TRILBY - Sometimes art emerges from the least likely places.
Bohemian lofts in the ramshackle buildings of Ybor City? Sure.
But a quiet, country home off a dirt road in Trilby? A makeshift studio that was once a darkroom at Zephyrhills High School?
That's where Jon Poe, 18, discovered the artist in himself and set about learning and perfecting his craft.
"The back room of the high school was like my sanctuary," said Poe, who is softspoken and warm with brown hair and a full beard. "I really made it home."
The doors recently closed on Poe's first one-man art show. He displayed original paintings and sculptures at Artful Gardens gallery in Zephyrhills. No pieces were sold, but gallery owner Dorothy Anderson said the process was valuable for the young artist.
"It's still a learning experience for him to see all his work in one room, to see lights on it," she said.
Anderson offered her own take on Poe's art.
"When you look at his work, it looks almost like you're looking through a microscope," she said. "I see a microworld."
Poe, who graduated from Zephyrhills in May, works in a movement called emotionalism, created in 2001 by Tampa artist Kathleen Kennedy. So far, they are the only two adherents.
"I really liked the idea that I'd be the first follower," Poe said.
And the tenets of the movement appealed to him.
"It's the artist assuming the role of a tool or an instrument of art," Poe explained. "You kind of lose yourself in it."
Poe had already been on the path of abstract art, but he found deeper meaning in emotionalism.
"It's more about the meaning that's behind the color, the meaning that's behind the form," he said.
His large oil painting titled Vibrations features swaths of bold colors with sharp edges outlined in black, a technique Poe adapted from New Mexico artist Scott Swezy. Poe was striving to remove any whimsical element from the piece.
"I started to feel like it was too playful," Poe said. "I wanted it to have more shock value.
"It's almost counter to logic," he added. "You would think that in first grade you would draw black outlines on everything."
Poe struggles to explain the way his abstract paintings turn out, because they are supposed to convey pure emotion. Sometimes he thinks back to what was happening in his life to conjure the source of a work.
Another oil painting, Rhythms, was completed on a deadline. Poe sees a lot of stress in the lines and colors on the canvas. "I like to see abstracts that are clear," he said. "A lot of abstracts are muddy. It's like seeing a picture in focus."
But Poe finds inspiration for realistic works, too.
Liberian Front is adapted from a photograph Poe found in a magazine of a young soldier holding a primitive assault rifle.
"I just related to it," Poe said. "The kid is about 18 years old, and he's already defending himself."
In sculpture, Poe has been working with clay and porcelain and firing the pieces using a technique called raku, which uses smoke to oxidize the medium and create random colorations.
For all his time and labor - Poe spent nearly every lunch period in the high school art studio - Poe earned a high reward. He submitted portfolios of painting and sculpture for Advanced Placement exams at the end of the year and scored a 4 out of 5 on both. The test results earn him college credit and great respect from his teachers.
Bill Boots, who teaches sculpture at Zephyrhills High School, said Poe has a rare gift in that he's proficient in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional art.
"Every once in a while you do run across somebody like Jon. It's not every year," Boots said. "He's a very, very special student."
Poe has always felt like he's "pretty good at a lot of things." He played baseball throughout high school and excelled as a pitcher. He's interested in science and math. Writing is a talent of his, too. The 19th century author Edgar Allan Poe is a distant great-uncle to Jon.
"My mom has always said my writing's very dark," he said.
His family has several coffee table books about Poe and his lineage, and Jon wrote research papers for school about the famous author and poet. But Jon said he never thought much about the connection until adolescence. Now he finds it intriguing.
"I have some of that blood in me," he said.
After spending the summer helping with Kennedy's mural projects, Poe will head to college in North Carolina. In Poe's eyes, Guilford College in Greensboro sits before him like an empty canvas.
Art classes are definitely in his plans, along with a Japanese cooking class called "Green Tea and Thousand-Year-Old Eggs."
Poe is ready for the adventure.
"Artists have always needed to get away and travel," he said. "I just really hope that I'll be able to find my calling at Guilford."
