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» art
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Clearwater Jazz Holiday and Jazz ‘N Art Walk
Clearwater Jazz Holiday is proud to announce the Third Annual Clearwater Jazz ‘N Art Walk in Clearwater, FL, October 16th and 17th from 10AM – 5PM.
Each year more than 50,000 visitors come to Coachman Park in downtown Clearwater to enjoy four days & nights of FREE Jazz by some of today’s greats.
The Clearwater Jazz ‘N Art Walk is an art show on the 500 & 600 block of Cleveland St. from Ft. Harrison to East Avenue. Fine art of different mediums will be on display and for sale to the general public.
The GTE Federal Credit Union main stage will be located at Garden Avenue with fantastic entertainment featuring local and regional talent for one to enjoy. Artists scheduled to perform will be announced soon.
The Clearwater Jazz ‘N Art Walk will feature a Kids Educational Zone, located in Station Square, in cooperation with the Dunedin Fine Art Center, showcasing some of the Bay area’s youth works and talents. Kids of all ages can enjoy the art and experience hands-on activities created just for them.
About Jazz ´N Art Walk & Clearwater Jazz Holiday
What started as a 10-day series of jazz concerts held on the back of a flatbed truck and at venues all around the City of Clearwater, has evolved into a major regional jazz festival and draw for tens of thousands of visitors. The Clearwater Jazz Holiday is a world-class gathering of the some of the greatest talents and greatest fans of jazz. The event takes full advantage of its home in Clearwater, Florida, offering music against the backdrop of warm breezes, brilliant sunsets, and one of the world’s greatest beaches, on the Gulf of Mexico.
Over its 30-year history, the Clearwater Jazz Holiday has featured such legendary talents as Tony Bennett, Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Mann, Dave Brubeck, Tito Puente, Stephan Grappelli, Stan Getz, and the Count Basie Orchestra, to name only a few. Today’s most popular and innovative jazz stars have also made stops in Clearwater, including Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Al Dimeola, Stanley Clarke, Kevin Mahogany, Hiroshima, Julian Coryell, The Rippingtons, Spyro Gyra, Acoustic Alchemy, Herbie Hancock, Paquito D’Rivera with New York Voices, Rick Braun, The Neville Brothers, Branford Marsalis, Stanley Clarke – Bela Fleck – Jean-Luc Ponty, Koko Taylor, Boney James, Kenny G, Manhattan Transfer, Buckwheat Zydeco, Patti Austin, Joe Sample, David Sanborn, Al Jarreau, Chris Botti and Cherry Poppin’ Daddies.
The Clearwater Jazz Holiday is a unique community event, free to the public and administered by a charitable foundation, The Clearwater Jazz Holiday Foundation, The City of Clearwater, and its volunteers. Jazz Holiday not only brings live music to the Tampa Bay area, it benefits jazz education through its scholarship and educational activities each year.
Clearwater Jazz Holiday programs are funded in part by grants from The State of Florida , Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, The Florida Arts Council, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pinellas County Commission through the Pinellas County Arts Council Cultural Development Program.
Grants Program of the Cultural Affairs Department
The four-day Clearwater Jazz Holiday is administered by an all-volunteer staff, “The Jazz Force,” which plans and executes hundreds of services needed to accommodate more than 50,000 visitors during the third week in October.
It is the mission of the Clearwater Jazz Holiday to be the leading proponent of jazz entertainment and education in Florida through the annual presentation of a world-class, live music festival in Clearwater, Florida during the third week of October and to promote tourism to Pinellas County as a key component of this celebration.
For more information about the event, please call 1+ (727) 461-5200 or send an email to: michelle@clearwaterjazz.com.
EVENT WEBSITES:
CREDITS: Event information and images courtesy of www.jazznartwalk.com. August 27, 2010. About the Poster Art: Lorraine Potocki started her business, Florida Pastels LLC, in February 2008. Her medium, pastels, allows her to capture the beauty of Florida’s beaches, wildlife, and environment. She graduated from The College of New Jersey with a degree in Fine Arts and Education. She has exhibited in Tarpon Springs, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, Madeira Beach, Clearwater and Jacksonville. Lorraine is an active member of the Pastel Society of Tampa Bay, PAVA, and the Greater Palm Harbor Chamber of Commerce. She will be the featured artist at the Greater Palm Harbor Chamber of Commerce Fine Arts and Crafts Festival in December. She also teaches private lessons in her studio and conducts pastel workshops in the Greater Tampa Bay Area. She won third place in the “Fall in Furniture Love” Scan Design competition, Tampa region. Lorraine and her art were featured in the July/August 2009 issue of Tampa Bay Magazine. Lorraine was the recipient of The 2009 United Way Volunteer of the Year in Arts and Recreation for her work at Bakas Equestrian Center Horses for Handicapped in Tampa.
