Program Overview

visit the prosperous the poor and the slaughterhouse floor

Wipe Your Feet, Please is a retrospective exhibit of the photography of Mark Petty. It includes images he shot in college in the 1970s and images he shot in his backyard last summer. The images range from leprosy patients to sea lions, from the beauty of nature to the ugliness of U.S. Highway 19, from the prosperous to the
poor to the slaugherhouse floor.

Common threads runs through his photographs. They take the viewer into the worlds of the subjects and they treat the subjects with dignity and respect. All that is asked is that you wipe your feet before entering their worlds and that you think about what you see while you are there. You’ll even be asked to question your relationship to the art. Mark has made rugs out of several of his images and you are invited to walk upon them if that is your desire.

A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mark’s great-great grandmother was a Cherokee Indian who was forced to walk the Trail of Tears after being removed from her home in Georgia by president Andrew Jackson. She was five years old at the time.

More than 100 years later Mark attended Andrew Jackson elementary school in Tulsa where at 2 they tried to teach him Jackson was a hero. That experience inspires him to photograph the ironies he sees in everyday American
life. It has influenced his desire to document those whose circumstances are less fortunate than his.

Mark’s photographs are in several collections, including the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg.

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Program Dates & Times

02/23/07 - 03/09/07
Tuesday - Saturday
12:00 - 4:00 pm

Opening Reception
02/23/07
6:00 - 9:00 pm

Admission

Free admission. Donations appreciated.

Sponsors

This project was funded in part by the Pinellas County Commission through the Pinellas County Arts Council’s Cultural Development Grant program.

The Studio@620 is supported by its members, individuals, businesses and organizations throughout the community, which have included the Bank of America and The Community Foundation of Greater St. Petersburg.