5 Things to Do | Oct. 20-26 – Ultimate Beach Day Edition
[/fusion_title][fusion_text]This week’s most interesting events are, alas, once again tightly clustered into the overburdened weekend. The good news is that I’ve done some complex math and proven that it IS indeed possible to do everything on the following list — the opera, the chalk art festival, even the gallery tour — assuming you’ve got a lead foot and case of Red Bull under the passenger seat.
(Creative Pinellas assumes no liability for injury or exhaustion suffered when attempting to pull this off).
Also of note — Be sure to look at our directory of Halloween-related events, including a few events this week!
Clearwater Beach Chalk Art Festival, Friday-Sunday, Oct. 20-22
While St. Pete has staked a claim to street-art status with its Shine mural festival, Clearwater is celebrating a slightly more ephemeral art form. 40 artists will lay out fantastical, sometimes eye-tricking chalk murals, while vendors and live music round out the quintessential beach-art celebration. There will also be a kid’s area, and the chance to vote on a People’s Choice award that includes a monetary prize.
Free, various times all weekend.
333 South Gulfview Boulevard
Faust – Friday-Tuesday, Oct. 20-24
I’m mildly obsessed lately with Stephen King’s great treatise on horror, Danse Macabre. Among his other smart classifications, he draws a line between stories of external horror – forces that lurk beyond our understanding, ready to harm us unprovoked – and internal horror – calamities rooted in human frailty. Faust is the ultimate tale of internal horror, the original devil’s bargain, and this 19th century French opera by Charles Gounod renders it in lush, but light, tones.
Palladium Theatre, 253 Fifth Ave. N.
$20-$75, Three Performances – Friday, Sunday and Tuesday.
Seminole Heights Arts Studio and Gallery Tour, Saturday, Oct. 21
While Pinellas County is home to every kind of art, it tends – as noted above – to best foster poppier or folkier strains. Thanks in part to links with USF’s bleeding-edge art school, Tampa’s blossoming Seminole Heights neighborhood is a hotbed of more academic, experimental, and conceptual work, and this self-guided tour of open studios and galleries is the single best chance this year to drink it all in at once. You’ll get an inside peek at 13 galleries and studio complexes, and you’ll see the work of dozens of artists, including Kirk ke Wang, Brian Taylor, Becky Flanders, and many others. There will also be an after party at c. 1949, a new-ish neighborhood craft-beer bar.
Absolutely worth crossing the bridge.
$20 ($15 in advance), 12 p.m.-6p.m.
Tours start at Tempus Projects, 4636 North Florida Avenue.
Hauntizaar Halloween & Day of the Dead Arts Market – Saturday, Oct. 21
Is Halloween shopping a thing now? And if not, can we make it one?
This pop-up market features local crafters and makers, ready to fulfill your desire for handmade halloween accessories, spooky jewelry, unique masks, found-object sculpture, and, of course, haunted pickles.
Free, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
The Studio @620, 620 First Ave. S., St. Petersburg
Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins & more at Clearwater Jazz Festival – Saturday, Oct. 21
Scoff if you wish, but condescending to these two titans of blue-eyed soul is sooooo 2003. Their brand of earthy-but-polished pop is back on the charts (see Bruno Mars), but more to the point, distance from their heyday has shown just how unique their vocal talents are (especially McDonald’s). They were officially cosigned with a reverent inclusion on the joyous lead single from hipster avatar Thundercat’s recent album (check it out below).
Clearwater Jazz will also feature a tribute to electro-jazz giants Weather Report by members of the Dave Matthews Band, locals La Lucha and Helios Orchestra, and contemporary soft-roots rockers The Avett Brothers on Sunday, so be sure to peruse the whole schedule.
Day Passes start at $16.
Music all day Thursday-Sunday, McDonald and Loggins starting at 7:45 pm.
Coachman Park, Clearwater