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Go For Baroque at Museum of Fine Arts in St. Pete
The Baroque World of Fernando Botero is the current featured exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St. Petersburg. The exhibition runs from January 9th through April 4th, and it includes 100 paintings, sculptures, and drawings from Botero’s private collection. Many of the works have not been exhibited publicly before. In addition to all of the work on exhibit inside the museum, there are two extraordinary pieces that have been strategically placed on the front and rear lawns of the museum.
Botero, a world-renowned Colombian born painter and sculptor, is known for creating works of art that are united by their proportionally exaggerated, or “fat” figures, as he once referred to them. Botero graduated from Medellin University in Colombia in 1950, and in following years, studied in Madrid, Florence, New York, and Paris, where he moved in 1973 and where he lives today.
As one can see from the two sculptures that are in temporary residence outside the museum, Botero appears to have fun with his craft, and this theme can be seen throughout much of his work. If you’d like to get a little of the ‘flavor’ of Botero’s work, you can check out this link at Google Images. And if you’d like to see either of the images below in its full-screen splendor, just click on the photo.
For information about the Museum of Fine Arts, including location, direction, hours of operation, and more, check out their website.
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Progress on the New Dali Museum
If you’ve never paid a visit to the Dali Museum, you really should! It’s a fantastic land of the surreal, and walking through the museum and really taking time to absorb what you see there can create entirely new neural pathways in your brain! Dali’s works are amazing, over the top explosions of color and shape and reality gone wild, and they are nothing but fun to see. Fans who live in the area or who visit here are very lucky – the St. Petersburg Dali museum holds the largest collection of Dali works in the United States and the largest collection outside of Europe.
For anyone who does not know Salvador Dali’s works, you can get a pretty good idea of what they’re about by checking out this Google Images site. And for those that do know Dali’s work, but are not familiar with all of the great things about the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, you should check out the Museum’s web site. It’s worth looking at – aside from information about the exhibitions at the Museum, you can also learn about special events like the Saturday Family Fun Day and the S’Real Friday Happy Hour, with live music and half price admissions after 5:30 PM. Think about it – go to Happy Hour, have a couple of drinks, then walk around and take a look at some of the most mind-bending depictions of non-reality imaginable. Guaranteed to make your Happy Hour even happier. And, while you’re at it, you might make a new connection with someone else who’s attending – it’s a popular Friday evening event!
The current Salvador Dali Museum is located at 1000 3rd Street South, just to the south of the University of South Florida’s Bayboro campus. For now.
And that leads us to the photograph below (please click on the photo to see a higher resolution, full size image), and the really exciting news that I’m posting about. The Dali Museum will be moving, probably in 2011, if all goes according to plan. The new Dali home will be a 35 million dollar, 66,450 square foot structure – that’s twice the size of the existing museum! Included in the layout will be 50% more gallery space than the current museum has, which means that there will be a lot more of Dali’s work on display at any given time. The museum will feature a huge, futuristic looking glass geodesic structure, giving it a unique look and feel that should provide incredible visual impact in its setting on the waterfront and adjacent to the Mahaffey Theater.
I’ve been watching the progress on the new building since early last summer. For a long time, it looked just like any new building, with foundation, walls, etc. But in recent weeks, there has been, as the museum folks might say, surreal progress! The shell of the new structure is complete, and the very Dali-esque glass sculptures that will define the look and feel of the museum, both inside and out, are morphing towards completion. It’s both a bizarre and a beautiful look, and I have to believe that Dali himself would have smiled upon this new museum.
If you’d like more information about the new Dali, follow this link to an FAQ page.
And if you’d like to drive by to take a look for yourself, just head downtown on First Avenue South until you reach the last north/south road, which runs along the edge of the bay, which is BayShore Drive. Take BayShore towards the south, and after you pass the marina and Al Lang Field, you’ll see the Mahaffey Theatre. Right after the Mahaffey is the new Dali. You can’t miss it!
