Florida through mangroves and hammocks and brush. He was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico and climbing over key islands with his camera, capturing Florida’s natural environment the ways he likes to portray it, absent of humanity.

“I try to leave any references to human beings out, let that be the unknown. References to humans are so obvious. I think they are clearly absent. There’s a human quality, which gets you to the surreal more than the real. These elements (pointing at cypress trees in a painting) become the characters instead of the people being the characters.”

Draper’s dripping-wet riverscapes have always appeared dreamlike. Their vibrancy and glow gives them a surreal quality. However, when he showed me the photographs of his adventure kayaking along the tip of our peninsula, the dramatic sunsets, the solitary dead tree standing alone in the shallows, the untouched tree-lined beaches splashed in the light of sunrise, I realized that his work is less surreal than I thought. Those vivid explosions of color and complexity also come through in his pictures. He’s conveying a sort of life on his canvas that isn’t outside of our window, it’s deep in our woods at daybreak; it’s only apparent when you are wet up to your knees, or drifting silently in a canoe. It is dreamlike. He is representing it well.

This most recent exploration is just one of a series of such expeditions all over the state. Draper is collecting images and sketches of the amazing diversity of Florida’s natural environments for a large upcoming show, which he will call “The Feast of Flowers.”

“It’s about the five-hundredth anniversary of Ponce de Leon, but it’s not glorifying colonialism or imperialism, it’s more about exposing the blatant consumerism of the Feast of Flowers – that Western idea of eating everything you can get your hands on. So this show is about Florida before 1513.”

Certainly, getting out in the water helps him immerse himself in the subject matter, but there is more to discover up close than even the grand imagery.

“The immersion informs, not so much visually, but it’s a background to the visual. If you’re not careful with this stuff, you can wind up copying pictures out of magazines. The innocuous pretty picture is not something I’m interested in. I mean, it’s fine, but I’d rather it be about something a little more significant.”

He finds that significance in the tiny details.

“More than anything, you pick up these subtle little metaphors. I’m interested in these visual metaphors and the relationships in nature... The name of the big painting I’m going to do is Sacrificial Leaves. The mangrove will pick a leaf on every branch, it picks one leaf and sends all of the salt to that leaf and the leaf will die so the rest of the plant can have clean water. I like that idea as a metaphor.”

Because Draper will be spending the coming year putting together this ambitious portrait of Florida’s natural environment, he has no shows or events planned any time soon. Keep a lookout in this publication for news about where and when the Feast of Flowers exhibition will show. In the meantime, if you are craving an artful experience, Jim Draper might suggest you get out into some natural spaces and experience it first-hand.

“You miss a lot when you keep building a shell around yourself. There are some things you can’t buy at Wal-Mart.” 




http://stellersgallery.com/artists/bio/jim-draper

Jim Draper

Born 1953 in Kosciusko, Mississippi
Lives and works in Jacksonville, Florida
Education
1978 University of Georgia, MFA
1974 University of Mississippi, BFA
Teaching Experience
2008-Now
Adjunct Instructor, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL
1997-1998
Installation and Art Handling, Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL
Director and Curator, Kent Gallery, Kent Campus, Florida Community College of Jacksonville, FL
Professional Service
2012 Strategic Planning, the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL
2010 Long Range Planning Team, Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL