Arts In

Carrie Jadus made a name for herself as a professional artist, after giving up a career as a skilled radio frequency engineer.

Her distinctive, soft and subtly subversive style is seen in paintings, on murals, posters and notecards around St. Petersburg. Working at Soft Water Studios, she’s a mainstay of the Warehouse Arts District and longtime illustrator for St. Pete Preservation.

Carrie shares the turning point that made her decide to choose art over engineering - and how as a working mother, she carefully planned a sustainable artistic career, using the business plan of a Toymaker as a model. She explains how working in several different styles helped her earn a living and fulfill her urges for personal expression.

She tells the story behind her well-known mural of pioneering electrical engineer, Nikola Tesla - and Little Miss Sisyphus, the mural people often miss just around the corner. Carrie shares her passion for ‘grand portraits,’ monumental paintings of figures from Einstein to Nina Simone, and explains in detail two recent, more surrealistic, paintings.

You can explore Carrie Jadus’ work at http://www.carriejadus.com/bio.html.

And follow her new work at https://www.facebook.com/cjadusfineartpage/ and https://www.instagram.com/jadusfineart/.

Soft Water Studios is open during Second Saturday ArtWalk - https://stpeteartsalliance.org/artwalk/ - from 5-9 p.m. on the second Saturday of every month - http://www.softwaterstudios.com/.

Her Tesla mural and Little Miss Sisyphus are featured in the St Pete Arts Alliance’s Virtual Mural Tour - https://stpeteartsalliance.org/carrie-jadus-tesla/ and https://stpeteartsalliance.org/carrie-jadus-little-miss-sisyphus/.

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 world. To his knowledge, he’s the only artist right now doing serious, curated art with balloons. He talks about the challenges of validating a new kind of art when you don’t have a community of artists working in that style.

In this conversation with Barbara St. Clair, Jason shares the moving and “terrifying” story of his early experiments, and how his first big installation went so badly wrong. And how he turned that failure into a new way of working that got him a year-long gig building a sculpture a day on a stage inside FAO Schwarz, and traveling the world creating giant balloon sculptures.

Jason explains his passion for the ephemeral nature of his artistic practice - and his ongoing artistic quest to push this unique medium constantly further. And the challenges of creating artwork that curators expect to look like a birthday party.

Find out more about Jason Hackenwerth’s work at http://www.jasonhackenwerth.com/.

Time-lapse footage of the installation of Pisces at the National Museum of Scotland - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtqPxtSMK9E.

An interview with Jason during the unveiling of Corona at the Abu Dhabi Science Festival - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHv9PMl-Ki8.

The video he mentions of a year of impromptu sculptures created while people watched him at FAO Schwarz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg3aE1zytnI

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 work in a range of mediums, created by artists in concentration camps and Holocaust survivors - along with work by “empathizers,” artists who may or may not be Jewish, but are moved to respond to acts of genocide.

She explains the powerful role artists shoulder, telling stories that need to be told. And she shares memories of beloved artist William Pachner, an internationally-known Abstract Expressionist and a longtime, vivid presence in Tampa Bay. In one of the highlights of her curatorial career to date, Erin organized an exhibition where collectors of Pachner’s beautiful and colorful abstractions discovered that his paintings were inspired by the loss of his entire family in the Holocaust - forcing people to rethink their perception of what ‘Holocaust art’ looks like.

Find out more about the Florida Holocaust Museum’s exhibitions and programming at https://www.flholocaustmuseum.org/.

Read a Tampa Bay Times review of the exhibit of William Pachner’s work that Erin talks about - https://www.tampabay.com/things-to-do/visualarts/art-review-william-pachners-powerful-response-to-holocaust-still-resonates/2230372.

A detailed look at the life and work of William Pachner published in Tablet, with a quote from Erin - https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/250423/painter-william-pachner-obit.

- Arts In is produced by Sheila Cowley. Executive Producer, Barbara St. Clair.

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 engagement with their work.

Find out more about the Museum of Fine Arts at mfastpete.org.

. . .

Images 1-2 are from Mickett-Stackhouse’s Irma Reflections at the MFA. Find out more about this participatory installation at mfastpete.org/event/mickett-stackhouse-irma-reflections/all.