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Andy Warhol in Downtown St Petersburg!
No, not the person. Andy passed away back in 1987. But some of his excellent art works are here! Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life and Legends is being presented now at the Museum of Fine Arts, and the show will continue until August 16th. It’s a great exhibition that features over 70 prints of some of Warhol’s best known works, including his famous portraits of Marilyn Monroe, the iconic Campbell’s soup can, the Flowers series, and Muhammad Ali, to name a few. There are also prints from the Andy Mouse series, a tribute to Warhol by an artist/friend of his, Keith Haring. And there’s a portrait of Warhol himself, done by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.For those too young to know him and for those who might have forgotten, Andy Warhol, aside from being perhaps the most important force in the American Pop Art movement, also foresaw the current state of our media-based-short-span-of-attention culture with his 1968 quote, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
I went to the museum two
weeks ago, and it was just great fun to see these works. And it was especially nice that we were able to see them in St. Petersburg, instead of having to travel to museums in New York or DC or to the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh. In addition to the museum’s many permanent collections, the Museum of Fine Arts always has traveling, temporary exhibitions of artwork from a wide range of artists. Now that the museum opened its new wing, there’s a lot more space for exhibits, so give yourself plenty of time when you go. And don’t worry if you get hungry – there’s an excellent cafe in the museum, where you can grab a drink, have a treat (like the triple fudge cake that I had!), or get a delicious lunch, all while looking out of the huge windows facing the waters of the Vinoy Basin.For more information about the Museum of Fine Arts, visit their website. (And for a look at some of Andy Warhol’s works, check out this page.)
Special Deal Alert: During the months of July and August, anyone who enters the Museum between 10:00 AM and noon on weekdays gets in for half price – that means that adults get in for 6 bucks, which is a great deal!
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Pinellas Park
Pinellas County residents seeking a central location find it in Pinellas Park. Situated midway between Clearwater and St. Petersburg, this city of approximately 47,000 people is a community-oriented place to live.
This family-friendly community offers a variety of housing options among several neighborhoods and real estate developments, including single-family residences, golf course homes, town homes, condos and waterfront homes.
Performances
One focal point of community activity is the city-owned England Brothers Band Shell, where annual events including the popular Country in the Park festival are held. Every third Tuesday of each month, folks gather there for a free lunchtime performance on the Mighty Wurlitzer Theater pipe organ.Concerts, plays and other live performances are enjoyed at the Pinellas Park Performing Arts Center throughout the year. The Center was completed in late 2007, seats 500, and is a multi-use facility. Currently, it is home to the Civic Orchestra, a local community chorus and the Sunstate Opera Society. The facility is also available for weddings and banquets.
Watch for Horses
An active parks and recreation department provides opportunities for casual or league play, and indoor and outdoor activities. Some of these offer special facilities for the 800 horses that live in the city. There are horse trails in some parks and a show ring in Hellen Howarth Park. Horses are commonplace enough that traffic officials saw fit to place horse crossing lights on some streets and cross walk buttons high enough so that riders can reach them.On the weekend, residents might be found hunting for a bargain at the Wagon Wheel Flea Market, a 100-acre market that attracts folks from near and far.
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Factoids:
Population: 47,354
Land Area: 14.7 Sq. Miles
Median Age: 40.2
Points of Interest: England Brothers Band Shell, Country in the Park festival, City Auditorium, Pinellas Park Performing Arts Center, The Civic Orchestra, The Sunstate Opera Society, League Play, Indoor and Outdoor Activities. Horse Trails, Hellen Howarth Park. Equestrian Events, Flea Markets. -
Largo
Situated in the heart of Pinellas County, Largo is a family-friendly community of tree-lined streets, plentiful lakes and hundreds of acres of parkland. Home to more than 74,000 residents, Largo is the third largest city in Pinellas County.The dynamic nature of Largo might be best admired in the redevelopment of its downtown district. Largo’s West Bay Drive district is a charming collection of restaurants and shops just a short stroll from Largo Central Park, the venue for regular concerts, festivals and other entertainment events. A city trolley provides a fun way to get around town on the weekend. The Largo Cultural Center downtown is both an entertainment destination and community gathering spot.
