Month: July 2018

Oak & Stone expands from Sarasota to St. Pete

St. Pete Catalyst By Bill DeYoung Two years ago, Sarasota buddies Joe Seidensticker and Brett Decklever – a restauranteur and a real estate developer – came up with a unique business concept. They created Oak & Stone, an upscale restaurant-slash-tavern serving artisanal pizza, gourmet burgers and other such fare, and – here’s the envelope-pushing  part […]

Photographer Clyde Butcher interprets ‘Dali’s Spain’

St. Pete Catalyst By Bill DeYoung Salvador Dali was a surrealist painter whose bright, colorful, sometimes alarming works defy perspective, time, space, common sense and even gravity. Clyde Butcher’s black and white art photography interprets landscapes: Trees and seas and clouds, rocks and swamps and forests, still and silent and moody and majestic. Rooted in […]

New exhibitions – and a visit from Monet – at the Museum of Fine Arts

St. Pete Catalyst By Bill DeYoung Two new exhibitions, both opening May 5 at St. Petersburg’s Museum of Fine Arts, couldn’t be more different. While one consists of abstract art in a colorful myriad of media, the other offers up a tight focus on stark black and white photography. Yet there’s a powerful thread running […]

Museum of Fine Arts preserves antiquities with beer

St. Pete Catalyst By Bill DeYoung As the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts’ fourth annual Beer Project approaches, its motto – “Drink With Purpose” – has never seemed more appropriate. Proceeds from the July 19 and 20 fundraisers will be funneled directly into the conservation and preservation of the museum’s five mosaics from the […]

Pier artist Janet Echelman: The Catalyst interview

St. Pete Catalyst By Bill DeYoung The only consistent thing about public art is that everyone will have a different opinion of it. The word “public” kind of ensures that. Thursday’s rejection of artist Janet Echelman’s sculpture by the St. Petersburg City Council brought the city’s sometimes-raging public art conversation to a close. For now. […]