the United Mural Fest<\/a>at the studios, which are at 5663 Park Blvd.<\/p>\nDuring the festival, each artist \u2014 James Hartzell, Alyssa Marie, Laura Spencer (who paints under the name Miss Crit), Artist Jones and James Kitchens (who paints under the name Freeman) \u2014 will paint a different letter in the word \u201cUnited.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted a lot of communities represented and a lot of points of view,\u201d Gascot said. <\/p>\n
The removal of the Black History Matters and rainbow street murals \u201cwas disheartening,\u201d he told Patch. \u201cIt was disappointing to me that our city, our mayor [Ken Welch,] did not stand up and put up a fight to keep those murals, because other cities [in Florida] actually were still fighting for theirs, and some might still be fighting, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gascot added, \u201cIt\u2019s not a battle I would have expected him to win, necessarily, but it is a battle I would have expected him to fight so our diverse community could see that he has our best interest. All that was very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was also one of the artists who worked on the Black History Matters mural and the Black Lives Matters opt came before it in the same location. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it was a personal loss,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I was actually worried more for the loss of the Black History Matters mural than the loss of the [rainbow] crosswalk. I believe in both, obviously, but whenever you go up and down Central [Avenue,] there\u2019s always going to be a queer presence because of the business owners and the flags.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the murals\u2019 removal, Gascot knew that he wanted to respond to their erasure in some way and quickly organized the \u201cUnited\u201d mural at his Studios@5663.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt dawned on me that the murals on the building are fading. They\u2019re over a decade old and we\u2019re sitting on something here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a huge wall on one of the most traveled roads in Pinellas County with great visibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to live painting, there will be vendors, live music and entertainment from DJ Eric Halow, and Memphis Style BBQ food truck.<\/p>\n
Attendees will also have the opportunity to help the artists by painting the backgrounds of each letter, as well as canvases featuring the word \u201cUnited\u201d that will be displayed in the studios. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity for people to have a hand in the mural, which hopefully they have some ownership and pride in,\u201d Gascot said. \u201cPart of our vision is to create a landmark that\u2019s longlasting, where the community can come and feel seen when they stand in front of that mural, and feel recognized and acknowledged.” <\/p>\n
A ribbon cutting for the mural will take place Feb. 7, 4 p.m., to kick off the Second Saturday Art Walk for the studios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS PARK, FL \u2014 In response to the Florida Department of Transportation’s removal of the Black History Matters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-138917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}