Arts In

Marlene Rose is a glass artist who doesn’t make vases.

Instead, she creates large sculptural works using the technique of sand casting. Developed in the 1980s, the process involves hours spent carefully carving a mold in sand, then pouring in molten glass heated to 2000 degrees. It takes a week in an oven to cool the finished piece down to room temperature.

Sand casting is a physical and dangerous process, expertly carried out by Marlene and her team. The work she creates is unexpected, and you might not always think it’s glass - until you see the light hit it.

Marlene talks with Barbara St. Clair about the surprises and challenges of practicing a technique so new that there’s no reference manual, and you’re figuring out how to do it as you do it.

But, it’s so new nobody can tell you what’s impossible.

Find out more about Marlene Rose’s work at - marlenerose.com.

Explore St. Petersburg’s new Imagine Museum - imaginemuseum.com.

Fanni Green is an actor, director, playwright, poet and theatre professor. Gary Lemons is a writer, painter, musician and professor of African American literature and womanist studies.

In this lively conversation, Fanni and Gary delve into the passion and activism at the heart of all their work and the joys of a marrying a fellow artist.

They share stories of growing up with parents who weren’t able to go to college - and weren’t convinced that art or acting was a good career choice. And they explore the spirituality that informs their lives and their creative work.

Fanni Green is a versatile actor, the heart of a terrific production of A Raisin in the Sun at American Stage and many of their August Wilson plays.

A native of St. Petersburg and graduate of USF and NYU, Fanni is everyone’s favorite professor at the USF School of Theatre and Dance and has taught on the voice faculties of The Actor's Center in NY, the Yale School of Drama and the Juilliard School.

Her professional work includes Mule Bone (Broadway) with musician Taj Mahal, Antony and Cleopatra (Off- Broadway) with Vanessa Redgrave, and Tony Kushner's Reverse Transcription, in a Humana Festival production directed by Tony Kushner. Local audiences remember her powerful performance in Yellowman, the production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood she directed at Stageworks, and Bob Devin Jones’ Voodoo Macbeth at The Studio@620, where she served as the dialect coach.

More on Fanni Green - theatreanddance.arts.usf.edu/content/templates/?z=9&a=615

More on What the Heart Remembers: the Women and Children of Darfur that Fanni Green created with USF Dance Professor Jeanne Travers - theatreanddance.arts.usf.edu/content/templates/?a=2068

Her compelling thoughts on Diversity in Casting - inclusioninthearts.org/projects/national-diversity-forum/opinion-pieces/fanni-green/

Gary Lemons is a Full Professor of African American literature, black feminist and womanist studies in the Department of English at the University of South Florida. He received his Ph.D. in English from New York University.

His books include Black Male Outsider, a Memoir: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man (State University of New York Press, 2008), Womanist Forefathers, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois (also published by SUNY Press, 2009), Feminist Solidarity at the Crossroads: Intersectional Women’s Studies for Transracial Alliance (Routledge, 2012, co-edited with Kim Vaz), Caught Up in the Spirit! Teaching for Womanist Liberation (Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2017), and Building Womanist Coalitions: Creating Bridges, Crossing Borders in the Spirit of Love (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming in 2018).

Gary’s an expressive visual artist with recent exhibitions at the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum and The Studio@620 - thestudioat620.org/events/myafrika-art

More on Gary’s work at USF- english.usf.edu/faculty/glemons/

“Can a Black Man Be a Feminist?” - news.usf.edu/article/templates/default.aspx?a=3285&template=print-article.htm

Jim Rolston

Jim Rolston’s abstract paintings are ferociously gorgeous explorations of color and form, while his deceptively simple statues are gentle and profound.

Jim was a passionate artist and an energetic leader in St. Petersburg’s arts community. He created art throughout his life, while working a demanding job and raising a family. When Jim approached retirement, he went back to school and earned a degree in Visual Art from Eckerd College, to prepare himself to be a full-time artist. He was a prolific artist working at his peak and constantly exploring.

In this conversation, recorded a few months before Jim Rolston unexpectedly passed away, he shares his thoughts on the energy of abstract art and the opposing tensions balanced in his work. He explains how deeply his artwork is influenced by the concept of yin and yang, and the Tao de Ching.

Jim served on the board of the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance and was co-President of the Professional Association of Visual Artists, a group that Creative Pinellas recently welcomed to our Arts Business Incubator. He talks about the work PAVA is doing, the vital arts community in St. Petersburg and the studios he created in the burgeoning 600 Block and the Warehouse Arts District.

His loss is deeply felt throughout the arts community.

Explore Jim Rolston’s art - http://pava-artists.org/index.php/project/jim-rolston/

and http://pava-artists.org/index.php/2018/01/28/2cool-art-show-jim-rolston/

Find out more about the Tao de Ching, by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu - http://www.with.org/tao_te_ching_en.pdf

Keep up with the Professional Association of Visual Artists and their popular juried exhibitions at - http://pava-artists.org

Fight director Dan Granke is a master of physical storytelling and a professional expert on violence.

Dan teaches at the University of South Florida and choreographs stage combat for a range of Bay area and Sarasota theatres, and even the St Pete Opera.

He’s also a Shakespeare expert who helped to found the Tampa Shakespeare Festival’s free outdoor performances.

In a conversation full of laughter and surprising details, Dan explains the art of stage violence, the storytelling skills behind it and how to safely make it look like you just stabbed somebody in the neck.

Dan takes us through the final fight scene in Macbeth - and makes Barbara St. Clair’s day when he analyzes the glorious swordplay in The Princess Bride.

