Discover Florida Museum of Photographic Arts and Eat Pizza

Florida Museum of Photographic Arts,  Bavaro’s Pizza Napoletana | Tampa

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Taking chances brings spice to life. On a tight budget that’s easier said than done, but sometimes a deal comes along that lowers the risks. The Discovery Pass got us into the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts and then our feet got us into Bavaro’s Pizza Napoletana to get some hot slices inside of us. It was a rewarding day all around. Then we added ice cream.

We were not going to visit a museum again so soon but…

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts was getting little love

Earlier this year I was letting my fingers do the walking—well, astride a sturdy mouse—on Yelp and Tripadvisor for things to do in Tampa.  The entries for the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) featured fans and critics. The consensus seemed to be that the payoff-to-price ratio was skewed toward “not worth it.” 

Now,  there are good reasons to not read restaurant reviews on Yelp and (to a lesser extent) Tripadvisor. Experiences are subjective but you might agree there is little else more unobjective than art, thus making museum reviews as reliable as your perpetually single friend’s relationship advice, or economic forecasters.

Largely, criticism focused on the size of the collection not being worth the entrance fee of a sawbuck plus parking. So the reviewers were less critical of the artistic merit than they were arguing the value of their time and the quantity of entertainment received.

Still, I did read the reviews and they tainted my decision making. With so much else to see, I placed an inevitable trip to FMoPA on the back burner. 

And something is afoot at the library

Then, a few weeks ago Christa was paging through the local ad rag and found a piece on the Hillsborough County Public Library Discovery Pass program. In a nutshell, we could use our library cards to check out free passes to several local attractions and one of these was the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts.

I had failed to plan anything to do this week and this just fell into our laps. Well, into our driveway and then into Christa’s lap.

The Discovery Passes were the perfect opportunity to see the Museum for free and learn for ourselves if museum reviewers could be trusted over restaurant critics. We had one week to use the passes once checked out, so we figured no time like the present and headed out the same day.

A hunger for pizza. Art, too, but definitely the pizza.

Art makes us happy

The weather outside was bright and sunny but we were still braising in heat and humidity. We were a mirepoix away from being pot roast. Another trip to a cool museum would do just nicely lest we get tenderized slow and low.

I was also really enjoying the art angle we’d randomly struck up lately.  Movie pass has us down to three movies a month, now, so our time is freed to see other diversions, maybe even a play or orchestra. However, my main excuse for some therapeutic art strolling is simple: It makes me happy.

And since we’re in the neighborhood

Several weeks ago, while researching spots to find as good an Italian sub as we get up north (nothing yet) I stumbled across a pizzeria downtown that makes vera Napoletana pizza: Bavaro’s Pizza Napoletana and Pastaria. It was only a five-minute walk up the street from the museum. We’d be crazy not to plan a visit that same day. 

It’s been a long time since I’d had an authentic VPN pie and over two years since savoring a Lombardi’s margherita. After a (predictably) disappointing experience at Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza, we were due for something fabulous. Bavaro’s would hopefully provide it for lunch.

Do you know the way to FMoPA?

The streets of Tampa

We were adapting nicely to Tampa city traffic and layout with each new visit. It helps to let your phone map app guide you there turn-by-turn using a windshield mounted phone holder. It’s like a poor man’s HUD. I’ve been able to take in more visual appreciation of the town now that I’m not frantically trying to look down at my lap and up through the windshield.

That’s me: embracing decade old tech like it’s sliced bread.

We found another spot on the street across from the Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. The sporty little runabout loves parallel parking. If you don’t, or can’t find a spot, there is parking under the Beer Can.

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Florida Museum of Photographic Arts
400 N. Ashley Drive
Cube 200
Tampa, Florida 33602
Phone: (813) 221-2222
Hours:
Monday to Thursday – 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Friday – 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday – 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Docent Tours: Sundays at 2:00 p.m
Admission:
FREE for Museum Members
$10 – Adults
$8 – Students/Military/Seniors
https://fmopa.org/

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The Can and the Cubes

We had glimpsed the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts before on our trip to the Tampa Museum of Art. Each museum stands at opposite ends of the Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. The FMoPA is housed on 2nd and 3rd floors of the Rivergate Pavilion—two amber cubes of glass and stone placed in the shadowy base of the limestone Rivergate Tower.

