{"id":293885,"date":"2026-06-03T01:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/293885\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T01:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:46:07","slug":"pride-art-show-offers-community-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/293885\/","title":{"rendered":"Pride art show offers community, support"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 St. Pete artist\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wasilasart\/\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wasil<\/a> is a lifelong creator. He works off sketches he makes on scraps of paper, envelopes and long CVS receipts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">It&#8217;s inspiration that cannot wait for a notebook. His current medium is recycled building materials.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Some of his latest work will be on display at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thewerk.gallery\/\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Werk Gallery<\/a> in St. Pete in their Pride exhibition \u201cJoy: Be Yourself and Be Proud.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Though he enjoys his private life, Wasil could not forego this public pride show.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cWell, I\u2019m a queer person, it\u2019s part of who I am. It\u2019s not my total identity. I\u2019m about community, way, way way about community, because what else do we got?\u201d said Wasil.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">His work is a sign to others that you are not alone. And the work itself is its own form of resistance to bigotry.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">And so the answer is to stay in the joy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cThere is momentum behind joy that is an active tool in creating the society that we want,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd hopefully it assists people on giving them permission to discover themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">The Werk Gallery owners say the annual pride show is their privilege put up\u2014giving a voice to marginalized people.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">The Werk Gallery<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">2210 First Ave. South<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Friday, June 5: Opening reception 5 p.m. \u2013 9 p.m.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">The works will be on display through June 28.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 St. Pete artist\u00a0Wasil is a lifelong creator. He works off sketches he makes on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7147,7150,7152,28,7151,115,4094,7149,139,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,7148,835],"class_list":["post-293885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-chefs-kitchen","tag-app-florida-on-a-tankful","tag-chefs-kitchen","tag-florida","tag-florida-on-a-tankful","tag-news","tag-on-the-town","tag-on-the-town-app","tag-orlando","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-virginia-johnson","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293885","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=293885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}