The St. Petersburg Arts Alliance established an Individual Artist Grant Program with funding provided by the Office of Cultural Affairs. The grants are intended to provide financial assistance to resident artists for projects that support public engagement of their work in the visual arts, dance, music, digital arts, and theater disciplines.
Arnie Arluke will be photographing Deadly Rival roller derbyskaters dressed in skating attire while posed in open, brightly-lit, often visited, iconic, or historical St. Petersburg locations. He hopes to exhibit approximately 21 photographs at the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and the Slayground. Most of the displayed images will be skater portraits, but he would also include some of the grittier photographs of skaters at the track. Deadly Rival Roller Derby is a thrilling sport to watch and provides opportunities for local women who wish to participate in a competitive team sport.
Bob Barancik is an award-winning painter, print maker, and video producer. He is also a docent at the Florida Holocaust Museum. His mission is to make the Holocaust relevant to Americans living through a disturbing period of increasing public bigotry and intolerance. He will use his art as a seed crystal to produce podcasts and video blogs for his artnothate.com website. Bob has over 150 paintings, prints, and handmade artist books in the FHM’s permanent collection.
Dewey Davis-Thompson will present a staged reading of the new musical Sunshine City, written in collaboration with award-winning composer Tom Sivak, in the summer of 2018. Free and open to the public, this reading will employ EIGHT professional musical-theatre actors and a director to do a staged reading/concert performance of a new musical set in 1920s St. Petersburg.
Donald Gialanella, using Atmospheric Air Pressure Implosion, will create a series of tests to determine the optimal amount of heating, steel gauge, and degree of deformation needed to construct an air- pressure formed sculpture. The final sculpture will be imploded as a demonstration “event” in St Petersburg, at a venue to be determined. As the raw sculptural form is imploded, the final image and shape will be dramatically revealed. Local artists and spectators see the marriage of science and art applied in a meaningful way, and will feel empowered to do similar experimental work themselves.
Katherine Gibson created Drive-by Window, a new and innovative gallery concept. Artists selected for Drive-by Window will be able to feature work in 1980 Central Avenue while building their respective exhibit resume. Artists also will be able to increase public awareness of their work, provide possibilities for art sales, and gain experience working with a local business and an independent curator.
Nicole Desirée Hays is a fine art body painter. St. Petersburg’s “Art of Body Experience” is a fine art bodypainting coffee table book that will showcase the body art of Nicole through the photography of Michael Sheehan in diverse settings throughout the city.
Kenny Jensen is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist with a deep interest in Florida’s unique natural environment. He will be producing a pop-up exhibition in mid-July at Intermezzo Coffee and Cocktails in partnership with collector Christopher Eaton, local conceptual painter Jon Seals, and local singer songwriter Adam Randall. Through this art he hopes to inspire new ways of seeing and encourage deeper more nuanced conversations about ourselves, our community, and our connection to the natural world around us.
Akiko Kotani will present Views of the Bosphorus, a series of 5 panels, 40” wide by 20” high that are stitched with bamboo threads on paper. The stitches are raised slightly above the paper ground. The black threads in Roll are of silk and are stitched to be seen mainly from the front but also peak out from the bottom of the work. She will exhibit her works at the Leslie Curran Gallery in a two-person show in September, 2018.
Paula Kramer will produce Take A Chance Dance, a Choreo/Theater project that includes new works created by Literature and Performing Artists, Bob Devin-Jones, Fanni Green and Maureen McDole, all major contributors to St. Pete’s ever growing arts scene. Each piece will be a celebration of our city and will emanate from three very different perspectives. Each artist will perform his/her work in individual showings at selected sites that carry deep meaning to the work.
Mikhail Mansion will start a new media arts community in St. Petersburg that is focused on using computer code as a medium and tool deriving new forms of expression. For this project, he will use Meetup.com and other social media websites to define, to initiate and advertise this group. Nature is a strong source of artistic inspiration, so this group will focus on nature as a subject, and input, for using technology creatively.
David Manson is a jazz music composer, producer and trombonist. He would like making a free concert open to the public in St. Petersburg in August of 2018. This concert featuring his original new compositions, performed by the Brazilian jazz sextet, O Som Do Jazz. This concert of original compositions fosters not only interest in modern jazz, but also accentuates an international aspect to our city, with Brazilian-influenced music.
Veronica Leone Matthews founded the St. Petersburg Shakespeare Festival in 2015. She will collaborate with Studio@620 on two readings during workshop adaptations, resulting in a fully staged play in Williams Park in fall 2018. The project will provide accessible opportunities for students and the community to experience Shakespeare’s works.
Desiree Moore is a multidisciplinary artist with an active collaborative practice. She will utilize her time to transform Barter Boat, a large public art project by Radar Art, into a mobile version. The Barter Bike will allow spontaneous social interactions in Downtown St. Pete. Barter Bike will beckon brave citizens to trade for a myriad of “treasure” in the Barter Bike Cargo. All trades are cycled into new hand-held assemblages for the next willing participant.
Rose Marie Prins, PhD will engage various groups in workshops, one at the Carter G. Woodson African American Museum, another at the St Petersburg Museum of History, and a third at Creative Clay Cultural Arts Center. These workshops will involve St Petersburg residents of three generations in the creation of autobiographical altered books. The mission of these books is to present, interpret and preserve St Petersburg’s history and engage a broad and diverse audience through these activities.
Andee Scott will create a non-traditional, site-specific dance residency/performance project for five female choreographers that seeks to place the work of making and performing dance within the context of recognized forms of “work.” This project seeks to contextualize dance as public art, providing audiences multiple opportunities to encounter dance in their everyday lives, with both the rehearsal/creation process and the performance occurring during regular business hours, free and open to the public.
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