Fine art painters rarely retire before they are no longer able to put a canvas on their easel and hold a brush.
Marketing directors follow different rules.
That’s the case with Pam Zambetti, who is stepping away from her post as the marketing force behind Downtown’s Southlight Gallery to concentrate on her new studio and a new series of portraits.
Art wasn’t always her focus.
In the 1980s, she managed the corporate branch of Wharton Williams Travel Agency before enrolling in the School of Art at Florida State University, where she graduated in 1991.
She began painting and developed a reputation in the decorative arts field, painting murals and architectural elements for nearly 10 years before shifting her focus to representational and abstract fine art.
She discovered Southlight in 2009 about six weeks after the gallery opened along Forsyth Street.
It was the second location for architect Michael Dunlap and a group of his fellow artists, who founded the gallery as one of the original “Off the Grid” ventures.
It was a Downtown Vision Inc. program through which artists occupied on a month-to-month basis for little more than the cost of utilities, empty Downtown storefronts as a way to enliven the streetscape.
Zambetti was introduced to Dunlap at a First Wednesday Art Walk by one of Southlight’s member artists and they immediately hit it off.
Dunlap said he was impressed by her artistic talent and her organizational skills.
Before Art Walk wrapped that night, he offered her the job of marketing director.
“I said, ‘The gig’s all yours,’” he recalls.
One of Zambetti’s first projects was to establish internship programs with Florida State College at Jacksonville, Jacksonville University and the University of North Florida that would allow the gallery to maintain regular business hours to show the work of as many as 20 artists.
It also gave art students the opportunity to learn what it’s like to work in a commercial gallery.
“We’ve had 50 or 60 interns that Pam has trained,” Dunlap said. “A lot of them have gone on to bigger things.”
Organizing exhibitions was another of Zambetti’s long-term projects at Southlight.
In addition to an Art Walk series, the gallery has hosted summer exhibitions the past several years.
Along the way, Southlight has moved from temporary space to temporary space.
“We’ve always been lease-sitters. We never had more than a 30-day plan,” said Zambetti.
After Forsyth Street, the artists moved in 2011 to an entire floor in the Dyal-Upchurch Building, then two years later, relocated to the Hogan Street storefront in the Levy Building near Hemming Park.
In March, Southlight moved again to space on the ground floor inside Bank of America Tower, where 18 artists, including Dunlap and Zambetti, display and sell their work alongside art by UNF faculty and students.
Zambetti will continue to show her paintings at Southlight and also coordinate the summer exhibitions, but she felt it was time for a change.
She has leased a small studio space in the CoRK arts district in Riverside, where she’ll work on her new series of portraits.
“I’m retiring from marketing art so I can get back to making art,” she said.
Dunlap said while he’ll continue to enjoy Zambetti’s art in Southlight, her marketing shoes will be hard to fill, even though she’s currently training a prospective replacement.
Zambetti’s legacy of art and advocacy will be honored at the gallery from 4-8 p.m. Oct. 5 during Art Walk.
Dunlap is inviting the community to “Z Party,” a celebration of Zambetti’s 2,492 days as Southlight’s marketing and intern program director.
“She has given the gallery — and the entire local art community — countless hours of love, care and respect,” he said. “She has certainly contributed to Southlight’s success.”
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