Arts In

Jason Hackenwerth is an adventurous abstract sculptor who’s medium is thousands of latex balloons. His enormous sculptural inventions can fill a towering museum atrium, or mall. His sculptures are enormous, and the vivid pictures on his website are only an echo of the overwhelming power of experiencing them up close. Jason Hackenwerth teaches at St. Pete’s Eckerd College and works all over the wor...

Erin Blankenship is the Curator of Exhibitions & Collections at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. The Museum is more special than most people realize - it’s a historical museum that maintains a vital collection of contemporary art. Erin’s seen first-hand how visual art offers another path to understanding the challenging reality of genocide. The Museum’s permanent collection includes...

Katherine Pill is the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St. Petersburg. In this conversation with Barbara St. Clair, Katherine shares her duties as curator of the growing collection of contemporary art at this classic museum - from exploring cutting-edge new digital works to collaborating with public artists Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse on community engageme...

Desiree Moore is a multidisciplinary artist working in video and film, art installations and a unique take on interactive public art. She shares her creative process, with plenty of action in the editing room, in this conversation with Barbara St. Clair. Along with her engaging collaborative effort, The Barter Boat, traveling the country to trade people’s special objects and stories. Find out more...

Carrie Boucher’s artistic practice is driving a traveling art classroom, providing opportunities for children and adults to create art. The much-beloved Nomad Art Bus visits art festivals and foster homes, domestic abuse shelters, juvenile detention centers and parks, recreation centers and youth programs in areas of poverty throughout Tampa Bay. Carrie talks with Barbara St. Clair about her journ...

Susana Weymouth is the Executive Director - and sole employee - of Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts. The TBBCA is one of 11 national Business Committees for the Arts, connecting business people with artists and art. Their work brings business folk to galleries and theatres, and connects artists with offices looking for art. The relationships the TBBCA build help artists and arts organ...

Painter Nathan Beard found his way to both realistic and abstract new work in the only time he had - when his newborn daughter was napping. Nathan talks with Barbara St. Clair about creating visual artwork that’s inspired by his other passion, environmental science and endangered species. Nathan shares his path and ongoing goals as a professional artist, and the things art school does not prepare...

As Keep St Pete Lit brings this year’s Writer in Residence to town, we share a conversation with last year’s award-winning author, Ladee Hubbard. Ladee talks with Barbara St. Clair about her rollicking, imaginative novel, The Talented Ribkins, about a family of African Americans living in the South who have odd and unique superpowers. . . like drawing maps and seeing colors no one else can see. Th...

You might think that Sheryl Oring’s work is about old-fashioned manual typewriters. But her compelling style of public art is about memory, and stories. Sheryl Oring’s powerful body of work gives voice to writers who were silenced, and helps people share stories and make their voices heard. In this vibrant conversation, she explains how she developed Writer’s Block to honor the writers, dancers an...

You’ve seen Herb Snitzer’s photographs - on album covers, CD covers and almost every major magazine and newspaper. His images of Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Nina Simone are legendary, a few of the many classic jazz musicians he knew well and loved. His photographs are striking, and they always tell a story. Herb Snitzer’s candid photos of the Civil Rights Movement capture momen...

Dancer, choreographer and USF professor Andee Scott says dance is public art as much as performance art. In her work on Our Town, she turned a walking tour of downtown St. Pete into an exploration of site-specific dance performances. For Our Trail, she brought dance to locations along the Pinellas Trail. Andee talks with Barbara St. Clair about her changing role in dance as she grows older, and he...

Jake Troyli is a young artist working with classical oil painting techniques, and making them his own. With humor, and inspiration from both Rubens and Richard Pryor, his work explores race, identity and politics, and invites constant conversation. Jake talks with Barbara St. Clair about his focus on perfecting his technique and why he chooses representational painting. He talks about growing up b...

Dolores Coe leads guided drawing sessions with students, caregivers and clinicians - and people who’ve lost language due to strokes or injury. And everyone communicates by making art. Dolores is the Curator of the University of South Florida’s Art in Health Programs, a creative lab aimed at training health care professionals to carefully observe and decode what they’re seeing, hearing and communic...

