Known for its award-winning beaches (Caladesi Island, anyone?), the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area's cultural happenings are making waves of their own this summer. Cultural currents including fresh shows, events, exhibits and a museum make-over electrify the season. After all, who says re-runs should rule summer?


Museum of Fine Arts

Start at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St. Petersburg. Its new Hazel Hough Wing opened in March, more than doubling the museum's square footage and creating a structure as artful as its contents. A glass wall washes the entry in sunlight, begging the eye to the sparkling water of the Vinoy Basin (part of Tampa Bay), framing the outdoor activity as a moving masterpiece. The inclusion of the original building's exterior wall, accented with ironwork and greenery, echoes the "outside-in" design.

Two exhibits remain open through Aug. 26 in celebration of the new wing: Mrs. Stuart's Legacy, introducing patrons to Margaret Acheson Stuart and her efforts to build the museum (including pieces she received from friends and family to open it in 1965) and Unveiled: Rarely Seen Art from the Collection.
Known for its award-winning beaches, the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area's cultural happenings are making waves of their own this summer.

Unveiled gives patrons a chance to view works rarely, if ever, displayed at the museum. The exhibit opens demurely with black and white photography and charcoal sketches – then builds to a second room that packs pops of color and mixed media from floor to ceiling, culminating in the sounds, lights and motion of Peter Sarkisian's Extruded Video Engine II. I muse at seeing Manet and Mapplethorpe, separated by a century and style, in the same room.

Also on the first floor of the Hough wing: an interactive gallery geared to younger visitors who can create their own still life drawings to hang on the gallery wall. Upstairs, an intimate space shelters photographs and works on paper by lesser-knowns and well-knowns (Matisse, Cassatt and Dorothea Lange, among others).
 
Stroll through the original wings to view other exhibitions and the museum's permanent collections. Then, lunch on an innovative selection from the MFA Café.

Tip: The view from the Hough wing is even more spectacular when set to a swing beat. Fridays through Aug. 29 from 6-9 p.m., $20 gets you live jazz, free hors d'oeuvres and tickets for two Peroni beers. The MFA Café and a cash bar will offer dinner and drink specials.

What other cultural currents are running through town? Name your style:


Visual Arts
  • Experience the outdoors indoors at Largo's Gulf Coast Museum of Art. A Mysterious Clarity presents the work of three Floridian painters in a mix of processes and perspectives on the nature of their native state. On display now through July 27.
  • Throughout Salvador Dalí's career, Renaissance styling, surrealism and mythology influenced his representations of women. The evolution unfolds before you in Women: Dalí's View, now through Sept. 21 at the Dalí Museum.
  • Gallery-hop like a V.I.P. during the free St. Petersburg Gallery Walk on July 12 (held on the second Saturday of each month), when several downtown art spots will stay open after-hours.
  • The 20th Annual Cool Art Show, July 19-20, is so named for bringing fine art and craftwork together in a juried (and air-conditioned) setting: downtown St. Petersburg's circa-1924 Coliseum.

Fiber Arts

In June, the bay area hosts the international community of fiber artists during the biennial National Handweavers Guild of America's Conference, Convergence 2008. Area museums extend their welcome with juried exhibits and displays of embroidery, natural dye work and weaving.
  • Surfacing: Tampa Bay Surface Design Guild; Luminous: The Works of Jan Boyer; and Connie Lippert: Navajo Wedge Weave appear at the Dunedin Fine Art Center through July 6.
  • Tarpon Springs' Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art presents California Dreaming: California Fibers at Convergence 2008 and Tapestries of Abraham Rattner: Created at the Mambush Artists' Workshop in Israel through Aug. 3.
  • St. Petersburg's The Arts Center showcases Laura Militzer Bryant: Crossings; Salsa y Salsa and Practical to Poetic, a fiber invitational, through Aug. 16.

Drama

Community theater companies bring big-name shows to local stages.
  • The St. Petersburg Little Theatre presents Wait Until Dark at the Dalí Museum through June 29.
  • The King & I comes to the Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center through July 28.
  • The Fantasticks runs July 11-27 at Largo Cultural Center.
  • American Stage produces Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins ("the greatest bad singer ever") July 16-Aug. 10.

Music
  • Local jazz crusader Rick Gee presents the Latin Roots Quintet at Mahaffey Theater June 20.
  • Catch a headliner at Clearwater's Ruth Eckerd Hall: Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band play July 2; Pat Benatar on July 7; Carole King on July 9.

Pride
  • On June 28, parade through city streets during the St. Pete Pride Promenade (line-up at 9 a.m.; march begins at 10 a.m.). The Promenade is the largest pride parade in Florida, with a record 75,000 attendees expected this year. The celebration continues with a street festival in the Grand Central District, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Entertainment, vendors and food flaunt the community's vivacity.

For more information on planning your cultural getaway to St. Petersburg/Clearwater, call 877-352-3224 or visit www.visitstpeteclearwater.com.