With a keen eye and passion for art, Jorge Vidal for years has helped keep the walls of St. Petersburg’s museums and galleries fresh and fascinating.
These days you’ll find the vivacious Vidal at Florida CraftArt planning exhibits, organizing the annual Florida CraftArt Festival, and juggling a host of other tasks that keep the downtown art space running year round. Vidal took the reins as executive director at the venerable statewide non-profit in July.
St. Pete Son
Vidal’s is a hometown art success story. His mother, a former docent at St. Petersburg’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), brought him and his youngest sister to the museum every Sunday when they were children. Today, he and his youngest sister work for arts organizations.
As a child, he loved creating things. “I would spend hours folding paper and making just weird little objects that I found at home,” Vidal says. “I definitely realized that shift that happens when you are working on a project you are fulfilled by and that time stands still.”
After graduating from St. Petersburg Catholic High School, Vidal studied visual arts at Eckerd College and interned at the MFA. By age 22, he had a good understanding of the components of an art exhibition.
Big Apple Bound
He loved St. Petersburg, but his then girlfriend was studying fashion design in New York City. He was shopping his resume to New York galleries and museums, when a friend who worked for the famous fashion designer Betsey Johnson asked him to temporarily fill in for her. “It was a very collegial atmosphere; celebrities were coming in and out the door, and there were parties we were going to all the time. So, it was a very exciting place.”
Within months, the temporary gig turned into a full-time job, and he became a sales executive with a rich territory. He also learned creative management. “Betsey really relied on what was happening on the streets, and young people had a voice in those meetings,” Vidal says. “It was an early management lesson. Something I try to work towards because we should be listening to each other.”
If and Only If
After four years in New York, Vidal and his then-girlfriend returned to St. Petersburg. Having experience in fashion, they opened a small boutique, If and Only If, on Fourth Street N. The shop sold an eclectic collection of designer clothing, jewelry and gifts. “It was small, but we wanted to make it an experience,” Vidal says. “That was before social media. We were always poring over magazines to see what people were wearing. We’d go to the market and find people making weird great inspired stuff.”
Vidal, an effervescent raconteur, assisted customers who soon became his friends. Business bloomed, and the couple opened a second store, a gift shop, Bossanova in downtown.
Meanwhile, Vidal had also developed a side business hanging installations and coordinating shows for area museums including the MFA, the Dali, Florida International Museum, and the Gulf Coast Museum.
St. Pete Folly
In the midst of the Great Recession, Vidal and his now ex-wife closed their two shops, and he started working full-time in the arts. He has been the director of exhibitions and retail at the Morean Arts Center and was integral to the development of the Chihuly Collection galleries.
He worked as the director and curator for the Duncan McClellan Gallery. At the MFA he was senior manager of special projects and curated successful exhibitions such as “Jewels of the Imagination,” which featured the jewelry art of Jean Schlumberger.
Now running the show at Florida CraftArt, he’s in the midst of the holiday retail event “Unwrapped: Handmade Holidays.” He also is preparing for a January exhibition with Tibetan monks who will create a Sacred Sand Mandala.
When he’s not working, Vidal enjoys the quirkiness of St. Petersburg with his family. “I have always felt we have a fantastic town and architecture like garden follies. We have a Fountain of Youth, a weird baseball past, Al Capone, all this weird history. And the other thing I love about it is that it’s home.”
