- September 12, 2024
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Photographer Jamie Stewart remembers her late friend William Pearson, better known to the community as "Dr. Nik," as someone who could create something special out of what someone else might have seen as garbage.
“He was always finding found objects and turning them into beautiful things, and I thought that was something really beautiful about Nik," she said. "He knew how to pick up something that anybody else thought was garbage, and turn it into magic, and not just turn it into magic, turn it into something that was alive."
When the chance arrived to stop a dozen of his art bikes and other works from becoming scrap once again, she leaped into action.
She immediately roped in WSLR+Fogartyville, a nonprofit with a longtime relationship with Dr. Nik, whose crowdfunding campaign drew two donations, including a large donation from Donna Pickup.
The bikes can now continue to be enjoyed by the community in their new home at WSLR+Fogartyville, which is still working on its plans for their future.
Since Dr. Nik's death in April, Stewart had been left searching for his colorful “art bykes."
“I immediately started asking the universe and anybody I could, where is his art here in Sarasota?” she said. “I wasn’t getting anywhere.”
When Stewart spotted the bikes on a flatbed trailer Aug. 8 at a gas station, it took her a moment to register that the truck was labeled “scrap.”
Dr. Nik had left behind many of the bikes, which he would often rotate out, in his storage unit, when he moved to Portland, Oregon in 2022 for his leukemia treatment.
After the rent on the unit went unpaid, the owners of the storage facility had put the contents out for a bid.
Stewart was able to persuade the owner of the scrap metal business to sell the pieces for $1,000, and immediately reached out to WSLR+Fogartyville, calling the organization and tagging it on social media.
When the nonprofit's team received the news, it wasn’t an ideal time, said Jesse Coleman, general manager of the organization, for the board was planning its annual retreat.
Nonetheles, the team set to work on the new task.
'There was a sense of urgency around it all, and we were really just kind of shocked and excited to spring into action," Coleman said.
The team quickly created an online crowdfunding campaign, and within about 30 minutes, it was fully funded, almost entirely by Pickup, through a donation of $975, with the note, “I love Dr. Nik’s art!”
On Aug. 9, a dozen bikes, along with metal marionettes, puppets, paintings and drawings were delivered to the Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center.
“It was incredibly fortuitous,” Coleman said. "I can't even say how amazing it was that this community came together so quickly to make it happen.”
Dr. Nik was widely known for his many artistic endeavors, as well as his appearance, which was easily recognizable with his short stature, white mustache and round glasses.
Pearson said he offered several public shows he would bring to locations including Five Points Park and local schools.
His puppet show at the downtown farmers market became a staple of the event.
Meanwhile, he had also long enjoyed a relationship with Fogartyville as one of its programmers, and hosted two shows, a bluegrass show and a show about vinyl records titled “33 and a Third.”
His main job role was at Florida Studio Theater, where he fulfilled responsibilities such as designing sets, caring for buildings and looking after the needs of actors.
In 2015, the “bykes," which were decorated with everything from flamingoes to American flags, became his signature works. They began to appear in locations around Sarasota, and community members also began to donate their own bikes to the project.
Locking the bikes to street signs and lamp posts, Dr. Nik would periodically take the art pieces home to refurbish them.
"I do it just to do it," he told the Observer in 2015. "It brings me joy. I don't care about money. I've got my dove bike, my tiger car and my kayak. I don't need much.”
Coleman said the bikes had been seen around the area until perhaps this year, but have been increasingly removed due to a degredation in quality, something he said does not appear to be an issue for the bikes in the storage unit.
“The paint’s all pretty bright and colored and new, so maybe he hadn't gotten these into rotation recently, or he had been touching them up,” Coleman said.
Stewart became friends with Dr. Nik through organizations including Florida Studio Theatre and International Association of Theatrical & Stage Employees in Sarasota, and recalls him as having a love of peace and of humanity.
"He was just a consummate artist. He believed in peace," she said.
She said he would wake up every day and ride out to the beach, using found objects to make peace signs, and leaving them for others to find.
Pickup had fallen in love with the bikes since they began to appear, although she did not know Dr. Nik personally.
“When I first came across them, it just gave me pure joy,” she said. “I was enamored. I was like, ‘Who did this?’ and ‘How come?’ So, I looked it up and I’ve just been fascinated ever since.”
Not everyone valued what the art could provide, Stewart said, which was why designated individuals were assigned to protect different bikes.
“It would make him really heartbroken that he would put this art out, and then people would vandalize and steal it,” Stewart said.
Pickup started biking seriously during the past two years, although she says her love of bikes has grown her sense of connection to Dr. Nik's art.
“I’m a lover of art, and I like the surprise of art that’s outside that you’re not expecting, and I’m drawn to the creativity of it and the message,” she said.
At the same time, while riding her bike around the area, she had increasingly become concerned with where the bikes could be found.
Knowing Dr. Nik had died, she wondered what could be done.
She recalls thinking, as she saw the call on social media from Fogartyville, “This is perfect. This is just what I’ve been thinking about.”
With the bikes now in their current home at WSLR+Fogartyville Fogartyville, staff are discussing what is next, Coleman said.
A media release said the bikes and some of the other works will be installed at Fogartyville, while additional art may be used to benefit the nonprofit’s endowment in Dr. Nik’s memory.
“We have many people who have reached out and said they're so excited to be able to see them and have them around town and accessible,” Coleman said.
He said they plan to apply clear varnish to the bikes to protect them from the sun, and are looking to hang them in the shaded space of the outdoor patio.
“I think that the symbol they make for Sarasota as a fun, quirky, creative place is what really draws me to them, personally,” Coleman said. “I think the way this community is able to foster an artistic atmosphere around it is so important, and this sort of folk art and these pieces of whimsy and different outlets of expression are what makes this area really unique.”
