ART NEWS
By Caron Schwartz
Johnny we hardly knew ye
The St. Petersburg Arts Alliance founder John Collins will retire as executive director as of March 31. Board Vice-Chair Helen French will serve as interim executive director while Catalyst Consulting Services conducts a national search for a new executive director. Collins will remain as an advisory consultant for six months to help ensure continuity for grant-funded programs through October 1. To review the full position description and instructions on how to apply visit www.catalystcs.org/about/current-openings.
Florida CraftArt’s Members’ Show: Contemporary Craft at its Finest is a juried exhibition of original art showcasing the best of handcrafted work by members. Forty-six artists created 79 pieces from intricate jewelry to glass sculptures. Gulfport’s own Dawn Waters’ felt portrait of Salvador Dali is among those on display.
“The first Members’ Show was held in 1951,” says Florida CraftArt’s Board President Tyler Jones. “As a statewide, member-supported organization, we display outstanding handmade objects, made by some of the best craftspeople in the country.” The show runs through March 20 when the People’s Choice Award will be presented at the closing reception. People can vote for their favorite work of art in the Florida CraftArt Exhibition Gallery, www.floridacraftart.org.
The Chef’s Special call for entries– deadline extended!
The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) welcomes submissions for its newest exhibition, The Chef’s Special. The Tampa Bay area has a variety of talented chefs, baristas, restaurant owners, and brewmasters, and it would like to celebrate and support them by featuring portraits of them in FMoPA’s gallery. Many of these establishments have been affected by Covid-19; this exhibition is a wonderful way to show your support for your favorite local establishment or discover your new favorite go-to!
If you would like to participate – as a photographer or as the person being photographed – please contact FMoPA. We can match establishments with photographers. Participation is free of charge. Photographs can be submitted printed or framed at the museum or digitally via the museum website by Feb. 22 at 5pm. For submission guidelines, please visit www.fmopa.org/the-chefs-special-submission.
When you’re done posing you are invited to experience FMoPA’s newest exhibit, Hidden Waters/Desert Springs/Uncertain Future, featuring works by Bremner Benedict. Benedict’s project is an artistic investigation, part art, part research, into the springs of the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Mojave, Great Basin deserts, and the Colorado Plateau. The critical importance of these deserts and their ecologies in the face of climate changes and population pressures is considered by many to be making their survival precarious. By visually interpreting the science, Benedict’s intent is to raise public awareness of the potential of water scarcity. The exhibition will be on view through Sept. 15. Get tickets at www.fmopa.org/online-reservation-only.
St. Pete Improv Jam returns!
Jump on stage with us and play some of our favorite “Whose Line St. Pete” improv games for free. Once we start playing, we take volunteers from the audience to come play the games with us! The St. Pete Improv Jam is a free night of improv games for any and everyone! You can come to play or just to watch. Every Third Thursday, 8pm at Spitfire Comedy House, 1920 1st Ave. S.
First time? An improv “jam” is like a show that the audience gets to be in. During the jam, the host and some of our trained improvisers will demonstrate a few simple improv games, then ask for volunteers from the audience to play them. For more information and to register click go online www.spitfirecomedy.com.
American Stage presents “Satchmo at the Waldorf” by Terry Teachout, Feb. 19 – 28. The three-character play takes place backstage at the Empire Room of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Louis Armstrong performed in public for the last time four months before his death. Audience favorite L. Peter Callender (“Between Riverside and Crazy,” “Othello”) plays all three characters: Louis Armstrong, the greatest of all jazz trumpeters; Joe Glaser, his white manager; and Miles Davis, who admired Armstrong’s playing but disliked his onstage manner.
Individual performance streams are available for $15, which include a single stream of the show for six hours from time of performance. Get tickets at www.tickets.americanstage.org.
Premier members are invited to join on Friday, Feb. 19 for the opening performance including a pre-show virtual gathering with special artists. Members get to enjoy all-access to special shows, events, and classes all season long. Learn more at www.americanstage.org/membership.
Poets who know it
The Studio@620 and Keep St. Pete Lit continue the poetry tradition with a home-spun gathering at 7pm on the third Wednesday of each month. Join hosts Denzel, Sara, and Maureen for an at-home live-stream presentation of poetry readings and discussions. Broadcasts are live on www.facebook.com/Studio620 and archived in our video section. Until we can gather safely in person, this is the next best thing! Stay with us and stay inspired! Donations gratefully accepted to help keep this program going!
Hey kids, it’s art in a tub!
The Warehouse Arts District Association is wrapping up the development of WADA Art Tubs for K-5 art teachers to use in their classrooms to support their established curriculum. The project focuses on six art-focused buildings in St Pete: Dali Museum, Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of American Arts and Crafts Movement, Royal Theater, and Palladium. The tubs are designed to align with math and science, with the hope to include art in the future. The goal is to provide an art experience that supports the established classroom structure by sharing WADA resources and highlighting the talent of our WADA member artists. Sadly, considering the impact of Covid on schools, our best hope is to launch the tubs for the Fall 2021 school year.
