C. Emerson Fine Arts

A great gallery that consistently shows emerging local and regional artists. Lori has a great eye and her openings always draw a lively and interesting crowd.
She’s located a couple of blocks down from the now emerging 600 block of event and gallery spaces, and has a focus on a slightly more mature artist group (and by mature, I refer to style and voice, not age!)

I am an avid art collector of Contemporary Art and visited the C. Emerson Fine Arts gallery while in St. Petersburg. The pieces in the gallery were intriguing, however, when I inquired about one of the artists and his work, the gallery staff (perhaps the owner?) could not have been ruder!!! She responded to my inquiry with «you don’t want to see that» I said, «please, yes I do.» She then proceeded to ignore me and sat down to continue reading her book.
Sadly, I am not exaggerating. I was deeply shocked and offended, I attempted to engage her in conversation again… assuming it MUST be a misunderstanding on my part and she would not even look up from her book. I could only assume this gallery is a half — hearted hobby for someone… at least I hope so… I feel sorry for the artists that are poorly represented by this gallery. I can’t imagine they will ever sell their work based upon the gallery’s representation and unprofessional, discourteous staff of art posers.