wcw SEPT 2023

out and about continued
various engineering fields. In their
own words, the women share their
passion and what inspired them to
become engineers.
The Bishop Museum of Science and
Nature, 201 10th St. W., Bradenton. Information:
bishopscience.org.
Sarasota
Art Museum
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling
College presents Stephanie J. Woods:
my papa used to play checkers runs
through September 17. In her first
solo museum exhibition, Woods presents
new multidisciplinary works
inspired by her firsthand experience
of West Africa and with themes focusing
on transatlantic cultural continuity
and memories.
• Also on display is The New Black
Vanguard Photography Between
Art And Fashion though September
17. The exhibit presents artists whose
vibrant portraits and conceptual
images fuse the genres of art and fashion
photography in ways that break
down long-established boundaries.
The New Black Vanguard: Photography
between Art and Fashion,
presents artists whose vibrant
portraits and conceptual images fuse
the genres of art and fashion photography
in ways that break down
long-established boundaries.
Their work has been widely consumed
in traditional lifestyle magazines,
ad campaigns, and museums, as
well as on their individual social-media
channels. The images open up
conversations around the representation
of the Black body and Black
lives as subject matter; collectively,
they celebrate Black creativity and the
cross-pollination between art, fashion,
and culture in constructing an image.
This exhibition includes select
works from these groundbreaking
contemporary photographers: Campbell
Addy, Arielle Bobb-Willis, Micaiah
Carter, Awol Erizku, Quil Lemons,
Namsa Leuba, Renell Medrano,
Tyler Mitchell, Jamal Nxedlana,
Daniel Obasi, Ruth Ossai, Adrienne
Raquel, Dana Scruggs, and Stephen
Tayo. A salon wall also features images
created by other young Black photographers
contributing to this movement
while simultaneously proposing
a brilliant re-envisioned future.
Visit sarasotaartmuseum.org/
visit to learn more. Sarasota Art
Museum is located at 1001 S. Tamiami
Trail, Sarasota.
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Hermitage Sunsets
@Selby Gardens
The first installment of five “Hermitage
Sunsets @ Selby Gardens”
programs will feature award-winning
writer, actor, and Hermitage Fellow,
Halley Feiffer.
The Hermitage Artist Retreat ’s popular
series, “Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby
Gardens,” continues into its fourth year
as part of the Hermitage’s 2023-2024
season. The outdoor series — a continuing
collaboration between the Hermitage
and Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
— features performances and explorations
of works-in-progress by Hermitage
artists-in-residence and alumni.
“Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens”
events are currently scheduled
to take place at Selby Gardens’
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Downtown Sarasota campus
and its Historic Spanish Point
Campus in Osprey. The first of
these events is “The Blurred
Line Between Humor and
Heartbreak: A Playwriting
Workshop,” where award-winning
writer, actor, and Hermitage
Fellow Halley Feiffer will
invite participants into the
creative process on Thursday,
October 5, at 6pm, at Selby
Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota
Campus, 1534 Mound St.,
Sarasota. Admission is free,
but registration is required ($5/
person) at HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
Feiffer is a WGA, Drama
Desk, Drama League, and
Outer Critics Circle-nominated
writer and actor. She is currently
writing and show-running
Season 12 of Ryan Murphy’s
hit television series American
Horror Story, starring Emma
Roberts and Kim Kardashian. She is
also writing the book for the Broadway-bound
stage adaptation of Thelma
& Louise with Neko Case composing.
Her television and film roles include
HBO’s Mildred Pierce, Flight of the
Conchords, and Bored to Death, and
the films The Squid and the Whale,
Gentlemen Broncos, and He’s Way
More Famous than You, which she also
co-wrote. She is currently developing a
film adaptation of her play The Pain of
My Belligerence with Lena Dunham’s
Good Thing Going for her to direct.
“Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby
Gardens” events include:
• October 5, Downtown Sarasota
Campus
• November 30, Historic Spanish
Point Campus
• January 25, 2024, Downtown Sarasota
Campus
• March 28, 2024, Downtown Sarasota
Campus
• May 23, 2024, Historic Spanish Point
Campus
Art Galleries
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The first installment of five “Hermitage Sunsets @
Selby Gardens” programs will feature award-winning
writer, actor, and Hermitage Fellow, Halley Feiffer on
October 5 at Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota
Campus.