The towering cylinder is known to locals as “The Beercan” and  was designed by architect Harry Wolf  “to look like a lighthouse, to symbolize optimism.” To me, it usually resembles a Cold War defense tower with twin loopholes and thus symbolizes pessimism. There’s that subjectivity of art. However, it was designed utilizing Fibonacci number sequences, so it’s got that going for it—which is nice.

Today it reminded me of the leaning tower of Pisa when distorted in my photos. Perhaps it was the pending margherita on my mind. The power of pizza.

I really wish I hadn’t already used the Gleaming the Cube reference in last week’s article.

We rode the elevator to the second floor and the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. At the front desk, we redeemed our receipt for our entrance and the ladies there explained the layout and advised on a path. We were set loose and started with the hall opposite the main desk.

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts Exhibits

2018 Architectural Photography Contest

This was an exhibit of photographs on the subject of architecture taken by Florida photographers. The contributions were juried by experts in the fields of architecture and photography. Prizes were awarded to amateur contributors.

Though the artists were local residents, the subjects could be from anywhere around the globe. Snapshot locales ranged from Tampa to Paris, to…other places I’ve forgotten. The pictures were great, but what got me was how much people get around. We need to get off this continent once in a while.

Also, I was inspired to give further thought to those pictures that I delete and what qualities I look for in my own finished photographs. I was also inspired to look out for future competitions open to amateurs. Who knows—out of the thousands I take just on trips to the store, at least one could be a winner.

City of Tampa Photographer Laureates 2003-2013

This is an annual event by the City of Tampa, Arts Programs Division. Commissioned artists are tasked with capturing photographs of Tampa that represent the artist’s interpretation of the Tampa zeitgeist. The exhibit features the work of local, national, and international photographers.

There were some works here that really appealed to me, particularly the pieces by Rebecca Sexton Larson. Her ethereal images and collage- style compositions were original and otherworldly. Larson uses older photographic processes like pinhole cameras, which she appreciates for the “surreal quality, vignette appearance, long exposures, and greater depth-of-field that traditional cameras cannot provide.”

Ditto.

Great. Now I want to build pinhole cameras.

Bruce Dale: Beyond the Lens

Beyond the Lens was a particularly interesting exhibit for me that displayed the work of Bruce Dale in over 40 portraits taken throughout his 30-year career as a National Geographic photographer. His vocation took him to 75 countries around the world and into the lives of countless fellow humans and their various cultures.

The way in which Bruce Dale captured his subjects ranged from posed to candid, to sometimes purely accidental and at great risk to life and limb. The photos show a knack for capturing the spirit of the moment though some, dated as far back as 1972, seemed timeless as if taken yesterday.

It was in observing Bruce Dale’s work that I also felt a need to reassess my own amateur picture taking hobby and approach. Too often I aim for the perfect exposure and focus, often trashing a piece that may have captured a moment and feeling, but wasn’t up to my exacting standards, whatever they are.

With a close study of the results of the grainy films, I see flaws and elements that I’d likely crop out or over-edit, thereby ruining the effect, the captured moment, the spirit or emotion of the time and place in history. Those “flaws” are a part of the pleasures of film versus digital.

And that was it for the photography on display. It seemed enough to us, though more is always welcome.

The atrium cable work sculpture

Additionally, there is a work of sculpture suspended in the atrium of the Cubes visible when entering, from outside at night, and from the balcony of the upper floors. Not a photograph, it is made of multicolored strands of cable and is quite impressive. The effect was hypnotic like a Spirograph creation come to life.

I searched the internet fruitlessly to find the artist and title—should have looked around the building while I was there. I thought for sure it would be found on either the building’s website or the FMoPA website. No luck.

If anyone knows the name and artist, drop it in a comment below. Online, I hunted myself sick in vain.

Pizza Napoletana

Once again proving that looking at art makes us hungry (that or skipping breakfast to fit more slices) our bellies were grumbling and rumbling. We headed up the street and around the corner to Bavaro’s Pizza Napoletana and Pastaria.