Image 3 is by Christian Marclay, a still from Telephones, 1995, video, running time 7:30 minutes. © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Find out more about this pioneering artist at tate.org.uk/art/artists/christian-marclay.

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 about Desiree Moore’s work at https://www.desireenicholemoore.com/.

Explore the online journal she posted during her Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Fellowship - https://creativepinellas.org/desiree-moore/.

Find out more about the Barter Boat at https://www.facebook.com/BarterBoat/.

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 journey from a solo studio practice to this vibrant community art project. She tells the story of the Bus they drove and coaxed and sometimes towed to events - and how their first participants invented what is now the Nomad trademark, that everybody gets to paint the bus.

Carrie explains the joys and challenges of working as an artist with a social practice - and how she uses her training in critiquing art to constantly question her own work, and keep making it better.

You can find out more about the Nomad Art Bus at http://www.nomadartbus.org/.

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 organizations find patrons, and help businesses shape creative workplaces as they engage with the arts around them.

Susana talks about the arts as a vital economic force, and how businesses and artists can work together. She explains the TBBCA’s advocacy role in funding for the arts. And for nonprofits struggling to find and develop board members, she shares her tips for building a strong and active board of directors.

The scholarship program the TBBCA provides has helped many young Tampa Bay artists build professional careers. And the annual Impact Awards, honoring artists, arts leaders and arts supporters, shines a light on people who are leading Tampa Bay in a positive and creative direction.

The Charlie Hounchell Art Stars 2019 Scholarship Ceremony is this Wednesday, May 15 - https://www.facebook.com/events/409865836483626/.

Find out more about Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts at https://www.tbbca.org.

Find out more about The Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships Program - https://www.tbbca.org/programs-events/art-stars-scholarships/.

And keep an eye out for the annual Impact Awards every October - https://www.facebook.com/TBBCAorg/.

Get updates on the TBBCA’s Cultural Encounters, where business professionals gather to explore theaters, galleries, concerts and more - https://www.tbbca.org/programs-events/cultural-encounters/.

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 you for.

The work of Nathan Beard, Akiko Kotani and Rob Tarbell is featured in Unexpected: Art By Alternative Means, on display at the Leepa-Rattner Museum in Tarpon Springs through May 19 - leeparattner.org/explore/exhibitions-on-view/unexpected-art-by-alternative-means-featuring-nathan-beard-akiko-kotani-and-rob-tarbell.

Find out more about Nathan’s work at nathanbeardfineart.com.

Follow the online journal he kept during his tenure as a Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Fellow at creativepinellas.org/nathan-beard.

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

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.

The inspiration for the book is an essay by W.E.B. DuBois, a story of a strangely-shaped potato and her grandfather defying odds to earn a PhD in chemistry and teach at St Pete College, at a time when that was a rare thing for an African American to do.

Ladee Hubbard talks about deciding to earn an MFA while raising three young children, and how Toni Morrison encouraged all her wild experiments with language as a student.

You can find out more about her work at https://ladeehubbard.com/.

Check out the events around this year’s Keep St Pete Lit Writer in Residence and the annual SunLit Festival, celebrating reading and writing in Tampa Bay - https://keepstpetelit.org.

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 and musicians whose work was banned in Nazi Germany. From the first manual typewriter she bought in Berlin, to the construction crew charmed by her bold request for rebar, to the night she debuted the work where Nazis burned books in the rain in 1933 - and hundreds of people under umbrellas watched dancers and musicians performing in the rain on her monumental sculpture installation, of typewriters trapped in cages.

Dressed like a secretary in the 1950s, Sheryl has created vibrant public art projects that invite people to dictate a postcard to politicians. She asked New Yorkers what they’d like people to remember about 9/11, and gave recent immigrants the opportunity to write a letter to their ancestors.

She’s currently at work on Greetings From Tampa Bay, gathering stories that will become a piece of visual art at the Tampa Airport.

Sheryl Oring talks about public art that engages a community and leaves powerful, lifelong memories, and the life-changing results this kind of art can give.

Find out more about Sheryl Oring’s work at http://www.sheryloring.org.

Writer’s Block is on display at Creative Pinellas through May 30 - https://creativepinellas.org/writersblock/.

Get updates about Greetings From Tampa Bay at http://www.sheryloring.org/greetings-from-tampa-bay