World Renowned Artist's Sculpture For St Pete

If you like art, and you like sculpture, and you live in St Petersburg, there is some good news for you - a sculpture by Janet Echelman is coming your way.

Mayor Kriseman has secured private donations of approximately $1.5 million to  make the sculpture happen.

Echelman is a world renowned sculptor who "reshapes urban airscapes" with her vast and dynamic aerial sculptures. She has given a Ted Talk and other lectures, has been featured in magazines from Time to Wired, and has created some beautiful and iconic works that you would surely recognize even if you don't recall the name.

It will be a signature piece for the Pier District, which is currently under construction.

Tampa Born Artist Creates Beautiful Aerial Sculptures

Janet Echelman was born in Tampa, and Kriseman presented her with the key to the city in 2016.

Three prominent backers of the project have been Premier Eye Care CEO Lorna Taylor, former Florida House Speaker Peter Wallace and his wife, St. Petersburg Poet Laureate Helen Pruitt Wallace.

Art is very important to the cultural life of St Petersburg - it has a thriving art district and a very active spoken word scene, and great music, among many other great reasons to love the city.

The lifespan of the sculpture is projected to be 25 to 30 years, and it would possibly be located at Spa Beach, though this may change if the opposition from the Waterfront Parks Foundation is successful. Wherever it finds its eventual home it will definitely be something worth seeing.

Being gluten intolerant it isn't always the easiest thing to find a place to eat where you aren't limited to salads, which I personally get more than a little sick of. Variety definitely is the spice of life, especially when it comes to food. We were at a gig at the nearby Fubar, and we had a limited amount of time to find and choose and eat our food before the band we had come to see started playing.

The bar looked pretty trendy from the outside, and when we went inside the staff were really friendly. We sat down, they brought the menus, and we asked them what was good and gluten free. When you are told that everything in the place is gluten free apart from the beer at the bar, it is an unusual experience; raw, vegan, and gluten free - not something you are going to find in too many places. It's great because it means that instead of having to dig and cherry pick different parts of the menu to construct a custom menu that won't have you feeling bad for days after, you instead can choose anything you like.

Well, within reason. We were there late, and they had had a bit of a rush on, so our first choices weren't available. The barman was helpful, and he told us what they had and what was going to be easy and quick for him to prepare, and he made some recommendations based on his own favorites on the menu. When you genuinely see that the staff like eating their own food it is a definite good indicator. The Pad Thai was great, as was the soup - Gazpacho; and the kombucha, which they had on tap, really hit the spot.

I definitely want to go back there at some point - it was a relaxed atmosphere, the seating was comfortable, and the staff and the food make it a definite instant favorite.

On Saturday 30th of May I had the chance to take part in a really great event designed to aid with the betterment of Williams Park in downtown St Petersburg. The park, which includes an impressive Veterans memorial, and an award winning bandstand, has become a place where the homeless gather, and where a lot of drug dealing occurs. Take Back Williams Park was designed to help start turning that around, and to give back a valuable resource to the city and its people.

By getting the ball rolling and raising funds to put on more public events in the park, this event really is helping a lot. It has been concluded that by doing this, entertaining and giving something back to people, the area can be uplifted while the council works on long term handlings to deal with the homelessness and drugs.

The Summer Market has moved into the park on Saturdays now, which is helping, and sometimes people do use the bandstand to put on music and to deliver talks. If you take a walk around the park and can look past the current problem, you can see the potential that the place has, and how it could be as part of an ideal scene..

There was a silent auction with some really stunning artwork donated by artists such as Jim Warren, and other great items such as orchestra tickets and great food, and other great deals from local businesses who want to support the cause. There was live music by Nikki Baker, Haley Graves, Rob Meister, and others which really brought the place alive. Glamour came in the form of a fashion show.

It was a lot of fun - the food was great, and everyone really enjoyed themselves and raised some money to further the cause of not only halting the decline of an area, but reversing it.

See Great French Art For The First Time In Florida

If you are looking for some culture you can't go far wrong by visiting the Museum Of Fine Arts at any point - you are always going to find something of interest there; well, if you like art you are. At the moment though they have a real draw with the exhibition Monet to Matisse - On The French Coast. This is the first time that a lot of this art has actually been in Florida or the Southeastern United States, so if you combine this fact with the great location and the unique chance to view these works arranged in this way, as an art lover, why would you not want to take advantage?

To celebrate the museum's 50th Anniversary they have put together this comparative collection that holds up the Impressionist and Modernist visions of the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France. the museum already has an impressive collection of French art regularly on display and this just adds to and enriches that.

One Of Many Great Exhibitions At The Museum Of Fine Arts

The show runs from February 7th until May 31st, 2015, so there is plenty of time to catch these two masters, and some other great European painters. It was put together by Dr Kenneth Wayne, formerly of the Portland Museum Of Art and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, working with Jennifer Hardin, the hazel and William Hough Chief Curator of the MFA.

Earth Day Festival Celebrates 2nd Year in South Straub Park

It has a long tradition, stretching back to 1970, but there may be more than a few people who aren't even really aware of Earth Day. I have to admit that it was one that had kind of passed me by, but it giving some recognition to the importance of the Earth is something that is a lot more at the forefront of people's minds.

It was first celebrated in 1970 after a proposal put forward in 1969 by a peace activist called John McConnell, who wanted to honor Earth with a day of peace. The date of April 22nd derives from a second Earth Day started by US Senator Gaylord Nelson, a winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award. the whole thing went worldwide in 1990, when Denis Hayes, the original coordinator organized events in 141 nations.

St Petersburg Is A Forward Thinking City

On April 18th St Pete celebrates the day in South Straub Park - the second time that it has done so. It is sponsored by Duke Energy and the St Petersburg Downtown Partnership. It is pretty cool, because the whole idea is to educate people about eco-friendly technology and different ways that you can build healthy sustainable communities.

If you walk around St Pete the evidence that the city is very supportive of forward thinking initiatives is obvious - there are the charging stations for electric cars for one thing, and recycling points as well. It's the first city in the state to be awarded for Green Building Coalition's Green City designation. When a city takes an interest in conservation, recycling, water conservation, and various other initiatives that seek to improve the life of its citizens then that is definitely something to celebrate. St Pete is a very art-oriented community anyway, so you know that there is a certain kind of attitude that the people who live there imbue the place with, and the whole ethos of the festival seems very much in line with that way of thinking and living. It is very forward thinking of the city planners, and pretty inspirational.