At Art CenterSarasota: On view to
September 30:
• Lauren Mann, solo exhibition.
Artist Talk: September 7, 5:30-7 pm.
Registration: $5. Lauren Mann is a
portrait artist based in Clearwater,
FL, who specializes in colored pencil
drawings inspired by pattern, color,
and the personalities that surround
her. Mann has exhibited in shows
including “Fresh Squeezed” at the
Morean Arts Center, “Intimate Interiors:
Figures in Space” at the Gainesville
Fine Arts Association Gallery, as
well as “The Nonseniors” and “Realize”
at the 4Most Gallery in Gainesville,
Florida. Mann’s drawings seek
to express familiar emotions through
unique and intimate portraits
• Iren Tete, solo exhibition. Tete is
an artist originally from Sofia, Bulgaria
who is currently based in Gainesville,
FL. Iren is a Visiting Assistant
Professor at the University of Florida
and was recently Visiting Faculty in
Ceramics at Alberta University of the
Arts in Calgary, Canada.
Tete has had solo exhibitions at
Galleri Urbane (Dallas, TX), Gallery
371 (AUArts, Calgary, Canada), and
The Lee Dam Art Center for Fine Art
(Marysville, KS), among others. Her
work has been exhibited in Nebraska,
Texas, New York and Florida. In
2020, she was selected as an Emerging
Artist by Ceramics Monthly Magazine.
Iren has completed residencies
at the Archie Bray Foundation for the
Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT), Zentrum
für Keramik (Berlin, Germany), Northern
Clay Center (Minneapolis, MN),
among others. Her work was featured
in the Latvia Ceramics Biennale and
beinnale Officine Saffi (Milan, Italy)
• Ry McCullough, solo exhibition.
Artist Talk: Thursday, Sept 14, 5:30-7
pm. Registration: $5. McCullough is
an artist and educator, working in
Tampa, FL. He earned his BFA from
Wright State University in Dayton,
OH, where he concentrated in areas
of printmaking and sculpture. Upon
completion of his undergraduate
work, he served as the Director of
Sculptural Studies as well as teaching
printmaking at Stivers School for
the Arts. He has exhibited nationally,
internationally and is the founder of
the Standard Action Press Collaborative
Zine Project.
Location: 707 N. Tamiami Trail,
Sarasota, www.artsarasota.org.
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from walking the beaches of
Florida’s west coast searching
for shark teeth.
Paul will be at Island Gallery
and Studios on September
26, from 10 am to 6 pm.
Island West Gallery and
Studios is located at 456 Old
Main Street in downtown
Bradenton. Visit www.islandgalleryandstudios.org.
At The
Ringling
The John and Mable
Ringling Museum of Art
has Mountains of the Mind:
Scholars’ Rocks from China
and Beyond which runs
through June 23, 2024 in
The Ringling’s Ting Tsung
and Wei Fong Chao Center
for Asian Art. The exhibit
features a selection of scholars’
rocks and related paintings and
prints, including rocks recently donated
from the extensive collection of
Nancy and Stan Kaplan, a new acquisition
funded by Lucia and Steve Almquist
and paintings on loan from the
Dongguan Lou Collection.
Scholars’ rocks are collected from
remote geographic locations, where
they have been formed by natural
elements over millions of years. The
stones may then be carved, polished
and inscribed before being displayed
in a custom-made stand to enhance
their visual appeal. Scholars’ rocks are
both natural objects and products of
human creativity.
Mountains of the Mind will feature a
wide array of scholars’ rocks in various
shapes, textures and geological properties.
The rocks are further contextualized
by paintings, prints and texts that
illuminate their cultural importance
for scholars across the centuries. The
stones have been appreciated and admired
in China for more than a thousand
years; historically, connoisseurs
displayed their stones in their studios
alongside paintings and other treasures,
where they served as a focus for
meditation or creative contemplation.
In addition to Chinese objects,
Mountains of the Mind includes Japanese,
Korean, Canadian and Italian
objects, demonstrating how the
appreciation of scholars’ rocks has
diffused from China across East Asia
and beyond.
The John and Mable Ringling
Museum of Art, 5401 Bay Shore Rd.,
Sarasota. Info: www.ringling.org.
