Move over, Andy Warhol—Sarasota has its own artsy “factories.”

By Carol Tisch

First Pam and Marcus Anast built a lavish backyard behind their Sarasota Collection Home Store. Ostensibly it was to show off their hot new line of outdoor furniture and accessories. But the gregarious pair also designed the space for fun salon evenings for clients to gather and share good conversation, Algonquin roundtable-style. A post-Christmas visit to the home fashion boutique revealed more retail entertainment is in store: the Anast’s new baby grand and Marcus’s too-long hidden talents as an accomplished singer/piano man.  

Piano man Marcus Anast hits the ivories at Sarasota Collection Home Store.

Next, Michael and Kathy Bush introduced Theater at Home Resource (their Central Avenue store), where the furniture vignettes serve as the props and the theater seating is the showroom's furniture. Michael didn’t charge admission to the performances because he wanted to share the type of theater experiences he and Kathy happily discovered while living in London. “By definition, Fringe Theater was anywhere you could get 40 people and a few actors together, from a loft to a local pub,” he says. The success of last summer’s Night of Tennessee Williams prompted a new production, A Taste of Chekhov, which will run January 15 to Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. This time excerpts from four of Chekhov plays will be performed each night by professional Sarasota actors. Reserved seating only through kbush@homeresources.com.

But no one has taken the Andy Warhol factory concept to the level that Michael Judge plans to achieve. He’s forming an interdisciplinary arts studio in a loft space set to open the last week of January above Main Book Shop (opposite the Hollywood 20 cinemas). Clients will walk through the bookstore to access a private elevator to his Modern Times Gallery on the third and fourth floors.

Abstract expressionist Michael Judge at the new Modern Times Gallery with sculpture by new discovery, Mark Chew.

“Think New York, not Sarasota,” Judge said as he previewed the cavernous 12,000-square-foot space for SarasotaMagazine. An abstract expressionist himself, Judge, his wife Amanda, advertising maven Sandra Hagen, and Jens Albiez, owner of Sternberg Interiors, have combined resources to partner in the new Modern Times Gallery. Modern Times will have a full-service advertising agency, an interior design studio that looks as if it stepped out of New York’s Design & Decorators Building, and two art gallery floors, one by appointment only.

Judge’s gallery is the ultimate party space, and perfect for exhibit openings and meet-the-artist events. Even the rest room is a work of art, completely painted (including pipes, ceiling, walls and floor) with abstract figures by local artist Anita Wexler. “I wanted it to be a living painting,” Judge explains

Watch for the opening exhibition, a pictorial retrospective of Marilyn Monroe’s life with 135 works from Modern Times’ collection. “It goes from Norma Jean in 1946 to the last photos taken by George Barris on Santa Monica Beach the day before she died,” says Judge, noting that the works on view will be from the former collections of renowned art dealers Edward Weston (who collected Marilyn Monroe photos and graphics for fifty years), and from Andrew Weiss Gallery in Beverly Hills, California. Naturally, the Sarasota show will display all 10 images of her face [by Andy Warhol] in every color, Judge said.

Sarasota Collection Home Store, 622 Central Avenue, Sarasota, (941) 955-8313

Home Resource Contemporary Furniture, 741 Central Avenue, Sarasota (941) 366-6690

Modern Times Gallery, 1962 Main St., (third & fourth floors), Sarasota (941) 365-2800