The wait was only for a table to be cleared and we were sat and watered quickly. We didn’t need menus; we wanted a large (12”) margherita pizza. Fearing our hunger was too burgeoning for such a small treat, but not wanting to fill up on a pie each, I did quickly scan the other options. We said nuts to salad and opted for an order of the ricotta meatballs.

Meatballs

The meatballs arrived dressed in a bright red sauce and sprinkled with Parmigiano. They had a good meaty flavor from a loose blend of pancetta, beef, and pork. This was not a traditional recipe, but the ricotta—an interesting addition—kept them moist and light textured. 

They were so tender, that I could barely fork up a piece without them falling back to the plate. The only thing missing was salt (even with the inclusion of Parmigiano and cured pancetta) but a few dashes brought it up to snuff.

Man, I miss those meatballs from Salt & Pepper; and my grandfather’s.

Sauce

That sauce, though. Yeah, I call it sauce—we’re Delaware Italians, not from Philly, Jersey, or New York—“gravy” is for mashed potatoes. To be fair, though, this wasn’t a slow and low Sunday ragú. It was the essence of tomatoes with a natural sweetness from premium canned fruit, not from tipping in a pile of white sugar. After our meatballs were devoured I was going to save the rest of the sauce to dip my pizza crust in, but I couldn’t wait. I spooned it up like soup. Fresh, simple, delicious, well seasoned. Perfection.

The Pizza Margherita

The plates were cleared and the pizza and new plates took their place. This pie looked the part from my dreams. Fresh out of the 900° F wood-fired oven that graced a corner behind a bar to the rear of the room, it was a crispy, bubbly, charred round of dough with a bright red tomato sauce. Wilting leaves of fresh basil clung to ivory islands of white buffalo mozzarella (we sprung for the $2 upgrade from cow’s milk).

The server advised that this being a Napoletana style, the center of the pie is thin and soft and we should slide it onto our plates rather than lifting off the pan. We slid our slices and blew them cool. Nope, can’t wait to cool—I went in for a bite.

It was tender, soft dough but the bake gave a chewy texture to the very bottom. The sauce was simple, fresh, well salted, and flavorful. The mozzarella was rich, firming as it cooled, but with a slight stretch, then snap. There was just enough to melt out and span the surface leaving rivulets of red, but not so much that a lift of a slice or bite of a piece results in stringy pulls of cheap cheese.

As my teeth advanced up the slice, the crust developed a more acrid flavor from both the ember dust and char from the super-hot oven. This flavor developed more as I reached the thick edge where exposure to the flaming wood caused more blistering and a few scorched spots. The carbon flavor married well with the flavor of the yeast dough—well salted, a complex flour, and alkali finish.

This complex dough flavor was balanced by the light sweetness of the sauce and the fresh tasting dairy of the mozzarella. The sauce tasted of simply tomato and the perfect amount of salt, as it should. Was the buffalo mozz a better experience than a basic cow’s milk? I can’t say without a side by side comparison, but I didn’t regret the up-charge.

Our pizza was gone in minutes. I should have ordered two.

Our assessment

My only complaint about this otherwise fantastic pie was seconded by my wife as we walked to the car. The sauce, delicious and perfect as it tasted, was too wet. It needed to be strained more to make a thicker puree that clings to the pie rather than pooling water in the center and running off. I was a bit concerned when the server cautioned me about the soft center, and my worries were confirmed. It didn’t ruin the pizza, but it made it just shy of perfect.

I’ve had vera pizza Napoletana before (albeit, not in Campagnia) and the sauce was drained just enough to still compliment the crisp dough and firm cheese, but not so wet that it ran off the slice and made the middle soggy. Just letting the tomatoes air dry in a sieve out of the can or squeezing the peeled tomatoes well before milling them can do the trick. It’s not my kitchen and customers love Bavaro’s pizza; it’s just our preference. But for the liquidity of the sauce, it would have been a perfect pie for us.

Don’t get me wrong, I was smiling the whole way back to the car. We’ll need to investigate a few more places before we proclaim Bavaro’s the best authentic pizza in Tampa. But those other businesses have a lot to beat.

