By Caron Schwartz
Cool beans and Cool Art for the Holidays, courtesy of the Professional Association of Visual Artists (PAVA). Find fine art and crafts gifts galore. 12/5-6 at the historic St. Pete Coliseum. https://bit.ly/pava-holiday
Ask your parents if they were Buzzcocks fans back in the 1970s. The iconic Manchester punk pioneers buzz into Jannus Live 11/24. https://bit.ly/jannus-buzz
Art reimagined The St. Pete Museum of Fine Arts is reimagining itself with Art Unbound, transforming the MFA into a community-centered artistic space so the collection, exhibitions, and programs keep inspiring, educating, and connecting the Tampa Bay community. The reveal is 11/21. www.mfastpete.org/about/art-unbound
Goldilocks dilemma The MFA welcomes a stunning new monumental sculpture to its public space. Enlarged to an immense scale and painted a vivid red, Lucia Hierro’s Nuestra Silla transforms the everyday Monobloc chair into a celebration of connection and shared experience.
Go take a hike Now that the weather is conducive, St. Pete Black History Tours are up and running, er, biking and walking again. The Black History Bike Tour takes participants to the places where St. Pete’s African American residents’ history began. The Hidden, Historic Campbell Park is an easy half mile walk that unveils the rich history of St. Pete’s first “Negro park.” www.blackhistorybiketour.com
Sacred destination It’s also cool enough to tour a historic site right on Boca Ciega Bay. The Jungle Prada Site, managed by Sacred Lands, is where a Tocobaga Indian village flourished for about 600 years until Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez arrived in 1528. Schedule and reservations: www.sacredlandspreservation.org/history-tours
Hungry? You came to the right state. According to WalletHub six Florida cities made the top 100 best cities for foodies. In a mere four hours you could be dining in Miami, which ranks No. 1. Closer to home, No. 6 Orlando is just a two-hour drive. Or save gas and dine in seventh-place Tampa or No. 72 St. Pete. https://bit.ly/foodie-city
Florida is also a veritable salad bar for vegans and vegetarians. WalletHub included four cities in the top 50: Orlando seventh, Tampa 10th, Miami 12th, St. Pete 41st. https://bit.ly/vegan-foodie
Money honey Innovate Grant distributes two $1,800 grants each quarter to a visual artist and photographer. The application is straightforward, so that you can spend your time creating rather than on time-consuming requirements like writing statements and proposals. www.innovateartistgrants.org
Stray cat strut Caterwalls 2 is the second-annual purr-pose driven event benefiting Friends of Strays (FOS), St. Pete’s oldest no-kill animal shelter. A portion of art sale proceeds support FOS’s vital community cat programs, including their donation-based Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (TNVR) services for managed colonies. Deadline 11/15. https://bit.ly/caterwall
Never forget The Florida Holocaust Museum is in the early stages of a remodel to house the Elie Wiesel archives and personal collection. The Inaugural Wiesel Symposium: We are Living Lessons takes place 11/15-17 at the Vinoy and FHM, featuring Michael Igel, chair of the Wiesel Archive & Legacy Council, and Wiesel’s son Elisha. https://bit.ly/fhm-wiesel
Songwriter Club at the Jack Kerouac House in St. Pete welcomes Asheville, NC-based fingerstyle guitarist Tyler Ramsey to Jack’s living room on 11/7 at 7pm. A cash bar by donation will be open before and between performances. Proceeds support the artist and the Kerouac House nonprofit. Info and tickets: https://bit.ly/ramsey-kerouac
Stereotypes about Gen Z’s lack of art appreciation have been greatly exaggerated; wealthy kids are spending more on art than any other age group. Arts Economics polled 3,100 high-net-worth ($1m+) individuals. Gen Z accounted for just 9% of respondents but spent an average of $347, 460 on fine art in 2025. https://bit.ly/genz-collectors
One more Last Week Tonight The Mahaffey added a second performance by John Oliver, the Emmy and Writers Guild Award-winning writer, comedian, and host of Last Week Tonight. Run, don’t walk, to get tickets for the 12/29 show. https://bit.ly/mahaffey-oliver
Lealman luster Find a new creative outlet at Atelier St. Pete. The pottery studio in Lealman offers wheel-throwing and handbuilding/sculpture classes taught by Kayla Harbeitner and Hannah Lawson. Memberships are also available for experienced ceramicists. www.stpeteatelier.com
It’s a wonderful world at Winter Wonder, a holiday-themed experience that will transform downtown St. Pete’s Williams Park for the holiday season. Come for the ice skating rink, stay for the makers market, food and drinks, live entertainment, and family activities. 11/20-1/3/27. Reservations are open now. https://bit.ly/st-pete-winter
Everything must go American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s personal archive is going up for auction. Highlights – including the fire ax from The Shining and the star child from 2001: A Space Odyssey – will be auctioned by Bonhams in London on 2/3/2027. Kubrick’s director’s chair (featured image), featuring customized script boxes attached to each arm,is also going up for sale.
Sit a spell while you read and relax at Reverie Room, a new bookstore in the Warehouse District that rubs elbows with drinkeries Beech Kombucha and St. Petersburg Distillery. The space features four separate book rooms and, hidden behind a bookshelf, a reading lounge. Adult and nonalcoholic beverages are planned. www.reverieroombooks.com
No time like the present Creative Pinellas’s Art Everywhere wouldn’t be complete without Gulfport, where TimeWeaving is a multi-day, family-friendly series of events that connect past, present and future through participatory experiences in history, art, storytelling, performance, community gathering, time capsules, and labyrinths. 11/6 5-9pm and 11/20 4-5pm. https://bit.ly/vspc-timeweaving
Dark star There’s still time to take in The Dark Side of Art, which explores how artists use unsettling themes to confront fears, psychological pain, and societal taboos. Gulf Coast Artist Alliance gallery thru 11/7. https://bit.ly/gcaa-events
Oops!… they did it again The heist of a 330-lb bronze book cover designed by Salvador Dalí is only the most recent of the more than a dozen major art heists recorded by Interpol since 1/2025. Among them: the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery of jewels worth more than $100 million; the loaned 2,500-year-old Romanian gold helmet nabbed from the Netherlands’ Drents Museum; Antonello’s seven wooden panels disappeared from a Messina, Italy, museum.