Largo residents are justly proud of the many jewels within their community. A prime example is Florida Botanical Gardens, where native and tropical flora and fauna thrive on over 30 acres of cultivated gardens and 90 acres of natural preserves. Several endangered species, including the bald eagle and the gopher tortoise, are safe at home here. Largo’s Gulf Coast Museum of Art is another treasure, with its nine permanent collections and changing exhibitions. Heritage Village, a 21-acre living history museum, offers visitors a glimpse into Florida’s past.Property Search:
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Factoids:
Population: 73,796
Land Area: 15.7 Sq. Miles
Median Age: 47.5Points of Interest: Downtown District, Largo Central Park, City Trolley, The Largo Cultural Center, Florida Botanical Gardens, Largo’s Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Heritage Village.
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Gulfport
Retaining much of its yesteryear charm, yet also exuding an eclectic artistic and bohemian vibe, the quaint City of Gulfport is one of the most interesting communities in Pinellas County. Known for its tranquil Old South atmosphere, the city also boasts chic boutiques, shops and art galleries thanks in part to the active community of artists drawn here by the tropical light and natural beauty of the place.Gulfport is also home to the beautiful campus of Stetson University College of Law, Florida’s first law school.
Old Florida
Gulfport’s 13,000 residents enjoy the splendid setting overlooking beautiful Boca Ciega Bay. Housing choices are diverse, ranging from a restored 1920s Mediterranean villa to a newly-built waterfront condo, a comfortable 1960s ranch house to an elegant country club home. Residents take pride in rehabbing old housing stock in creative ways. The spirit of the community is to maintain the throwback-to-old-Florida charm.
Small but Active
Gulfport residents are proud of their city pier, an ideal location for catching a fish or just watching the sunset. Other civic institutions include a state-of-the-art performance hall, the Catherine Hickman Theater, and the Gulfport Casino, a waterfront landmark home to dances, musical performances, and other activities. Hop on the free trolley the first Friday of the month to experience Art Walk, an evening of street performances, craftsman exhibits, and a variety of galleries, shops, restaurants and clubs open late for your enjoyment. Art walks take place on the first Friday and third Saturday of every month.The city parks are numerous and varied – from a nature preserve with boardwalk trails to a neighborhood park with softball fields.
“There is a remarkable sense of place in Gulfport. It’s the hometown you grew up in or wish you’d grown up in.” Greg Stemm, eight-year resident.
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Factoids:
Population: 12,533
Land Area: 2.83 Sq. Miles
Median Age: 47.3Points of Interest: City pier, Fishing, Performance hall, The Catherine Hickman Theater, and Gulfport Casino, Free Trolley, Art Walk takes place on the first Friday and third Saturday of every month, City parks are numerous and varied – from a nature preserve with boardwalk trails to a neighborhood park with softball fields.
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Dunedin
A tropical beachfront community, Dunedin offers a relaxed lifestyle with a historic, quaint downtown and superb natural beauty for you to enjoy. Cozy bungalows and historic residences as well as new condominiums and modern beach homes provide a wide range of housing styles for those lucky enough to live here. Dunedin’s 37,000 permanent residents – artists, business owners, sun-lovers and sailors – and over 5,000 seasonal residents together make Dunedin a rich and diverse community. With four miles of picture-perfect waterfront, you are always within walking or biking distance to the beach and sidewalks along the waterline. Don’t be surprised if you see dolphins jump as you gaze out over the Intercoastal.Two of the most beautiful beaches in the world are easily accessible from Dunedin. A nature preserve, Honeymoon Island offers bird-watching along the three mile Osprey trail where you may spot American Bald Eagles, Red-shouldered Hawks, or Great Horned Owls. Look down and you may see gopher tortoises and armadillos by your side. Chosen as the 2008 #1 beach in the United States, Caladesi Island State Park offers a rare glimpse of Florida’s precious nature. After a short ferry or boat ride you are taken away to a tropical paradise. How many can say they have that only five minutes away from home?
