There’s a saying that art reflects life. This month proves it's true as the arts community, like the larger Tampa Bay community, continues to recover from back-to-back hurricanes while celebrating the holidays.
Creative Pinellas artist fundraisers
After Hurricane Helene’s devastating storm surge and flooding, Creative Pinellas transformed its major annual fundraising event, the Arts Annual, into a fundraiser for the larger arts community. Eighty percent of the proceeds would go to Pinellas County artists and arts organizations impacted by the storm. Then Hurricane Milton flooded Creative Pinellas’ gallery and visitor center, postponing the event.
Now set for December 7th, the Arts Annual Hurricane Relief Fundraiser and its centerpiece, the seventh Arts Annual Exhibition, will showcase the work of more than 100 local artists. In partnership with Visit St Pete-Clearwater, Creative Pinellas has added a second fundraising initiative for artists to the evening. The one-night exhibit “Still Shining” will feature the work of 25 Pinellas County artists, with each piece available for purchase for $100. Mural artist Merritt Horan, the curator for “Still Shining,” calls it a “show within a show.”
Horan says the exhibit came about after she met Creative Pinellas CEO Margaret Murray at a fundraising event Horan organized for some of her family members who lost a lot in the storms. Horan, who lives and works on St. Pete Beach, had herself lost thousands of dollars worth of tools and supplies in the hurricanes, as well as a curating gig at Bellwether Beach Resort, a St. Pete Beach hotel that’s now indefinitely closed due to substantial storm damage.
The day after they met, Horan says Murray called her with the idea for “Still Shining,” asking if she would curate and if she could pull together the artists and the show in 30 days.
“She said, ‘I want to provide the canvases so the artists don’t have to buy them. I want to pay the artists a stipend to do it,’” Horan recalls.
Each “Still Shining” artist created a 12” by 12” piece of art. While most of the artists are painters, there are two photographers and a spoken-word artist who laser-etched a poem on leather and had it installed on a piece of oak.
Horan says that, like her, the storms impacted many artists in the show.
“It’s been really crazy to see the varying degrees of devastation everyone has had to deal with,” she says. “And I think everyone that did suffer is aware of someone who suffered worse. So there’s been a little downplaying of your own issues because you know of someone else who lost their whole house. But I think overarchingly, every single one of them was affected one way or another. If you ask them, they’ll go, ‘Oh no, I’m fine.’ But when you get down to brass tacks, events were canceled, or merchandise was lost, or tools.”
But Horan says times like now are exactly when art and artists can help a community recover and move forward.
“You have to circle back and ask, ‘How can art move people?’” she says. “And I think one thing artists can do is translate those emotions everyone is going through onto the canvas in ways that people who are not artists really don’t know how to express. I think this show is really going to be uplifting and resilient.”
A Largo High graduate, Horan worked in the fashion industry in New York City before returning to the St. Pete area to focus on mural art, according to a Creative Pinellas artist bio. “Still Shining” and the Arts Annual Exhibition, which includes three pieces by Horan, are her first time working with Creative Pinellas. She says she looks forward to continuing that professional relationship while also eventually returning to her curator’s role at the Bellwether, where she was organizing two events a month, including a rooftop show that was starting to feature big names on the Tampa Bay art scene.
“They were really, really pro-art and all about supporting the artists,” she says of the hotel.
The Arts Annual Hurricane Relief Fundraiser is 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on December 7th at Creative Pinellas, 12211 Walsingham Rd. in Largo. While “Still Shining” is a one-night-only show, the Arts Annual Exhibition is on display through January 4th, 2025.
For more information, go to Arts Annual Hurricane Relief Fundraiser
FMoPA
The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Ybor City has several events on tap this month. The awards ceremony for the 2024 Members’ Show is 5:30 to 7 p.m. on December 5th. The FMoPA Holiday Shoporama and Family Portrait Day is noon to 3 p.m. on December 14th. Professional photographers will be on hand to take posed family portraits for holiday cards.
From 5:30 to 7 p.m. on December 19th, photographer Jay Nolan will give an artist talk on the ongoing exhibit “Fandom: Celebrating Rock & Roll,” which features Nolan’s concert photography. The FMoPA has also issued a call for community members to submit their photos and short videos (30 seconds or less) from rock concerts to be part of a lobby slideshow that will be on display in the front lobby as a companion to the exhibition.
For more information, go to FMoPA
The Florida Orchestra holiday performances
The Florida Orchestra has several holiday-themed performances this month. “Elf in Concert,” featuring the holiday classic film and a live orchestra performance, has shows at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. December 7th at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Tampa.
“Classical Christmas” concerts featuring the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay are scheduled for December 13th at the Straz Center and December 14th at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg.
The annual “Holiday Pops” concerts are at 8 p.m. December 20th at the Straz Center; 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. December 21st at the Mahaffey; and 2 p.m. and 7:30 pm. December 22nd at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater.
For more information, go to TFO calendar
More holiday performances around Tampa Bay
“Wonderful Life,” a 75-minute, one-person retelling of the classic holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” is at American Stage in St. Petersburg from December 5th through 22nd. Co-adapted by Helen R. Murray and Jason Lott, performances of “Wonderful Life” will feature Murray from December 5th through 8th and Gavin Hawk from December 12th through 22nd.
For more information, go to Wonderful Life
“The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical” is at Stageworks Theatre through December 22nd.
“Holiday time at North Florida’s Armadillo Acres means everyone’s filled with warmth and beer,” a show description says. “But when a freak bout of amnesia strikes the trailer park Scrooge, neighborly love is put to the test. With Betty, Lin, and Pickles on hand to amp up the fracas and festivity, this all-new musical is just as much of a cat-fightin’, sun-worshippin’, chair-throwin’ good time as the original – but with tinsel and Keg Nog."
Stageworks is at Grand Central at Kennedy in Tampa’s Channel District.
For more information, go to Stageworks Theatre
Next Generation Ballet, the resident ballet company of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, performs “The Nutcracker” in the Straz’s Carol Morsani Hall at 7 p.m. December 20th; 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on December 21st and 22nd; and 2 p.m. on December 23rd.
For more information, go to Straz Center
“Christmas with the Crawfords” is at LAB Theater Project on the western edge of Ybor City from December 6th through 22nd. The “irreverent holiday extravaganza” reimagines “the iconic 1949 Christmas radio broadcast with Joan Crawford and Hedda Hopper.”
For more information, go to LAB Theater Project
The Florida Orchestra Brass Quintet performs a holiday concert at 3 p.m. December 8th at Peace Memorial Presbyterian Church in downtown Clearwater. Musician Tim Belk will join the quintet on the church’s pipe organ to lead the crowd through traditional sing-a-long carols. The performance is part of the Peace Memorial concert series. Suggested donations are $5 to $10.
For more information, go to Peace Memorial concert series