Island Gallery and Studios has
“Expressions of Anna Maria Island
Sunsets: A Retrospective” Drawings
by Larry Paul, September 1-30.
Paul’s sunset series drawings are
expressions of the sun setting over
Anna Maria Island. This retrospective
reveals the evolution of the series’
drawings from the very first drawing
completed in 2017. Personal, yet open
and outwardly expressive, the series
presents an abstract expressionistic
quality with an overlapping and abutting
color technique that contrasts and Theatre
brings the movements together at the At Florida Studio Theatre: Divas
same time. The typical colors are easily Three, a celebration of the artists
inspired by a wild brilliance afforded whose musical impact earned them
by the mix of sunsets, storms, essences the coveted title of “Diva.” In this
of sailing, and open, blue water. dazzling Cabaret, three powerhouse
female vocalists deliver the
Paul is an award-winning artist
who creates unique works of art using biggest hits by some of music’s most
Prismacolor colored pencil, inks, and influential women, such as Aretha
graphite. His art bears a talent that Franklin, Carole King, Celine Dion,
currently includes multiple series and Whitney Houston. Featuring
and sub-series of numbered “experiments”
embracing impressionistic the Name of Love,” “Total Eclipse of the
classics like “We Are Family,” “Stop! In
realism and abstract expressionism Heart,” and “It’s Raining Men.” Divas
drawing styles. From impressionistic
old doors and windows, realistic September 10.
Three runs in the Court Cabaret to
plant drawings, and expressionistic Tickets at FloridaStudioTheatre.org
interpretations of sunsets, Paul’s art
derives from decades of inspiration FST Improv Presents: As Seen on
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TV, an original sitcom created on the
spot. Featuring a never-before-heard
theme song and commercials, As Seen
on TV includes all of the elements of
one of America’s favorite forms of televised
entertainment. Runs Saturday
nights through September 30.
Visit www.floridastudiotheatre.org/
The Players Sarasota has Ruthless!
Runs September 28 – October
15. Eight-year-old Tina Denmark
knows she was born to play Pippi
Longstocking, and she will do anything
to win the part in her school
musical. “Anything” includes murdering
the leading lady.
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Held at 1130 Theatre, 3501 S. Tamiami
Trail Suite 1130, Sarasota. Tickets: theplayers.org
Manatee Performing Arts Center
has Songs For a New World. This contemporary
song cycle weaves characters
and history together, illuminating
the timelessness of self-discovery.
With a rousing score that blends elements
of pop, gospel and jazz, featuring
tight harmonies and daring vocals,
Songs for a New World transports its
audience from the deck of a Spanish
sailing ship bound for a new land, to
the ledge of a New York penthouse.
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Runs September 14-24. Box
Office: 941-748-5878. Manatee Performing
Arts Center is located at
502 Third Avenue W, Bradenton.
Venice Theatre has Reefer Madness
running September 8 to October
8. The campy, over-the-top musical
Reefer Madness, last seen at VT in
2008, pokes hilarious fun at the 1936
cult film. Don’t eat the brownie, and
don’t smoke the demon W**d.
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At the Pinkerton Theatre, 140
Tampa Ave. W., Venice. Info: venice
theatre.org/
Selby Gardens
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
has Diving Into Nature with the iconic
art of Sarasota designer and illustrator
John Pirman. The exhibit will
feature Pirman’s celebrated artwork
inside the Museum of Botany & the
Arts and outside in the Gardens of the
Downtown Sarasota campus.
John Pirman: Diving into
Nature will be on view through
September 17. The show comprises
works spanning Pirman’s long career
in New York City and now in Sarasota,
along with pieces from his formative
years growing up in Ohio.
Several images of Selby Gardens
scenes will be printed in large format
on aluminum and set directly in the
locations that inspired them. Selby
Gardens downtown location is at 1534
Mound Street, Sarasota.
Selby Gardens at www.selby.org.
The virtual gallery is on view through
Sept. 30.
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Summer Movies
at Sarasota
Opera House
Sarasota Opera again has its
Summer Classic Movies at the Opera
House.
• From Here to Eternity: September
15 at 7:30 p.m. This Best Picture
winner is a portrait of life on a Hono-
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8 WEST COAST WOMAN SEPTEMBER 2023