Mike Bell is one of the most important artists in Hampton Roads. Period.

His art can be seen all over this area, and you’re likely to have seen it even without realizing it: It’s in places like Towne Bank in VB, the Gary Allen hair salon, Hot Tuna bar and grill, and homes all over the area. He also has a few mermaids around Norfolk–the best ones, in my opinion. And all of that business has come to him strictly through word of mouth.

When I went to visit him in Waterside, where he was installing a practical museum of dozens of his pieces, he was working with classical music on, which then switches to beautiful old jazz–Betsy Smith, he informs me. In fact, he told me, the music changes frequently, “because I like it all.”

And same goes for Bell’s style. He works in multiple media, as you’ll see from the many sculptures, paintings and drawings in Waterside starting today.

“There’s no tits and ass,” he joked, alluding to the many nudes he is so brilliant at rendering. “But everything else is here.”

Aside from his professional art career, Bell is an event planner. “We do weddings, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties; doing everything from the flowers to the music to taking out the trash.

“But art is the foundation of everything.”

When I ask how this massive exhibition came about, he told me: Karen Scherberger contacted him originally, and he’s been doing sculptures for her events for years. Next came the bird in the foyer of Waterside–a giant golden loon poised skyward. With that working relationship successful, he asked, “What if I did an art show around this bird and the revelers” he had created for previous festivals?

“She said, ‘Good. Yes. Love it.’”

So things kept growing organically, and now, he’s kind of taken over the place with his vibrant, whimsical works.

It seems effortless, but “it’s a lot of work,” he says. “It takes a lot of wanting to do this.”

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