Bavaro’s has three other locations including one at the airport, but it is a strictly Tampa Bay company (so far). Maybe try it now in case franchising waters it down.

Or build your own oven cheap and save some dough.

Drive! Drivin’ like the demon that drives your dreams (it’s ice cream, the demon is ice cream)

We took the long way home through east Tampa and into Brandon. Time was needed for the pizza to settle in order to fit in some ice cream. Yes, we piled ice cream on top of that pie and meatballs. It was our first visit to Revolution Ice Cream. We enjoyed it, but I want to make a second trip before writing about them.

Christa really enjoyed her Greetings from the 813 (cafe con leche ice cream with a chocolate truffle ribbon and a salty caramel ribbon).

I got the soon to be off the menu specialty flavor Sergeant Pepper goes to the Dark side of the Moon. Let me just say this: The richest dark chocolate ice cream I can remember having, piquant pink peppercorns, and a ribbon of red raspberry in a house-made waffle cone. Eyes-closed and reminiscing.

I don’t think I need to do a review after all. Just go.

Our reward for taking (subsidized) risks

Bang for our (zero) bucks

My goal is to find affordable spots, sights to see, activities to do, and vittles to enjoy. Not everyone has an upper-middle-class recreational-and-dining-out budget. Lots of people (including my family, growing up) must scrimp and save to afford some joy outside of the home.

That’s why I tend to harp on pricing and compare the value to dollars— so that readers with fewer means have information to help make choices.

A trip to the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts for the regular $10 ticket price is a good value—to some. To others, it wouldn’t be a good value at free. That said, I believe most folks that enjoy nice pictures and cool interiors would have an enjoyable time. The architecture of the Cubes is nice, the photos are interesting, and the price is comparable to a movie.

We spent about an hour walking around and if I stopped to read every card and bit of information, we could have spent a good ninety minutes there. Christa probably would have been done in twenty minutes; but we are different people, too. I’m a pokier little puppy.

As it stands, at the nice price of $FR.EE with the Discovery Pass, it was well worth it. Throw a few bucks in the donation box if you agree. This visit has proved that I’ll likely find a future visit to definitely be worth $10. The exhibits are not as small as the online reviews led me to think and the works were plentiful and rewarding to see.

Inspiration

I was inspired by the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts to consider different approaches to my own slipshod photography. A visit may just inspire you, too. Practically everyone has a decent camera in their pocket, purse, or bra, with good resolution and a decent lens: their smartphones.

In between texting or Facebooking, consider going for a walk and snapping pics of the interesting things your mind sees in life. Heck, you just might capture something worth submitting to your local museum’s amateur contests. Or at least, you’ll have nice memories saved of life as seen through your eyes.

A budding artist needs no medium other than their phones these days. If only Alexander Graham Bell knew what he’d facilitated.

I was inspired and I’ll visit again when the exhibits change to get more of the muse in me. And some more pizza.

In Closing

The Discovery Pass is one safe way to take chances on sights that seem like a risk. If you’re living elsewhere look for similar programs near you. Sometimes a free tour can convince you to become a paying patron in the future. Even for those on a budget, the reward can be worth it.

An occasional swap of a regular item in your budget for some time in an art museum or local playhouse can add variety. I’m going to ease my cautious nature from now on and just go for it with less concern for the potential disappointment. That’s how we found the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts.

Take risks, see cool stuff, and eat pizza. And ice cream.

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• What local spot have you been wanting to visit, but balked because of the price? 
• Where’s your favorite spot for the best pizza?  
• Everyone loves some form of art; where’s your favorite place to take it in? Tattoo conventions? Craft shows? Car shows?  Bathroom walls?

Please comment with any questions, critiques, or greetings. I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for Reading!

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P.S. – If you are not from Tampa, you’ve likely been inside the Cubes before—virtually. Thomas Jane’s Frank Castle perforated its walls in The Punisher (2004) where it stood in for John Travolta’s Howard “Shoulda-been-the-Kingpin-but-then-Donofrio-still-woulda-upstaged-me-anyway” Saint’s nightclub.

Warning: Graphic violence