We put together this list of resources for artist assistance. Part of The Straz’s mission is to support local artistic talent, and usually we’re able to do that by offering stages, gigs like Live & Local or Arts Legacy REMIX and unique opportunities to collaborate. But when audiences must stay home, our best effort to... Continue Reading →
The Can Do Man
Mural artist Eric Hornsby, known as esh, has put his work on The Cube in the Jaeb Courtyard for a few years. Now he gathers some of the area’s premier mural artists to open a brand new Art on the Walk exhibit during our Open House Party on Oct. 6. Caught in the Act recently... Continue Reading →
The Fine Art Mystery of Morsani Mezzanine
Dr. Jay and Ann McKeel Ross Art Exhibit A drawing of a robe. Toddler dresses. Abstract boxes in a row. What are these art works hanging unceremoniously on the walls of Morsani Mezzanine? Where did they come from? What do you mean some of the greatest visual artists in the world are on display at... Continue Reading →
Local Profiles: Sculpting Out a Future
Jim and Joan Jennewein helped shape the Straz Center in more ways than one. In the spring of 1981, a young visionary architect named Jim Jennewein walked across a scraggly five-acre parking lot alongside the Hillsborough River. In his mind, he built a future performing arts center for the people of Tampa Bay. The plans,... Continue Reading →
Go With the Flow
Florida-born National Water Dance Day connects dancers to the life source Earth is mostly water, a chemical compound that covers about 71% of the surface of our extraordinary, life-rich planet. The infant human body, by comparison, starts at about 75% water (so, very similar), though we drop in wetness as we age. The human fruit,... Continue Reading →
Illustrator Sam Spratt Draws from Life
When The Daily Show senior political correspondent Hasan Minhaj needed a dope illustrator to make pieces for his upcoming show Homecoming King, he called on his buddy Sam Spratt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4DORh3n9uE A Brooklyn-based digital painter—a classic oil technique used on computer tablets—Spratt graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2010 and took to the... Continue Reading →
STOP. SIT. PLAY!
The Straz Center @ the Riverwalk offers a medley of interactive objects encouraging everybody to stop by and play with us. For 27-year-old architect Ryan Swanson, the moment of clarity came when he stood alongside his pop-up public art installment that included a 12-foot beach ball in downtown Tampa. A homeless man approached Ryan and... Continue Reading →
Finding the Art in Nature
Art and the performing arts are, at their basic level, a means of creating community and expressing our understanding of the world and ourselves. They have been interwoven with our natural world since human beings evolved to make art – our unique language of creativity that has incredible power. Perhaps not unexpectedly, evidence for both... Continue Reading →