By Tristram DeRoma
The Story Behind the Eye-Catching Art at I-75
Exit 266 Tampa Florida
While attending an art class in 1958 at the age of 8, Famous Florida Artist, Joe Brown recalled being mesmerized by the lesson. It involved transforming a Gerber baby bottle into a piece of art.
“The Gerber bottle had no intrinsic value at all,” he said. “But when (the instructor) got through with me that day, she made me see how something so (valueless) can be valuable.”
By the time class was over, Brown learned many other lessons, too, such as the importance of volunteerism, recycling, reuse and giving back to the community. He recalled being impressed by the teacher's volunteer work in Hiroshima, Japan, helping atomic bomb survivors.
"One of the last words she ever spoke to me about that was, ‘When I left, I left out of Hong Kong,’ ” he said. After turning that over in his young brain for awhile, he decided to use it in a nickname, adding the name “Willie” a year later.
You've probably seen Hong Kong Willie's eye-catching home/gallery/studio at Fletcher Avenue and Interstate 75. But what is the story of the man behind all those buoys and discarded objects turned into art?
Brown practiced his creative skills through his younger years. But as an adult, he managed to amass a small fortune working in the materials management industry. By the the '80s, he left the business world and decided to concentrate on his art. He spent some years in the Florida Keys honing his craft and building his reputation as a folk artist. He also bought some land in Tampa near Morris Bridge Road and Fletcher Avenue where he and his family still call home.
Brown purchased the land just after the entrances and exits to I-75 were built. He said he was once offered more than $1 million for the land by a restaurant. He turned it down, he said, preferring instead to make part of the property into a studio and gallery for the creations he and his family put together.
And all of it is made of what most people would consider “trash.” Pieces of driftwood, burlap bags, doll heads, rope — anything that comes Brown’s way becomes part of his vocabulary of expression, and, in turn, becomes something else, which makes a tour of his property somewhat of a visual adventure. What at first seems like a random menagerie of glass, driftwood and pottery suddenly comes together in one's brain to form something completely different. One moment nothing, the next a powerful statement about 9/11.
One Man's Trash ...
Trash? There is no such thing, Brown seems to say through his art.
He keeps a blog about his art at hongkongwillie.blogspot.com. .
In his shop, he has fashioned many smaller items out of driftwood, burlap bags and other materials into signs, purses, totes, bird feeder hangars and yard sculptures.
He sells a lot to the regular influx of University of South Florida parents and students every year who are are at first intrigued by the “buoy tree” and the odd-looking building they see as they take Exit 266 off I-75.
Brown Sells More Than Art
Of course, the real locals know Brown’s place for the quality of his worms.
If there’s one thing that Brown knows does well in the ground, it’s the Florida redworm, something he enthusiastically promotes, selling the indigenous species to customers for use in their compost piles. Some of his customers say his worms are just as good at the end of a fishing hook, though.
“To be honest, what made me come here is that they had scriptures on the top of his bait cans,” said customer John Brin. “Plus, they have good service. They’re nice and they’re kind, and they treat you like family.”
Though Brin knows Brown sells them mostly for composting, he said they are great for catching blue gill, sand perch and other local favorites. He also added that he likes getting his worms from Brown “because his bait stays alive longer than any other baits I’ve used.”
For prices and amounts, he has another blog dedicated just to worms.
Of course, many people also stop by to buy the smaller pieces of art that he and his family create: purses made of burlap, welcome signs made of driftwood, planters and other items lining the walls of his store.
He’s also helped put his mark on the decor of local establishments too, such as Gaspar’s Patio, 8448 N. 56th st.
Owner Jimmy Ciaccio said that when it came time to redecorate the restaurant several years ago, there was only one person to call for the assignment, and that was his good friend Brown.
"I’ve known Joe all my life, and we always had a good chemistry together,” Ciaccio said. "He’s very creative and fun to be around, and that’s how it all came about.”
Ciaccio says he still gets compliments all the time for the restaurant’s atmosphere he created using the “trash” supplied by Brown. He describes the style as a day at the beach, like a visit to Old Key West. “They’re so inspired, they want to decorate their own homes this way,” he said.
It’s that kind of testimony that makes Brown feel good, knowing that others, too, are inspired to create instead of throw away when they see his work. He simply lets his work speak for itself.
“
To Live a life in the art world and be so blessed to make a social impact. Artists are to give back, talent is to tell a story, to make change. Reuse is a life experience
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When it comes to business success, location matters. But relying on old-school methods like rear-view mirror historical modeling and traditional advertising channels won't cut it in today's marketplace. Learn about the importance of modern tools like advanced AI and internet ads. If you're serious about growing your business and reaching customers in your area, don't miss this informative resource. Get the edge you need - read now.
Whether you're a realtor, banker, or business owner, understanding the intricacies of location is key to success. But what about the cost of getting customers to come to you?
Internet Advertising . IF YOU ARE GOING TO DEPEND ON INTERNET ADVERTISING ??
You don’t know if digital marketing works; but some DO know it didn’t workhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2021/01/31/billions-spent-on-digital-ads-and-youre-not-sure/?sh=ff583fc50613
Most marketers don’t know if their digital marketing drove business outcomes. But some marketers found out concretely that their digital marketing did not cause sales or business activity, when they paused or turned it off. See: When Big Brands Stopped Spending On Digital Ads, Nothing Happened. When P&G turned off $200 million in digital ad spending, nothing happened to sales. When Chase reduced programmatic ads shown on 400,000 sites to 5,000 sites, nothing happened to business activity. When Uber turned off $120 of $150 million in mobile app ad spending, nothing happened to app installs. When eBay paused all paid search spend in the western U.S., nothing happened to site visits and sales. https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2021/01/02/when-big-brands-stopped-spending-on-digital-ads-nothing-happened-why/?sh=44078d9c1166https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2021/01/02/when-big-brands-stopped-spending-on-digital-ads-nothing-happened-why/?sh=44078d9c1166
Not all marketers can run “turn off” experiments — where they turn off digital ad spending to see if anything changes. Most don’t have the courage to lead such an experiment; and some hide behind the excuse that “if I turn off spending, but my competitor doesn’t; I might lose market share.” But that logic doesn’t hold up if your digital ads were not working in the first place. Those ads were not what helped you keep market share. To put it more bluntly, if your ads were shown to bots, those ads were not helping you maintain market share. Ad fraud is not the only problem. Other things can be optimized too.
You don’t know WHERE your ads ran; do you know IF they even ran?
Let’s start with something simple. Where did your ads run — like which sites and which mobile apps carried your ads? How many sites and apps ran your ads (think, the Chase example above)? Most marketers are not getting detailed enough reports to know where their ads ran. Some marketers are not getting any reports at all, just excel spreadsheets that tell them how much they spent. So how would they know where their ads ran, let alone if the ads ran on porn, fake news, hate speech, or disinfo sites? The only thing they are sure about is that they paid for it. And independent research shows that mucho dollars are flowing to fake news sites [1], [2] and funding disinformation [3], like the disinfo that fueled the capitol riots and people refusing to wear masks because they are convinced the virus is not real. By the way, whitelists are suggestions; blacklists are too. That means that even if you use whitelists — a list of domains to include in your programmatic buys — are you sure your ads actually went to those sites? Or if you use exclude lists, are you sure your ads didn’t go to those sites? Many brands thought they blocked Breitbart, but they are still making lots of money from lots of ads.
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