Tampa Bay Watch is thrilled to be working with local artist Bill Castleman to present the 2nd Annual Bay Life Art Exhibit featuring eight distinguished Florida wildlife artists. The event is on February 21 from 10am -4pm at the Tampa Bay Watch Marine & Education Center in Tierra Verde. Featured artists will include Bill Castleman, George Chase, Paul Ladnier, Bill Renc, Jean Grasdorf, Karen Baker, Joyce Ely Walker and Sandra Williams. These highly acclaimed artists will be showing a wide spectrum of their work that reflects the beauty and complexity of our natural surroundings. They are generously donating a portion of all proceeds from art sales to support Tampa Bay Watch habitat restoration projects and environmental education programs.
Jeff Klinkenberg, former Tampa Bay Times columnist, will lead a Florida Wildlife discussion at 2pm. Florida native Jeff Klinkenberg grew up in Miami, began working in newspapers at age sixteen, and wrote for the Tampa Bay Times on Florida culture from 1977 – 2014. In 2010, Klinkenberg and photographer-videographer Maurice Rivenbark won the national Sigma Delta Chi Award for the online presentation of “Real Florida.” He is a two-time winner of the Paul Hansell Distiguished Journalism Award, highest honor in state journalism, given annually to the writer with the best body of work by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. He has been an adjunct instructor in the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and was the first “Writer in Residence” for the University of South Florida’s Florida Studies Graduate program. Esquire, Outside, Travel and Leisure, and Audubon are among the magazines that have published his stories.
The exhibit is free and open to the public. Additionally, the event is family friendly. The Tampa Bay Watch Education staff will lead kids activities from 10am – noon. The event will take place at the Tampa Bay Watch Marine & Education Center, 3000 Pinellas Bayway South, Tierra Verde, FL 33715. Tampa Bay Watch is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of the Tampa Bay estuary through scientific and educational programs.
To learn more about the event, go to tampabaywatch.org or contact Esther Happle, Tampa Bay Watch Special Events Coordinator, at 727-867-8166 ext. 231, or ehapple@tampabaywatch.org.
This event is sponsored by Loews Don CeSar, Sabal Trust and Mary Ann Renfrow.
Tampa Bay Watch is a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) stewardship program dedicated exclusively to the charitable and scientific purpose of protecting and restoring the marine and wetland environments of the Tampa Bay estuary encompassing over 400 square miles of open water and 2,300 square miles of highly- developed watershed. Tampa Bay Watch involves more than 10,000 youth and adult volunteers each year in hands on habitat restoration projects. For more information, visit www.tampabaywatch.org, or call 727-867-8166.