Voices of Truth debuts
In collaboration with Outcast Theatre Collective, The Voices of Truth Festival makes its inaugural debut from Powerstories Theatre’s technology-updated venue on March 10-28. Sixteen conversation-starting productions will take to the virtual stage. Topics range from the first female astronomer to a hearing child raised by deaf parents without ASL to a ghost story, and many more thought-provoking subjects. Several plays feature post-show talkback discussions with the playwright, cast, crew, and noted experts in the field, providing live questions and answers sessions via Zoom.With the goal to make theater accessible to everyone impacted by coronavirus,
Powerstories is offering an Early Bird All-Access 16-Show Festival pass through Feb.14 for only $79, after Feb. 14, $99 until March 8. Individual tickets are also available at $10 per show. To learn more or purchase tickets visit www.powerstories.com/voices-of-truth-festival/.
The Straz will resume live, in-person Arts Legacy REMIX performances on the Riverwalk Stage beginning in February and continuing through May. Arts Legacy REMIX celebrates the many varied cultures of talented local artists, with each performance focusing on a different theme.
- Friday, Feb. 19: Lift Every Voice and Sing
- Friday, March 26: Bridges of Rhythm
- Friday, April 16: A Journey Through Central and Eastern Europe
- Friday, May 21: Jazz, Jazz, Jazz
All Arts Legacy REMIX performances will be held on Fridays, 7:30-9pm on the Riverwalk Stage. Tickets are free and required in advance at www.strazcenter.org. There is a $3.90 processing fee.
Celebrate!
The third annual St. Petersburg Celebration of the Arts, Feb. 1-28, highlights our city’s creative ambiance, renowned for its numerous, splendid cultural organizations. The annual February festival, founded by Michele Kidwell Gilbert and her husband, neurologist Dr. Gordon Joel Gilbert, features diverse groups exploring a singular theme, with this year’s topic being The Sea.
Thursday Feb. 18, 2-2:30pm:
Lecture by Professor Sara Munson Deats, “Shakespeare’s Sea Voyages.” Free streaming online, register: www.artsofstpete.com
Tuesday Feb. 23 1-2pm: Lecture presented in partnership with the American Research Center in Egypt, by Professor Stephen Michael Vinson, Chair, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures of the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University Bloomington. Free streaming online: https://iu.zoom.us/j/84857277352
Wednesday, Feb. 24 3-4pm: Lecture by
Dr. Peter Feinman, Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education: “When Israel sang the Song of the Sea at Zion, what did that mean in the city David had chosen to be the capital of his kingdom?” Free streaming online. To register: www.artsofstpete.com
I’m gonna paint mine with melted clocks
In conjunction with its current special exhibition Van Gogh Alive (www.thedali.org/exhibit/van-gogh-alive), the Dalí Museum invites you to paint your bedroom Van Gogh-style. Enter for a chance to win museum admission and merchandise from the museum store.
How it works:
- Create an original Vincent van Gogh-inspired painting of your bedroom using oil, watercolor, acrylic, digital painting, or mixed-medium painting.
- Upload your original design and description by March 1 to www.thedali.org/the-dali-museums-paint-your-bedroom- contest/. Please submit files as jpgs (2MB or less).
- Your work will be entered into either teen (ages 13-17) or adult (age 18+) categories.
- All entries will be juried by a panel of Dalí Museum staff members and posted on the Dali website by March 14.
- Public voting will run March 15-29 on www.TheDali.org.
- Winners will be contacted and announced on April 2.
Karen Harbaugh, Sue Lockett, and Tina Yoder are the hearts and hands behind One Unique Shop.
A family that crafts together … opened a home decor and more store. One Unique Shop, at 6801 Gulfport Blvd. in the same South Pasadena strip mall as Spiro’s and Two Red’s Muscle Mechanics, is a museum of craftiness. Three sisters – Karen Harbaugh, Sue Lockett, and Tina Yoder – are showing off their talents in painting, sculpture, furniture restoration, and jewelry design. Their husbands are no slouches either; check out the wooden puzzles, a golf bag upcycled into a lamp (clubs included), a bird bath consisting of hammered aluminum serving dishes, just to name a few.
According to the sisters, their siblings (two more sisters and two brothers) are also artisans, having learned painting, crocheting, woodworking and other skills from their mother.
Back in January, the USF Contemporary Art Museum, part of the Institute for Research in Art in the College of The Arts, launched a hybrid exhibition titled Marking Monuments in both online and physical spaces. The exhibit features artists’ installations and interventions that challenge, erase and transform dominant histories, offering reimagined representations for equity in public culture.
Marking Monuments also features Field Trip, a hands-on activity that invites investigation into local monuments, generates questions about art and justice in public space, and seeks proposals for new ideas for monuments. Accessible both online and in-person at the USF Contemporary Art Museum, Field Trip can be conducted safely in public or from home using Street View, Google Earth or other online tools.
Participants are encouraged to share their ideas, questions, and photos from their Field Trip with Monument Lab on social media by tagging @Monument_Lab and using #MonumentLabFieldTrip to connect with others. For more info and links to events, visit the facebook.com/monumentsandmemorycollective.
Sorry, you won’t get to walk in Memphis until next year
Ruth Eckerd Hall regrets that it has to postpone One Night in Memphis: The Music of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis & Johnny Cash to Sun., April 3, 2022. If you already bought a ticket for the April 7, 2021, performance it will be honored on the new date. The show recreates that magical night of Dec. 4, 1956 when the four found themselves jamming at Sam Phillips’s Sun Studios in Memphis. For more information and tickets visit www.RuthEckerdHall.com.