Tickets for the fundraiser start at $25<\/a> and the goal is \u201cto ensure that our cultural community and Creative Pinellas not only survives, but thrives,\u201d the organization wrote. <\/p>\nThe show features music by We\u2019re Sweet Girls, a multi-panel installation by BASK, a curated collection of giftable artworks, limited-edition prints by Tes One and \u201cChizzy Supports the Arts\u201d sticker packs by Chad Mize, food by Uptown Eats and Bonefish Grill, and drinks from Great Bay Distributors.<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg artist James Hartzell called this year\u2019s Arts Annual \u201cbittersweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a long term goal to exhibit my work at Creative Pinellas. I\u2019m over the moon excited to be part of Arts Annual as their gallery space [and] community support has been such a source of inspiration over the years,\u201d he told Patch. \u201cIt\u2019s a time for celebration for sure as the roster of over 70 artists is so strong, but also bittersweet knowing that the county chose to defund an arts organization that\u2019s done such amazing work over the last decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artist Luci Westphal, also of St. Petersburg, has a photography-based installation called \u201cPapi\u2019s Gardent\u201d (\u201cDad\u2019s Garden\u201d) in the show. <\/p>\n
Inspired by her father\u2019s death this summer in her native Germany, \u201cit\u2019s a line of concrete construction blocks to which I transferred photos of plants growing out of cracks between concrete,\u201d she told Patch. <\/p>\n
Westphal added, \u201cIt\u2019s an homage to my father, a social artist and photographer, and his beliefs that all beings should be treated equally with dignity and delicacy. Beauty can easily be overlooked and harmed if we don\u2019t stop to pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Arts Annual, which she called \u201cthe event of the year for the arts in our area,\u201d is especially poignant, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an honor to be showing art among the best of the best artists in Pinellas County. This year the annual fundraiser and group exhibit is even more important than in prior years. It looks to be the last one to be held at the magnificent gallery of Creative Pinellas. Since the majority of the Creative Pinellas funding from the county has been reallocated to tourism instead of art, CP will no longer hold the lease for this gallery, which is on a metropolitan level,\u201d Westphal said. \u201cThis year, it\u2019s especially important to attend Arts Annual not just to see the best group exhibit of the year, but also to show support in person and financially (through ticket sales and art purchases) to make clear to the county, your neighbors, the artists, and Creative Pinellas that art and freedom of expression through artist practice matters to you and that you wish for it to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LARGO, FL \u2014 Creative Pinellas, the county\u2019s arts agency, is hosting the kickoff for its signature fundraiser, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-55896","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\/55896","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=55896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}