By Nanette Wiser
SARASOTA’S SELBY GARDENS
Tiffany: The Pursuit of Beauty in Nature is on view through June 25 at Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus. The exhibition will showcase the creativity and innovation of the American artist and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), who founded Tiffany Studios and served as the first design director of Tiffany & Co., the renowned jewelry and silver firm established by his father, Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902). This is the first exhibition of its type to be presented in a botanical garden and it highlights the connection between Tiffany’s work and the natural world. Tiffany’s celebrated stained-glass windows and lamps will inspire stunning horticultural displays in the Tropical Conservatory and throughout the Gardens. These kaleidoscopic displays of flowers and foliage will play with light, color, and material to create a truly immersive experience that blurs the line between art and nature.
Accompanying the horticultural displays will be outstanding examples of Tiffany’s work (lamps, vases, and other objects) on view in the Museum of Botany & the Arts as well as the story of Tiffany and his firm, which revolutionized glassmaking and elevated the status of American decorative arts at home and abroad, all reflecting the beauty of nature. Downtown Sarasota Campus, 1534 Mound St., Sarasota, FL 34236 Also returning in 2023 and 2024 is writer, performer, and visual artist Patti Smith (known as the punk poet laureate) who is Selby Gardens’ inaugural Artist in Residence. Smith will combine public activities such as readings and performances with private time, drawing creative inspiration from the gardens and collections. After your excursion, plan to dine (Crab & Fin) and shop at Sarasota’s St. Armands Circle.
SPRING TRAINING The boys of spring are back, with the Rays “going north” to Orlando’s Disney ESPN’s Wild World of Sports complex then moving to Tropicana Field March 1, the Yankees in Tampa, and the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin. Perhaps one of the best baseball experiences is catching the 2022 National League champion Phillies at Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark. BayCare Ballpark opened in 2004 and is the home of Phillies Spring Training and the Low-A Southeast League Clearwater Threshers. The Phillies have been training in Clearwater since 1947, the second-longest affiliation between a major league club and its spring training home in baseball. Enjoy the popular Tiki Bar (tickets required), a reserved picnic table down the third-base line and a family-friendly area where the kids can run loose while parents supervise from their blanket in the outfield berm. There are luxury boxes and a Hooters-sponsored large video screen and it’s right off U.S. 19.
NATIONAL TREASURES Now is the time to reserve your national parks adventure and plans to visit America’s national monuments. To get you in the mood, PN recommends the award-winning photography book Our National Monuments by QT Luong that captures the richness of America’s landscape that remains more than two centuries past the birth of the country. At a time when sprawl is pressing more and more across many states and natural areas, these places protected as a collection of national monuments capture the imagination of a time and a wild America many no doubt thought was long past.
