Brush to canvas: News from the art community

The recent earthquake in Venezuela has flung open humanitarian doors far and wide, as citizens do what they can to help and support the nearly 18,000 people rendered homeless by the devastating natural disaster (more than 3,000 were killed).

The Carlos Carrasco Foundation is a an organization founded by the Venezuelan-American professional baseball player (currently a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves) and his wife. St. Petersburg’s D-Gallerie and ARTicles Gallery, both at 1234 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N., have partnered with the Carrasco Foundation to provide an amount of relief for those Venezuelans directly affected.

It’s called An Evening of Art & Solidarity.

A reception and silent auction Saturday (at 5 p.m.) is a fundraiser; 100 percent of all silent auction proceeds will be donated to the foundation, as will 10 percent of all of the evening’s art sales. Authentic Venezuelan food will be available from Carupano Kitchen.

Check the D-Gallerie and ARTicles Facebook pages for the latest information.

Walking the walk

Saturday brings the July edition of the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s Second Saturday ArtWalk. For the uninitiated: It’s a self-guided tour (walk or drive, and there are trolleys in certain areas) of approximately 40 artist studios and galleries, in a half dozen districts, open from 5 to 9 p.m. to welcome you, show you around and answer a few questions. Of course, everyone hopes you’ll buy something. If not, they’re still happy to see you.

The Warehouse Arts District Association’s Arts Xchange campus has become quite the vibrant center of activity on Second Saturdays, with art booths, food trucks, music (sometimes) and camaraderie. There’s a new show indoors too, at the Tully-Levine Gallery, called Where Art is Made. It consists of works by Arts Xchange artists.

This map will help guide you from here to there, and back again. It also includes information on every place that’s open this Second Saturday.

“A Terrible Beauty”: Joe Rosenthal/Wide World Photo, American, HINDENBURG DISASTER LAKEHURST, N.J., c. 1937, Gelatin silverprint, Gift of Ludmila and Bruce Dandrew.

Historical captures

Opening Saturday at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, A Terrible Beauty: Photographers Amid Chaos is an exhibition of historical photography, drawn from the museum’s permanent collection.

These are documentary photographs. Here’s a section of the museum’s exhibit description, which sums it up beautifully: “By negotiating the tense boundary between raw documentary purpose and deliberate artistic expression, the featured photographers capture the ultimate gravity of unsettling and complex subjects.”

At the Morean

Saturday (5-8 p.m.) at the at Morean Arts Center brings the reception for Into the Mystic, a solo exhibition by longtime St. Petersburg artist Neverne Covington (she’ll be our guest on Friday’s Arts Alive! podcast).

Opening at the same time: Sugar High, 150 works of art created by Morean members, all focused on “excess, nostalgia, and the sugary delights we love to crave,” along with It’s Been a Privilege: Ceramics from the Giordano Collection – an exhibition of works by the late Morean staffer Rob Giordano.

Taylor Robenalt combines the work of storytelling artists in Universal Narratives, opening Saturday from 5-9 p.m. at the Morean Center for Clay. The exhibition centers around “the use of art as a medium to share tales, preserve history and express personal and collective experiences.”

And still more

Now up at the FloridaRAMA Gallery: One By One, and exhibition of 144 12″ x 12″ artworks by 72 artists from across the Tampa Bay region, and beyond. Curator Luke Heath will be part of an artist panel discussion July 18 (6 p.m.) with John Gascot, Regan McCreight, Lance Rothstein and Kirsten Hutchings.

Sculptor Jay Titus is the July artist of the month at Gulfport’s Brenda McMahon Gallery. In his current work, Titus transforms old street signs into  art pieces that glow in the dark. He’ll be at the gallery July 18 for a 6-9 p.m. reception, with live music by jazz saxophonist Henry Ashwood, Jr.

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