an artist meet-and-greet<\/a> on Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m., followed by an early-bird dance party hosted by DJ for Paws from 4 to 8 p.m. A $10 suggested donation for the dance party will also be donated to Friends of Strays. <\/p>\n\u201cCaterwalls\u201d is the brainchild of DJ for Paws founder, Linda Bak, and her wife, graphic artist Sharie Lesniak. Bak worked in fundraising part-time for the organization, and the couple also volunteered for the nonprofit. <\/p>\n
Find out what’s happening in St. Petefor free with the latest updates from Patch.<\/p>\n
They brought the idea to Hartzell, who regularly curates art shows at the St. Petersburg brewery, and the three started organizing the fundraiser. <\/p>\n
Hartzell also knows the Friends of Strays well after reaching out to its Meow Now program late last year when his 9-year-old cat, Cecil, started getting into scraps with a feral neighborhood cat. <\/p>\n
He rented a cage from the organization to trap the outdoor cat and had him neutered and vaccinated. Through the TNVR program, cats are also assessed to determine whether they could be an adoptable pet. <\/p>\n
Ultimately, though, the cat Hartzell trapped and brought in was a bit too feral and was reintroduced to the neighborhood. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter he was fixed, his testosterone was lower, though,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, they had less frequent fights and they\u2019re mostly just yelling matches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharing his experience, Hartzell noted that many people might not realize that Friends of Strays offers a TNVR program. He\u2019s hopeful that \u201cCATerwalls\u201d art show will help spread the word about the organization and its services. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to educate people. There are very few places that do those types of services, where you can rent a cage and bring an animal in,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really helps with feral colonies of cats and keeping numbers manageable \u2026 We want to raise awareness that Friends of Strays exists and if you need help like that, they\u2019re there for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they put out a call for artists, they were overwhelmed by the response. <\/p>\n
Hartzell quickly realized there was a deep connection between artists and cats.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something I never quite realized before. They\u2019re near and dear to many of the artists in the show,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe got to the point where we had to limit the number of artists. More people wanted to be involved than we had panels and wall space.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve received a range of pieces for the show. <\/p>\n
\u201cMany have done paintings of their own cats, which is super sweet,\u201d Hartzell said. <\/p>\n
A number of pieces showcase black cats. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to flip the energy of back cats being bad luck or statistically unadoptable,\u201d he said. There\u2019s a lot of love for the black cats in our show.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other artists went a different route, opting to depict \u201cbig cats – a jaguar, an ocelot, a tiger,\u201d which makes sense, he said. \u201cKind of like dogs evolved from wolves. I feel like the house cat has the prey instinct of a lion.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while most of the works are two-dimensional paintings, there are two 3D pieces – a sculptural bust of a cat coming off the wall made by the artist Samz using 5,000 felt balls and a wire sculpture, \u201cZoomies,\u201d by Judy Vienneau that represent her three cats. <\/p>\n
In addition to Sunday\u2019s opening reception and dance party, a closing event for \u201cCaterwalls\u201d is planned at Bayboro on April 26, 3 to 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, FL \u2014 Feline-inspired works by artists across the Tampa Bay area \u2014 and even as far…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-224011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224011","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=224011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}