Letter from the Editor

August 7, 2019 | By Sheila Cowley

Welcome to the Arts Coast Journal, a new name and new focus for the Creative Pinellas online magazine.

Our aim is high-quality coverage of the Visual, Literary and Performing Arts. . .  and all the kinds of art that merge and mix and fall between those.

This is an arts community that needs in-depth journalism that explores the art being created in Pinellas County and beyond. . . and the artists making it.

Previews of coming work, interviews and features and the vivid conversations of our Arts In podcast set the stage for what will become a multimedia arts resource. Skilled writers will share insights and perspectives that will spark you. Artists will speak in their own words about their work. You will find new articles and features every time you look.

 

 

For this first official issue, we’re focused on collaboration. This community is where all kinds of art is being made, by all kinds of artists who are interested in everything. When you go to a concert, dancers and writers are in the audience. At a gallery, musicians and actors are looking at paintings. We are interested in the way all kinds of art explore the same world we’re exploring.

As a playwright, I work with actors, dancers, musicians and visual artists to make theatre. . . we collaborate on work that none of us could make alone. My script is the starting point, but what audiences see is a work that grew through the skills and thoughts and voice and body of each artist who is part of it.

 

We asked a range of artists, is there a different kind of art that finds its way into your own?

Here you’ll see their thoughtful and surprising influences and inspirations – each one very personal, and all of them so different. 

 

 

To get started, I’ll share mine. Silent clowns, and gesture. I am always trying to put on a page the moment everybody caught their breath, delighted, in Bill Irwin and David Shiner’s, Fool Moon. Two masters of silent expression and an onstage band, creating wondrous stories, all hilarious and poignant.

The moment I’m reaching for with every script is their quiet finale, when the giant crescent Moon that was hanging high all evening – surprisingly set. And two gentle clowns in old-fashioned suits sat on the Moon as it rose again.

That was a magical moment. But the one I always take as inspiration is when that Moon was rising, with Irwin and Shiner enjoying the ride. . . and Shiner remembered something, hunted around – and flipped a switch. And the Moon turned on like a lightbulb, as they flew up in a red velvet sky.

 

Collaborations and Inspirations

 

If you’d like to share a collaboration – or you have an arts story –
you can email s.cowley@arts-src-wp.sptechteam.net.