St. Petersburg artist Jacob Christiano finds shelter and friends away from the streets.
Terry Lee Getz carried a pack of supersized chalk in the back seat of her car for more than a year, looking for the elusive man who could turn the humble pastels into art.
She had grown enchanted with his sidewalk poetry — chalked hearts and sherbet-colored lines gracing the concrete blocks of downtown St. Petersburg. She learned a little about him from a story in the St. Petersburg Times in 2006 — he was in his early 30s, homeless and went by the name of Jacob. She wanted to give him the chalk as a gift, and urge him to keep writing.
“I found it a very Zen thing to be walking along the street, look down and see one of his poems,” Terry Lee says. “It looked like he literally took the concrete and rolled it into a color typewriter. … I just had to find him.”
More than 18 months passed. She found more and more of his poetry, snatches of free verse that would wash away in the rain, then reappear.
But she never found Jacob.
She threw the chalk away.
No one can say when the sidewalk poems first appeared. Even Jacob Christiano can’t tell you. He says he started writing on the walks of Sarasota five years ago. Then Tampa. Then St. Petersburg.
All the while, he lived on the streets. He’d sleep in parks, sometimes seeking refuge on a friend’s couch. He would print a verse on the sidewalk, in script as distinctive as his words. He would recite poems to patient passersby. He would sometimes take tips — maybe $1 a page, maybe $10. He would sometimes be chased away by business owners or hauled in by cops.
He just wanted to do his art.
He wasn’t looking to be found.
Late this past winter, Terry Lee was at the Saturday Art Market with her husband, Bob, who had his nature photography on display. A young man with wide hazel eyes and lank brown-and-gold hair rode through on a bicycle. He had come to the market to ask if he could show his art poetry.
“It’s you! You’re the guy!” she said, running up to him.
Over the next couple of months, they would meet somewhere and talk. She let him come to her house north of Gulfport, first for a shower and some food, then to use her studio to work on his poetry.
At some point, he simply stayed. He sleeps on the couch. He spends the early part of the week at the house, writing poetry and experimenting with the art material in Terry Lee’s studio. By Thursday or Friday, he heads out to the streets, and chalks the sidewalks.
Terry Lee has found her artist.
And Jacob has found someone to help him take his art beyond the streets.
Terry Lee and Bob Getz had always been drawn to creative pursuits. But most of their lives were spent in traditional office jobs, while their true loves of writing, art and photography took a back seat.
The faltering economy intervened. Terry Lee and Bob got laid off, leaving them free to pursue their passions.
Bob now runs Bob Getz Photography. He focuses his lens tightly on birds, insects and reptiles. He captures the screaming color of carnival rides, the movement of airshows and car races.
He sells his pieces online and displays them from October to April at the Williams Park Saturday Art Market.
Terry Lee, 52, creates eclectic art with materials she finds in the world or buys on the cheap. She refers to her studio, Pisces Rising, as “economically challenged.” Her Web site says her art is made with “cutting edge design, eccentric color palettes and a reverence for the spirit and symbols and deeper meaning.”
Her artworks include collaged purses, jewelry and book art — colorful pages of found photography overwritten with calligraphy.
When she’d walk the streets of downtown, and look down to Jacob’s carefully crafted poetry in bursts of pastel color, she was instantly charmed.
“Being an artist with a love of writing, I just loved the idea of what he was doing,” Terry Lee said. “But when I saw his entire portfolio, I was just blown away.”
Jacob, now 35, wrote his first poem at 16. His name was Hans Honschar then. He was born in Canada but was quickly carried to Carrollwood, Fla., where his family raised him within a tight, traditional structure of religion, school and work in the construction industry.
His mother, whom he credits as his earliest artistic influence, died when he was 13. His relationship with his father grew strained. At 17, he left home, going back to Canada to find himself and his extended family. For the next 13 years, he visited relatives, lived in shelters and learned chalk art after seeing it done at an art market in Ottawa. His tidy but artistic script is an echo, he says, of the printing done on the construction blueprints he saw as a child.
At some point, he dropped his given name and became Jacob Christiano. Jacob, his father’s middle name. Christiano, a tribute to his love of Italian culture.
“I love that Italian gusto, that boldness, that zing-zang,” he says. “At least this way, my muse is protected. It protects me emotionally to be Jacob Christiano.”
Then he came back to Florida to make his mark on the streets.
“Inspiration’s all around you,” he says. “You can’t wait for it. You have to get your hands dirty.”
Since Jacob has been living with the Getzes, he has been able to collect more than 90 of his poems in a binder. He is learning to experiment with different materials — paper, stamps, markers — on pages to hold his words.
Terry Lee is encouraging him to gather his work in a chapbook, with the hopes that it can be published.
He and Terry Lee play with art and words together and separately. Terry Lee says people would never believe how quiet and introspective Jacob is when he’s home. Jacob calls her “Tea Leaf,” a play on the sound of her name. They listen to classical music. Jacob reads the gritty work of 20th century American novelist and poet Charles Bukowski. Terry Lee’s warming up to it, too.
Some people think Terry Lee must be crazy, inviting a stranger into her home. But she is steadfast in her belief in his talent, and says she is just doing what she can to help.
“A stranger is only a couple of conversations from being an acquaintance,” she says. “An acquaintance is only a couple of conversations from being a friend.
“I guess it’s a bit of a stretch to say a friend is only a couple of conversations away from being a roommate or a family member, but why not?”
There is no timeline for how long Terry Lee and Bob will serve as Jacob’s patrons and found family. They have their own financial strains as they explore their art without the safety net of traditional employment. Jacob is expected to contribute what he can, often by cutting the grass or helping out around the house.
Terry Lee hopes Jacob’s poetry will become known enough to provide him with a modest, independent but stable life.
“All I want for him is to have a small apartment, with a bed and a refrigerator,” she says. “If I can at least get one of his legs out of the street, maybe he’ll see possibilities and get both legs out of the street.”
Jacob says he’s ambivalent about leaving the streets that have nurtured his art until now, but excited about making wall art from his poetry – something more permanent that people can take home with them.
An early one of those pieces hangs on a cabinet in Terry Lee’s kitchen. It reads, “I heart tealeaf.”
Terry Lee doesn’t want Jacob to stop writing on sidewalks. She just doesn’t want him to be stuck there.