Society of American Fight Directors

http://www.safd.org/MemberProfile/Details/31084

University of South Florida School of Theatre and Dance

http://theatreanddance.arts.usf.edu/content/templates/?z=0&a=3858

Dan Granke’s theatrical work

https://www.jobsitetheater.org/portfolio-item/granke-dan/

Dan Granke’s opera work

http://stpeteopera.org/daniel-granke/

Dan’s acting

http://www.cltampa.com/arts-entertainment/article/20764112/theater-review-go-west-then-go-further

The Tampa Shakespeare Festival

https://www.facebook.com/Tampashakes

While in St. Petersburg to direct the acclaimed production of A Raisin in The Sun at American Stage, the Artistic Director of the African-American Shakespeare Company talks with Barbara St. Clair about the teachers who guided him to a career in the arts and the relevance of Raisin right now. He shares an insightful analysis of the play, and of last year’s production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

From Peter Callender’s studies at New York’s High School for Performing Arts (honored in the movie, Fame) and Juilliard, a career as a classical actor led him to San Francisco’s African-American Shakespeare Company, where actors of color have the chance to perform works from A Streetcar Named Desire to Richard III. And he’s playing Richard III this year.

As Peter explains, the works of August Wilson and Tennessee Williams aren’t “black” plays or “white” plays - these are American plays.

Find out more about L. Peter Callender’s work at - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0130458/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Explore the African-American Shakespeare Company here - http://www.african-americanshakes.org

Take a look at visual artist Romare Bearden, who Peter explains was a great inspiration to playwright August Wilson - https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/aug15.ela.lit.bearden/writing-from-art-august-wilson-and-romare-bearden/

“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

Steven Kenny’s paintings are startling and beautiful, and utterly unique. He’s an internationally-known Surrealist, and an anchor of the St. Pete arts community.

His exquisite skill with oil paints may remind you of Old Masters, or Salvador Dalí. But the characters who look directly at you from his works are wholly original, set in worlds and costumes that blend the natural world with the very personal.

In this engaging conversation, Steven Kenny talks with Barbara St. Clair about the surreal images he coaxes from his subconscious, his use of found photographs and his training as an illustrator.

Find out more about Steven Kenny’s work at http://www.stevenkenny.com

Don’t miss your chance to see “Internal Landscapes: The Mysterious World of Steven Kenny,” a rare exhibit of 50 of his paintings at the Leepa-Rattner Museum through April 15, 2018. . . https://www.leeparattner.org/explore/exhibitions-on-view/

Steven Kenny will also be leading a workshop titled "From Buyers to Collectors: Cultivating Relationships with your Audience" You can find more information at creativepinellas.org/workshop

Bob Devin Jones is the heart of St. Petersburg. The St Pete arts community revolves around The Studio@620, an imaginative arts space that is home to a wide range of visual arts, dance, jazz, kites, gospel, quilts, opera, boating, theatre, film, photography, workshops and lectures, poetry, puppetry and pretty much anything established and emerging artists can come up with.

Bob’s a gifted director, actor, writer, artistic director and enabler of creative projects that bring life and joyous surprises to downtown St. Pete.

Enjoy this exploration of The Studio’s community engagement and Bob’s passion for Shakespeare and storytelling.

Find out more about The Studio@620 - http://www.thestudioat620.org

Letters to the Future - https://www.cltampa.com/news-views/article/20763771/letters-to-the-future-bob-devin-jones

In the Beginning: The Future of Stories (TEDx Talk) - http://www.vidinfo.org/video/709529/in-the-beginning-bob-devin-jones-at-tedxtampa

Zev Buffman runs Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall. With hundreds of major concerts in multiple venues each year, and an education arm that works with public schools and trains teenagers that Zev books to open for bands like Chicago.

Zev spent his own teen years carrying a machine gun in the Israeli army. He invented dinner theatre in L.A. when he was in his 20s, owned a network of theatres in Florida and produced dozens of hit Broadway shows.

Zev reworked Andrew Lloyd Webber’s only flop and turned it into a hit, and used his producer’s skills to create the Miami Heat basketball team. He wrangled with Lillian Hellman and spent years working with Elizabeth Taylor, and probably saved her life when he drove her to the Betty Ford Clinic.

Listen to an amazing conversation with a true theatrical legend, who now calls Pinellas County home.

Find out more about Ruth Eckerd Hall - https://www.rutheckerdhall.com

Ruth Eckerd Hall’s Education programs - https://www.rutheckerdhall.com/hoffman-school-of-arts

Music Revolution program for Teens - https://www.rutheckerdhall.com/marcia-p-hoffman-school-arts/arts-education/grammy-museumrs-music-revolution-projectr

Zev Buffman’s many productions and awards - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zev_Buffman

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

The detailed and imaginative paintings of Carol Dameron focus on allegories, unspoken stories and turning points. Her visual style echoes European masters, seen through American eyes.

In this conversation, Carol talks about her European training, new techniques she’s using to re-energize old canvases and the discipline of working as a full-time artist. She details the visceral pleasure of painting on wood, and the allure of creating luminous colors in oils.

She also tells us about a thriving studio shared by 42 artists that paved the way for the Warehouse Arts District, the late lamented Salt Creek Artworks.

Find out more about Carol Dameron’s work at http://caroldameron.com.

A look at Salt Creek Artworks - http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/st-petersburg-artists-displaced-as-salt-creek-artworks-sale-nears/1229621.

http://saltcreekartworks.com

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