By Jake-ann Jones. Celeste Davis became executive director of Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts (TBBCA) in February of 2021, bringing decades of professional design experience along with an insightful curatorial eye. She points to the growing appreciation of both established and contemporary Black artists and their work coming to area museums as “a natural experience for curators, for visitors, for everyone to think more broadly, more diversely, more inclusively…. Read More
By Laura Kepner. “We bring people together,” says Jennifer Malin of Community Foundation Tampa Bay. “We work with philanthropists who invest their money with us and we match them with a community need.” CFTB’s newest space at 110 Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete is dedicated to showcasing local art. Right now their space hosts paintings by Nathan Beard, works by Nick Davis and a permanent mural by Ya La’Ford…. Read More
By Margo Hammond. The Cultured Books Literacy Foundation is a nonprofit, book-promoting organization with an unusual mission. Unlike most literacy programs which look to the needs of individual children, CBLF is interested in fostering literacy throughout an entire community — the Black community of south St. Pete. “It’s not just about focusing on the children,” the foundation says on its website, “It’s about supporting and involving parents as well.” For CBLF, literacy is a lifestyle…. Read More
By Jake-ann Jones. A dynamic display of contemporary Black women artists, including Shannon Elyse Curry, Kendra Frorup, Nneka Jones, Jodi Minnis and Princess Smith, is currently on view at the Tampa Museum of Art (TMA) in Verde: Poetics of Shade. Taking its title from contemplation on the color green and its various emotions and feelings, the exhibit considers several shades and symbolic messages evoked from the color through the mediums of painting, sculpture, ceramics, and embroidery on canvas…. Read More
By Carol Mickett. I knew as soon as I walked into The Visit, the first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. by Uruguayan-Spanish artist Yamandú Canosa, that I was not in the typical Museum show. It’s rare to find a show such as The Visit which quietly and simply creates a place. The entire show itself is generated from Canosa’s visit to the home of Salvador Dalí in Port Lligat, Spain. Canosa uses the home of Dalí and its landscape to construct a place of his own that pays homage to his visit and to his roots in Spanish art history and surrealism…. Read More
By Tom Winchester. The DMG School Project brings the art of glass to students who don’t otherwise have access to this art by offering demonstrations and workshops on-site at local schools. This project is funded, in part, by the Pinellas County Recovers Grant that’s awarded by Creative Pinellas through the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan. The DMG School Project helps to put the power of creativity into the hands of the next generation…. Read More
By Jackie Kaufman. The St. Petersburg Chess Club is a hidden gem close to downtown St. Pete. They have been operating in the same location longer than any other chess club in the United States, 91 years – yes that is right, since 1931 in the same building. Through this NEA/Pinellas Recovers grant project, the members will make their own individual chess pieces out of pewter, and learn the whole creative process.
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By Tony Wong Palms. The Lyrical Moment exhibition currently at the USF Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) features the works of two artists – Helen Frankenthaler and Heather Gwen Martin. Can there be a more different pairing of two artists? Probably yes, but in this case, while both fit the category of abstract artists, in a way The Lyrical Moment is an exhibition of two halves as the artworks representing each artist come off different routes and media, each speaking from a very different point in history…. Read More
By Amanda Sieradzki. In November, I began an interdisciplinary, community dance class at downtown Tampa’s Water Works Park Pavilion. Classes are donation-based and open to anyone who wants to discover the world around them through movement and poetry. my goal as writer, poet, dancer and educator, is to provide a safe, welcoming environment for anyone with a desire to reconnect with themselves through movement…. Read More
By Judy Vienneau. Judy Vienneau’s recent art employs her talent for using various media, paint and a unique technique with wire to “draw in space,” resulting in artwork which falls somewhere between two and three dimensions. In Visual Storytelling, Judy Vienneau presents pieces which portray concepts of human social interaction, as well as environmental concerns. … Read More
