Art & Culture
Global, Social & Local: Hobnob at 220 Riverside
Artist and designer Larry Wilson has a singular ability to distill the exhilarating aspects of a given environment into sublimely elegant and appropriate forms.
read more40 Years. 40 Icons.
The Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville’s 40th Annual Arts Awards Gala Honors 40 Local Icons. See their photos by Renee Parenteau here:
read moreRitz Chamber Players’ 2nd Annual Hat Luncheon
A Milliner’s Delight and Music-Lovers Paradise Fancy fedoras, dashing pillboxes and glitzy wide brims adorned nearly three hundred party-goers at the Ritz Chamber Players’ Inaugural Hat Luncheon last Spring. In addition to the elegance, music, and a delightful lunch, the event helped to raise funds for the nonprofit music ensemble and its efforts to increase diversity among classical musicians and audiences. Currently less than two percent of musicians in American orchestras are African-American. Throughout the fourteen years of its...
read moreBuilding a Theatre Program for First Coast Students
Desiree Stant spent her formative years as a classical pianist, and joined the ranks of a marching band as a clarinet player. When she was a freshman in college, she auditioned for the theatrical production of The Robber Bridegroom and fell in love with the community she found. After watching other students in the School of Theatre at Florida State University study playwriting, costume design, and theatre history, she knew that she had found her passion. She then set her sights on a future as a high school theatre teacher. Stant felt driven...
read moreCurating Confidence
A Large Scale Boost for Student Art Curating Confidence is a year-round initiative of Jacksonville’s Cathedral Arts Project (CAP). It is designed to help foster self-confidence in students through recognition of their artwork on what is literally a large scale. Curating Confidence pairs visual arts and performing arts students together with education supporters, to foster and showcase select work prominently in schools. Curating Confidence serves as a platform to emphasize the importance of art education, while bolstering the confidence of...
read moreCathedral Arts Project Continues to Inspire Kids
Now entering their third decade of using the arts to instruct, inspire and unleash the creative spirit of local youth, the Cathedral Arts Project (CAP) has provided a full year of quality arts education to nearly twenty-five thousand K-8 students. Their vision is for every child in Northeast Florida to have access to a well-rounded, arts-rich education. Beginning in 1993 with one afterschool dance class, CAP became a 501(c) 3 non-profit in 2000 and has since added classes in visual arts, music and theatre; doubled their programming to...
read moreMaking STEAM
Every Student Succeeds Act Set To Integrate the Arts into STEM Education Arts education advocates have a lot to celebrate about 2015 – a year that proved to be an important milestone for their cause. Major steps were taken to preserve arts subjects within the new education reform bill, culminating in President Obama signing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which places a major focus on integrating the arts into STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math) – creating STEAM. According to the Americans for the Arts Action...
read moreThe Chef’s Canvas
Recipes Inspired by the Collection of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens The most recent publication from the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens provides not only scholarly commentary on artwork in the museum’s collection, but also seeks to inspire by interpreting the artwork in a new way. The Chef’s Canvas: Recipes Inspired by the Collection of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens highlights two very important elements of Jacksonville, the art and foodie cultures, while looking at the museum’s artwork from a fresh perspective. The idea...
read moreOne Wonderful Run
If you ask J. Johnson Gallery Director Bruce Dempsey about the gallery’s provenance in 2000, he’s likely to tell you a version of this: “Jennifer and I got together for luncheon. She was going to move her offices out here to the Beach because the majority of her staff lived here. So then, over lunch, we decided ‘Let’s do a gallery – what great fun for both of us!’”
read moreMaking Sure Kids Don’t Miss A Beat
The Jacksonville arts-based non-profit Don’t Miss a Beat (DMAB), started by renowned jazz musician and Jacksonville native Ulysses Owens, Jr. and family, is perfectly named. The seed for DMAB was sparked by Owens’ time as a student at The Juilliard School and as a touring musician: He noticed community centers in Manhattan and elsewhere, and told his family that Jacksonville needed one. Initially, the Owens had a specific goal to provide a space for high school students to go to when they were suspended from school, so that they wouldn’t “miss a beat” while out of their classrooms.
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