Arts In

Audio producer Jessica Tomlinson is also a keyboard instructor at Girls Rock St Pete – and created a vivid sound portrait of this very cool group empowering "women, girls, and gender-expansive folx through fearless expression, artistic experimentation and collaboration to build confidence and leadership skills to transform ourselves and our communities."

https://girlsrockstpete.org

Published in the Creative Pinellas Arts Coast Online

photo by Marissa Rafalski for Girls Rock St Pete

“I’m a nice guy, really!” laughs Gregory Green. The artist and pacifist teaches at The University of South Florida and is internationally known for his 3D installations of realistic bomb-making workshops and nuclear missiles.

It’s art with a political edge and educational aim, seeking to spur conversations about violence - and alternatives to violence - and exploring how information and technology are tools of social change.

Gregory Green shares the theatricality behind his work, which includes more than a dozen fully-functional pirate radio and TV stations in the US and Europe, his “Gregnik” re-creation of the first Earth satellite and a three-stage booster rocket that’s ready to launch if you’ve got the rocket fuel.

Green tells of wrangling with the bomb squad, designing an installation for filmmaker John Waters’ home, and how he was rated one of the Top 100 Artists in the World before 9/11, and how after 9/11 artwork about violence suddenly became much harder.

Green’s work is included in major public and private collections, including among others the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Mori Museum in Tokyo and MAMCO Geneva.

Explore Gregory Green’s work here - http://gregory-green.com/home.html

And his incredible resume - http://s3.otherpeoplespixels.com/sites/33374/gregory-green.com-1445104004.pdf

Arts In is produced by Matt and Sheila Cowley. Executive Producer, Barbara St. Clair for Creative Pinellas.

Eugenie Bondurant is film and TV actor, cabaret singer, teacher, director, international runway model – and part of the heart of St. Pete.

At an age when many women actors are struggling to find good roles, she was cast in the pivotal role of Tigris in the last Hunger Games film. In 2019, she started work on a DC comics film called The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and starred with Harry Connick Jr. in Fear of Rain, a national film that was shot in St. Pete, playing a very scary villain and talking Cole Porter to Connick during breaks.

They'd already auditioned over 100 guys for that part and couldn't find anyone they liked. When they let Eugenie audition, they rewrote the villain to be a woman. 

Then she got a call from the director, who said they'd been doing test runs of the Conjuring film and feedback from audiences was that they wanted much more of her character. So amid the pandemic they actually rewrote and re-shot much of the film to expand Eugenie's character. She got a whole new look, new lair, new backstory, more stunt work – and a DC comic based on her character, with material from scenes she played in the film.

Last year she joined the Marvel universe via Werewolf By Night – as an elegant and deadly monster hunter in a fun classic horror film world, in an ensemble with Gael García Bernal and Harriet Sansom Harris directed by multi-Oscar-winning film composer Michael Giacchino.

And after 25 years of teaching acting, Eugenie opened up her own acting school – Station 12 Studio. Classes take place in front of the big screen at the intimate Greenlight Cinema. She still appears in and directs local indie films and shorts, and uses her storytelling skills to bring classic songs to life with her piano-playing husband, Paul Wilborn.

Eugenie shares these amazing stories – and how as an actor, she works hard to humanize the villains that she plays onscreen.

A vibrant 61 years old when this was recorded, as Barbara St. Clair notes, Eugenie Bondurant is "living her best life."

Arts In is produced by Sheila Cowley

Executive Producer Barbara St. Clair

Dancer, choreographer, professor – and inventor – Merry Lynn Morris talks with Barbara St. Clair about her work exploring dance and disability, and how dance companies and educators are embracing a diversity of dancing bodies in performance.

Published in the Creative Pinellas Arts Coast magazine on May 16, 2023 – https://creativepinellas.org/arts-coast-magazine/

Photo by Jim Lennon – Mary Lynn Morris and Dwayne Scheuneman in ML Morris choreography

Members of ThinkTank TYA's Young Artists' Ensemble Edwin Noah Perez, Kaylee Tupper Miller and Jadon Milne share their thoughts on how it feels to sing.

Published in the Arts Coast magazine feature "Both Sides of the Bay Cabaret" by Creative PInellas 5/12/23.

Cindy Stovall talks with Helen French, Lauren Slone and Alexander Jones about 2023's Beacon dance celebration at St. Pete's Palladium Theater.

Featured in "Beacon 2023" published in the Creative PInellas Arts Coast magazine on April 25, 2023 – https://creativepinellas.org/magazine/beacon-2023/

In a potent conversation ranging through his fascinating career, dancer and educator John Parks talks with Barbara St. Clair about his experiences touring the South with the Jose Limón Company during segregation, his inventive teaching philosophy – and how he helped the undervalued dancers in the movie version of The Wiz go on strike for equal pay and credit. . .  and win.

Transcript available at https://creativepinellas.org/magazine/arts-in-john-parks/

Photo by Tom Kramer

Cindy Stovall of "Beauty & The 'Burg" talks with actor Jennifer Christa Palmer, who plays Susan B. Anthony in freeFall Theatre's 2023 production of "The Agitators" by Mat Smart, and Matthew McGee, freeFall's director of community outreach.

Visual artist and creative activist John Gascot talks with Barbara St. Clair about his exploratory series of self portraits, the powerful human rights installation he created during the pandemic and inventing a Diversity Game to help teach kids that diversity and inclusion matters. He shares the vibrant work of the Pinellas Park arts community and the start of Pinellas Park's PRIDE celebration.

gascot.com

diversityartsinc.com

pinellasartsvillage.com

– photo by Laurie Elmer

Christina Bertsos shares her passion for sculpting in stone and marble with host Barbara St. Clair – and how her work with fabric and hand-crafted couture influences her creations now. She guides us through the physical hands-on craft of sculpting, explains how you find marble in Florida, and how she got started in stone through a class at the Dunedin Fine Art Center.

https://www.christinabertsos.com/