{"id":146197,"date":"2026-02-06T16:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146197\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T16:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:17:17","slug":"tampa-born-artist-janet-echelmans-aerial-artworks-wow-viewers-worldwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146197\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa-born artist Janet Echelman\u2019s aerial artworks wow viewers worldwide"},"content":{"rendered":"

London to Los Angeles, Singapore to Seattle \u2014 and, until last year, St. Petersburg \u2014 visitors the world over search for words grand enough \u2014 magical, exquisite, ethereal, alive \u2014 to capture the marvel of Janet Echelman\u2019s stunning net sculptures.<\/p>\n

The globally acclaimed Tampa-born artist\u2019s aerial artworks amaze and astonish viewers in more than 60 cities on five continents, with giant shimmering \u201csky hammocks\u201d hovering over public spaces, interacting with the sun and wind at skyscraper scale.<\/p>\n

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In St. Petersburg, Echelman\u2019s \u201cBending Arc\u201d captivated thousands of people at the St. Pete Pier from the summer of 2020 until February 2025. Named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s quote, \u201cThe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,\u201d the sculpture, hand- and machine-knotted from 180 miles of blue-and-white braided fiber, was suspended by spliced ropes stretched 424 feet wide and floated 72 feet above the ground.<\/p>\n

For more than four years, \u201cBending Arc\u201d weathered Florida\u2019s climate and numerous storms, including Hurricane Ian. But after Hurricane Milton, sections became snagged by flying Adirondack chairs, which had been tied together underneath but broke loose. The St. Petersburg City Council funded its removal for structural analysis.<\/p>\n

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The good news: Reinstallation is expected within the next six months. A national engineering firm confirmed the city\u2019s installation contractor used substandard materials and improperly installed the structure. But the firm concluded that \u201cBending Arc\u201d performed precisely as designed, capable of withstanding winds of up to 150 mph.<\/p>\n

Said Echelman, \u201cI was so pleased to receive St. Petersburg (City Development Administrator) James Corbett\u2019s email in November (2025) saying, \u2018Our goal is to complete the testing, finalize the engineering specifications and reinstall the artwork before the next hurricane season.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Impressively, Echelman is already looking skyward to her second engineering feat for the bay area \u2014 a new commission for Gasworx developer Darryl Shaw, created for the 50-acre mixed-use neighborhood rising in historic Ybor City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m working on an exciting new design for a sculpture to suspend over Third Avenue at 14th Street, just blocks from where my grandmother grew up,\u201d Echelman announced. \u201cThe Gasworx team is working to install the anchors in their new buildings as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the meantime, do not miss her fascinating solo exhibition, \u201cJanet Echelman: Radical Softness,\u201d on view at the Sarasota Art Museum through April 26. Four decades of Echelman\u2019s fine art and craft show the breadth of her work, including batik-dyed and acrylic artworks, charcoal and chalk drawings, and textile collages.<\/p>\n

Gallery-size examples of the complex 3D creations bring the \u201cwows\u201d: Echelman\u2019s art has also been ranked No. 1 on Oprah Winfrey\u2019s \u201cList of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow!\u201d Video screens show the technical choreography of her projects \u2014 engineering schematics, time-lapse installations and dancers intertwined in a net 25 feet off the ground. A glass case displays Echelman\u2019s materials and tools \u2014 braided twines, spliced rope and knotted netting. Docents explain how netmakers in a fishing village in south India influenced her extraordinary art form.<\/p>\n

Then, for a deeper dive, art historian Gloria Sutton\u2019s new book, \u201cRadical Softness: The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman,\u201d is a must-read, with photos and insights from 30 art historians, engineers, architects and colleagues, with a foreword by cultural producer Swizz Beatz, whose art collection with his wife, Alicia Keys, has the world buzzing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy art combines ancient craft and cutting-edge technology to create living, breathing sculptures that bring people together and carve out space for reflection in an ever-changing world,\u201d Echelman said.<\/p>\n

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Sarasota Art Museum, Ringling College Museum Campus, 1001 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. 941-309-4300. Admission: $20. Open Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. sarasotaartmuseum.org.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London to Los Angeles, Singapore to Seattle \u2014 and, until last year, St. Petersburg \u2014 visitors the world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1847,70738,70739,199,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-146197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-hurricane-season","tag-janet-echelman","tag-london-to-los-angeles","tag-st-petersburg","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146197","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=146197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}