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Guatemalan folk art gallery opens in St. Petersburg

 
Dr. Robert Drapkin, 70, and his wife, Chitranee, began collecting Guatemalan folk art a dozen years ago. In addition to retail items, they are selling their personal collection at From Mayan Hands.
Dr. Robert Drapkin, 70, and his wife, Chitranee, began collecting Guatemalan folk art a dozen years ago. In addition to retail items, they are selling their personal collection at From Mayan Hands.
Published Dec. 17, 2014

ST. PETERSBURG

As a specialist in cancer and blood disorders, Dr. Robert Drapkin has been in the business of saving lives for most of his adult life. He also has spent an almost equal amount of time saving art. He and his wife, Chitranee, are collectors partial to fragility. Their main areas of interest are early forms of photography and pre-Columbian ceramics, both more vulnerable to destruction than many other art forms.

Twelve years ago, the couple began another collection and another rescue mission of sorts. They fell in love with Guatemalan folk art created by descendants of the great Mayan civilization, specifically, objects that reflected the synthesis between Mayan spiritual beliefs and the Catholic faith that was introduced by Spanish conquerors beginning in the 15th century.

"I first visited Guatemala with a friend who owned New World Imports, which imported contemporary folk art. It was beautiful and inexpensive. I started collecting older examples," Drapkin says. "He suggested I buy the business when he retired. Our two daughters were grown and my wife wanted something to do. So she took over the import business."

They travel frequently to the Central American country, bordered by Mexico, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and the Pacific Ocean, to buy wooden masks and statues, ceramics and textiles hand-crafted by an ever-shrinking population of skilled artisans. She sells the items wholesale to galleries and gift shops throughout the United States.

Now the Drapkins are selling them locally, too, in a new gallery.

From Mayan Hands is located in an old warehouse on the fringe of the Warehouse District, at 2006 Second Ave. S, St. Petersburg. A dramatic mural with a dark background and white skeletons, a popular image for religious folk art, covers the facade facing 20th Street, and another brightly colored painting decorates the gallery's entrance.

Much of the building houses the wholesale business but two spaces have been created for retail sales.

One of them is full of the contemporary folk art: hand-carved and painted masks, statues of animals and saints, figures from the ancient Mayan culture; intricate woven textiles including table runners and huipiles, the traditional blouse for Guatemalan women; and ceramic figures. One of the most intriguing is a statue Drapkin calls "Skelvis," a guitar-wielding, Elvis-like skeleton, an interpretation of traditional and scarier skeletons displayed on certain religious occasions. Prices for the contemporary items range from $5 to several hundred dollars.

"Everything is essentially one of a kind," he says. "When I first started this, I would ask for multiples of something. I learned in time and the hard way that nothing is made in multiples. You get something and then you never see it done that way again."

As fun and interesting as these objects are, the front gallery space is fascinating. It displays the Drapkins' personal collection, which they have put up for sale. Most objects date from the late 19th to early 20th century. The prices in this gallery are considerably higher, running sometimes into several thousand dollars. In these rarer works that Drapkin has assembled for more than a decade, we see a clearer picture of the way the Mayans assimilated Christianity into their cosmology. A shadow box contains a crucifixion, for example, but the frame on the case's glass door is embellished with the design of a Mayan king's headdress. The cross is, for the Mayans, also a representation of the four quadrants of their creation myth and the symbol of the Flowering Tree which connects the gods with earth and mortals.

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He is selling the collection because "it's time. I'm 70. I have stopped collecting."

Some of his remarkable photography collection has already been given to the Tampa Museum of Art, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. The last museum has been the greatest recipient of the Drapkins' largesse. In 2011, they and their friends Bruce and Ludmila Dandrew donated almost 10,000 photographic images that span the history of the medium. With 14,000 images, the museum has one of the most significant collections in the South.

Drapkin hopes the pre-Columbian ceramics will be purchased by a private collector. And this collection, dispersed to those he hopes will understand its specialness.

"It's dying out," he says. "These people live very simply and have little money. The younger ones leave for the cities and don't return, don't have an interest in learning their parents' craft."

The gallery is "a labor of love," he says. "There is so much to learn; every piece has a story."

And he will tell the stories to you if he's there when you visit.

Contact Lennie Bennett at lbennett@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8293.