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Art angel spreads wings

By JANET ZINK
Published March 4, 2005

NEW SUBURB BEAUTIFUL - This week, Marilyn Mars helped hang art for the annual Gasparilla Festival of the Arts.

It's the last time Mars, a fixture of Tampa's art scene, will participate in the event she co-chaired in 1993 and 1994.

Mars and her husband, health care consultant Tom Davidson, have put their New Suburb Beautiful house on the market and plan to move to Virginia in May.

The departure will be bittersweet, Mars said. Her 20-year stint in Tampa, the longest she has lived in any one place, has been amazing, she said.

"I met my husband here. We have wonderful friends, enlightened people who love the arts and theater and movies," she said. "I've made all kinds of connections."

But she and Davidson are eager to embark on a new adventure together.

Ten years ago, they bought 50 acres of forested land in Virginia and will build a home designed by her brother, an architect, on 5 acres. They have planted a small apple orchard and are planning a vineyard.

"I'm going to enjoy the back-to-nature aspect of what we're doing," she said.

They also look forward to building three small houses with studios that will serve as artist retreats. Mars and Davidson will allow artists to stay for free - as long as they have dinner with them once a week.

"It's a way that will keep us vital and involved in the arts," she said. "We'll have a free flow of ideas. The beauty of my life is the fact that I've gotten to meet so many interesting people."

She has met those people through working at the Tampa Museum of Art as curator of education and assistant director and volunteering with the Ybor City Fresh Market, the Florida Association of Museums, Florida Craftsmen and the Tampa Education Consortium.

In 1993, she established Arts Impact, a consulting firm which will fold when she leaves. It has helped organizations such as TECO Energy Corp., Xerox, the Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library and Tampa International Airport acquire art and write grants. In 1996, she created the Ybor City Ghost Walks, which leads tourists on a spooky tour of the historic district.

In Virginia, Mars will help train docents at the University of Virginia Art Museum while her husband pursues graduate studies.

Mars' interest in art goes back to junior high school in Fort Lauderdale, when she started taking drawing and painting classes.

"I wouldn't say I was a wonderful artist, but I've always been an appreciator," Mars said from her home, where everything is a work of art, from the lamps to the clocks to the bowls.

Even people without a stroke of artistic ability can train themselves to see the world with an artful eye and create a rich visual life for themselves, she said.

She did it.

After earning a bachelor's degree in art education at the University of Florida, she taught art in Broward County schools for four years. Then she went on to earn a master's degree in art history at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"I was tired of all my clients being under the age of 18," she said.

She ran an art gallery in Charlottesville, Va., and was an executive at the Richmond Children's Museum in Richmond, Va.

Mars came to Tampa in 1985 to be closer to her parents in South Florida. Her first job in Tampa was the Tampa Museum of Art's curator of education.

"Marilyn is a dynamo. She's a nonstop, consummate advocate for the arts. She's a hell of a cook, too," said Art Keeble, executive director of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County, where Mars worked as director of programs for two years. "There's going to be a hole in this community when she leaves."

Mars promises she'll visit often.

"I feel like I can be myself here," she said. "It's been a good run."

Janet Zink can be reached at 226-3401 or jzink@sptimes.com

AGE: 55

FAMILY: Husband, Tom Davidson; 4-year-old black cocker spaniel, Memphis

THE NEIGHBOR LADY: Mars has no children, but a gaggle of neighborhood girls regularly comes to her house to swing on a hammock on her back patio and dig through a basket of percussion instruments she keeps for them.

NICKNAME: Mars' brother, Randall Mars, calls her Slow Dog, because she is always slow to leave a gathering of family and friends.

MAKING A SPLASH: At a friend's hippie-themed 50th birthday party, someone remarked that all that was missing was people jumping into the pool. Fully clothed, Mars obliged and dove in.

ART ANGEL: Davidson painted a family portrait titled Apotheosis of the Art Lady, which shows Mars ascending to heaven while Davidson, in a Cupid outfit, crowns her and throws their dog a biscuit. The painting hangs in their dining room.

[Last modified March 3, 2005, 09:13:05]