Traditional Main Street
Downtown Dunedin offers boutiques, antique shops, fine and casual dining with a relaxing seaside atmosphere and even a historic museum housed in a former railroad station. Here you can enjoy lunch at a restaurant alongside a portion of the 34-mile long Pinellas Trail which winds its way through town.Arts, Culture and Festivals
Arts and sports get equal billing here. The Dunedin Fine Art Center offers world-class exhibitions and houses an interactive hands-on children’s art museum. At any given time of the year, the Fine Art Center offers over 80 classes to all ages in every conceivable mode of expression. One of Florida’s favorite juried art shows, Art Harvest, is hosted in Dunedin, along with dozens of art, music and food festivals throughout the year. The nine-day annual Highland Games and Festival pay tribute to the city’s Scottish heritage.For Youngsters
Dunedin is a wonderful place to raise a family, with excellent neighborhood public schools, including Pinellas County’s first charter school, Academie DaVinci, which provides an enriching fine and performing arts curriculum. Many private schools are also available.Sports leagues, nature programs, art workshops, golfing lessons, sailing and tennis clubs, softball, basketball and theater camps are just a smattering of the many and diverse activities available to children and teens.
Parks & Recreation
Kids aren’t the only ones having fun in Dunedin. The city’s leisure services division sponsors year-round activities and operates four recreation facilities for residents of all ages. Community sports leagues for adults and youth as well as the everyday recreational opportunities provided by biking and hiking trails, the beaches, marinas and the Gulf of Mexico keep Dunedin residents active 365 days of the year. Dunedin Country Club caters to golfers, while the municipal marina is a haven for boaters. Along the Dunedin Causeway, windsurfers, sailors, kayakers and jet skiers enjoy the protected waters of St. Joseph Sound. No fewer than 29 city parks offer amazing recreational opportunities. In addition Dunedin is also the spring training home for the Toronto Blue Jays.“Dunedin is an exciting town to be a part of – a place with a true sense of community focused on families, where kids can be kids, where people care about each other and where I feel safe and don’t worry about anything.” Tony Scruton, 20-year resident.
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Factoids:
Population: 36,640
Land Area: 10.4 Sq. Miles
Median Age: 48.2Points of Interest: The Dunedin Fine Art Center, Dozens of art; music and food festivals, The nine-day annual Highland Games and Festival, Dunedin Country Club caters to golfers, The municipal marina, Dunedin Causeway, Windsurfing, Sailing, Kayaking and Jet sking,The protected waters of St. Joseph Sound, 29 city parks, Pinellas Trail, Toronto Blue Jays.
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Salvador Dalí Museum
Melting clock faces. Nightmarish landscapes. Whimsical creatures. Love him or hate him, you can’t be neutral about Dalí.The city of St. Petersburg scored a phenomenal art coup in the late 1970s when it secured the world’s most comprehensive collection of Dalí outside his native Spain — the 20th Century’s most famous surrealist painter and self-promoter extraordinaire.
In addition to 96 oil paintings, some over 14 feet tall, the extraordinary collection includes over 100 watercolors and drawings and some 1,300 graphics, photographs, sculptures and objects d’art. To keep the museum fresh for locals who enjoy repeat visits, curators periodically rotate the collection and bring in special exhibitions on a regular basis.
Since the Salvador Dalí Museum officially opened to the public on March 10, 1982, millions of visitors from around the world have been drawn to this spectacular cultural masterpiece. The Michelin Guide gave the Salvador Dalí Museum the only three-star rating on Florida’s west coast.The Salvador Dalí Museum is a world-class art gem. And, it’s only in Pinellas.
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Leepa-Rattner Museum
Your adventure into 20th century art begins even before you walk into the Leepa-Rattner Museum in Tarpon Springs because the museum itself is a work of art. This award-winning architectural compression of three buildings in one offers a post-modernist spin on the bow of a ship, a tribute to the area’s rich fishing heritage.The experience intensifies inside.
There you will discover the art of Abraham Rattner, a figurative expressionist who worked in Paris in the 1920s and 30s and became one of America’s leading colorists. Returning to the U.S. because of the outbreak of WWII, much of his subsequent work reflected the inhumanity and tragedy of the years of war.The experience is also interactive. You’re invited to “walk through a painting” to intimately explore a Rattner work of art. You can create your own art using media ranging from colored panels to magnetic strings. Also, perhaps you’ll have the opportunity to watch a performance artist acquaint you with Guernica, using a full-scale replica of Pablo Picasso’s anti-war mural.
Rattner mingled with many leading artists of his time – Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier, Henry Moore, Max Ernst — and their works are also represented in the collection. Also on permanent display are the whimsical works of Esther Gentle (his wife), and the abstract art of Allen Leepa (stepson of Rattner).You’ll leave with a profound new view of 20th century art – and the 20th century — that can only be found at the Leepa-Rattner Museum. And, it’s only in Pinellas.
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