Roxanne Fay brings fascinating characters to life onstage. You might see her as Mary Magdalene, or a battered housewife who is suddenly set free. She’s played a wounded grandmother, a young girl hiding in a tree, Coco Chanel - and even wielded stormclouds in The Tempest. As an actor and a playwright, Roxanne Fay crafted a life in professional theatre, working steadily in classic plays, new plays a...

Gloria Muñoz thinks about the details she observes in life. Details, feelings, shades of meaning that she observes as closely as a scientist. Gloria explores the environment and nature in her work, the prospect of extinction, the complexities of family and the compression of sound. Gloria Muñoz is a poet - examining the world and investigating humans through her work. Gloria shares her passion for...

Marlys Meckler is a docent who gives tours full of stories at the Salvador Dalí Museum, the Chihuly Museum and The James Museum, as well as Mural Tours for Florida CraftArt and tours of St. Pete’s Public Art. Marlys talks with Barbara St. Clair about the work she does - how Public Art is chosen and the stories behind many of the striking artworks that residents of St. Pete don’t always notice as t...

Elizabeth A. Baker is a composer, a touring toy piano player, a classical guitarist, an experimental performance artist, a recording engineer, a cellist, a collaborator with dancers and visual artists, a computer programmer, a rarely-heard singer, an educator, sound designer. . . so many things that people forget she’s a concert pianist. Renaissance Artist is the most accurate job description Eliz...

Amanda Cooper is the longtime Curator of Exhibitions at the Morean Arts Center, the 100+ year mainstay of St. Petersburg’s arts community, with a mission to provide training in the arts for all ages. Amanda talks with Barbara St. Clair about the process of shaping the Morean’s adventurous themed exhibitions. She explains how the gallery focuses on local artists but places their artwork in a nation...

If you’ve seen theatre or opera in Tampa Bay, you’ve probably seen a production Keith Arsenault helped bring to life. A skilled lighting designer, set designer, theatre tech consultant and arts administrator, Keith is the resident lighting designer of the St Pete Opera, runs HCC Ybor’s beautiful Performing Arts Center, has worked as a voiceover artist, theatrical producer and circus ringmaster, an...

Kim Dohrman works in an art studio full of laughter and music. She’s the Executive Director of Creative Clay, St. Pete’s long and much-beloved arts center whose mission is to make the arts accessible for all. Creative Clay helps people with disabilities find their paths as working artists who actively create, market and sell their artwork. Kim shares how much she loves her job, the rich artistic p...

When Helen Hansen French is onstage, it’s hard to keep your eyes on anybody else. As a dancer, Helen’s every move is purposeful and thoughtful, but seems utterly spontaneous. As a choreographer, she’s an expert at visual storytelling and often collaborates with composers, writers and visual artists. Helen is a St. Pete native with a degree from Julliard, who’s danced around the world. After joinin...

Imaginative visual artist Kenny Jensen translates fallen branches, lichen and found objects into paintings, sculpture and strikingly beautiful installations. Trained in the precision of graphic design, Kenny learned to let unpredictable mediums lead him down new artistic paths. A Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Grantee, Kenny talks with Barbara St. Clair about the gorgeous piece he created after...

Xavier Cortada is an artist who tackles climate change, endangered species, poverty, homophobia, Florida’s history and hard science with his artwork. And he’s a funny, engaging, vibrant guy from Miami whose art projects are seen by millions, and get people all over Florida participating. Cortada’s work is featured in school textbooks and publications, on National Geographic TV and the Discovery Ch...

Coralette Damme’s distinctive handcrafted printmaking is inspired by trees, birds and the bees, flowers and butterflies in her backyard. . .  and colored by Halloween, her Midwestern background and her German heritage.  Keep an eye out for Coralette’s work at Florida CraftArt, St Pete’s Saturday Morning Market and Craft events and workshops around Pinellas County. Coralette Damme was chosen as a f...

Greg Byrd is an award-winning poet with a PhD in Literature, living in Clearwater and teaching at St. Pete College. He’s a Fulbright Fellow in poetry and literature, winner of the Yellow Jacket Prize and recipient of a Creative Pinellas Professional Artists Fellowship.   Greg explains that, “My poetry is often connected to placeness and to mythology, but is rooted in concrete things and often in w...