The Board of Directors at the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance is delighted to announce the unanimous approval of Terry Marks as our new Chief Executive Officer beginning March 18. “While we will miss our Founder and Executive Director, John Collins, we are excited to continue the great work of SPAA under Terry’s leadership. Her background in the arts, business and nonprofit sector is a perfect fit to enhance and increase our impact for the community,” stated Mary Anna Murphy, Board Chair.
Terry grew up in NYC, with a deep and abiding love for visual and performing arts. Her first career was as an educator, and she then worked on Wall Street with Fortune 500 companies, including the largest minority and woman-owned brokerage. Terry also was a publisher of a magazine for children, as well as owning her own 17-year consulting practice in Los Angeles, serving organizations with budgets from $2 million to over $250 million.
During her time in Los Angeles, she taught at the Center for Nonprofit Management for ten years and also at the University of Southern California, working to grow missions that included the arts, health, literacy, homelessness, seniors, the environment, and serving families affected by developmental disabilities, with a special focus on autism. She has a background in marketing and communications and has been a speaker at national conferences, as well as serving as a CEO of a national nonprofit.
Within the world of art and culture, Terry worked with the Santa Monica Museum of Art, known now as the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Pacific Symphony, Celebration Theater, Los Angeles Youth Orchestra, and she traveled with one of her clients, a ballet company in a cultural exchange to China.
Most recently Terry consulted for the Suncoast Black Arts Collaborative. “Visual and performing art is such an intimate form of expression and one of the most powerful means to communicate. I am honored to accept the newly created position of Chief Executive Officer. John’s influence as Founder and Executive Director will always be a shining light for me. I am looking forward to serving the compelling and innovative arts culture within St. Petersburg. My primary goal is to create a unifying alliance and grow our vibrant arts economy. Within the business sector, art has a significant role to play and a seat at the table to accelerate the overall growth of our city. In addition, I want to expand and support artists and art education, as St. Petersburg continues to rise as a diverse destination for arts and culture.”
Accompanying Terry in her move to St. Petersburg is her wife, Anastasia of 25 years, two rescue dogs (Tyler and Chloe) and a highly privileged rescue cat, named Brisket.
MUSE Awardees - Where are they now and what do they envision a post-COVID future to look like?
By Jenee Priebe
The beginning of 2021 marks nearly a year of life under the tyranny of Covid-19. Pandemic norms are characterized by isolation, fear of illness, and reduction or elimination of much of what we rely on for mental, emotional and social wellness.
As such, the SHINE Mural Festival wrapped up its sixth annual event and quickly shifted gears from environmental advocacy to mental health awareness for the countywide initiative, the You Good? Campaign.
Thankfully, the Pinellas Wellness Connection, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete, has made access to health and wellness services easier than ever. The You Good? Behavioral Health Campaign aims to create a single, unified message that communicates the availability of and access to support, resources and assistance for people dealing with mental health, behavioral health and substance abuse issues.
The goal of this campaign is to saturate Pinellas County with one common contact point for all mental health, behavioral health and substance abuse issues. The Campaign seeks to normalize authentic feelings and experiences and offers support and resources to people in Pinellas County, no matter what they’re going through.
To harness the power of art in public spaces, SHINE was invited to facilitate four You Good? murals throughout St. Petersburg. Four local artists were selected, Briauna Walker (Tampa), Jimmy Breen (St. Pete), James Freeman Kitchens (Clearwater) and Leo Gomez (St. Pete). They were each tasked with creating a mural in their own design style that speaks to the message of mental health.
“As an artist, mental health is everything. People who deal with depression or anxiety, overwhelming self-doubt, worry, imposter syndrome, rumination – these are all common among creative types,” artist Jimmy Breen explains.
“You have to seek out things that are a positive influence on your mental health, and you have to practice them daily.” Breen’s bright, happy mural with vibrant colors also includes sad and tearful faces. A reminder to consider that a quick “yeah, I’m good” might not be the full truth for many of us.
"I personally had a little bit of a hard time at the beginning of Covid, and thanks to those that I consider my friends, my family, my clients – they helped me to get out of that,” says lettering artist Leo Gomez. His mural proclaims “We Rise by Lifting Others,” a powerful statement after a long year of isolation.
The four You Good? murals can be found at the following locations in St. Petersburg. . .
Briauna Walker (Tampa) - Operation Par Inc
1900 9th Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33705
Jimmy Breen (St. Pete) - Sunshine Kitty Catfe
1669 1st Ave South, St. Petersburg, FL 33712
James Freeman Kitchens (Clearwater) - The Sanderlin Center
2335 22nd Ave South, St. Petersburg, FL 33712
Leo Gomez (St. Pete) - Beau & Mo’s Italian Steakhouse
2924 5th Ave N, St. Petersburg, FL 33713
For help with mental health, behavior health or substance abuse issues,
please call 727-791-3131 or go online to pinellaswellnessconnection.org/you-good.
Artists, writers, musicians, graphic artists, filmmakers – anyone working as an independent arts contractor will benefit from a review of what is necessary to file your taxes this year. Join the St. Pete Arts Alliance for a Zoom workshop on February 25 from 1-2:30 pm.
Susan Plage of Intuit (TurboTax, QuickBooks, Quicken, Mint and ProConnect) is a Tax Expert and an IRS Enrolled Agent. This is Susan’s fifth year teaching this popular session.
Topics we’ll cover:
- Income (W-2 and 1099-MISC)
- Identify ordinary deductions
- Identify deductions for creative businesses
- Identify Creative Business Expenses (Form 2106, Schedule A and Schedule C)
- Review the overall income tax landscape for federal and state filings
- Identify records to retain for tax purposes and effective systems for tracking expenses
- How to report emergency relief aid or PPP funds.
SPAA Workshops are a program of our Virtual Arts Resource Center, supported by the Bank of America Foundation, Pinellas Community Foundation, TD Bank Foundation and the City of St. Petersburg’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
Please register here to receive the Zoom link.
This workshop is free for Arts Business Partners. If you’re not yet an Arts Alliance member, a $5 reduced registration fee is made possible thanks to generous support from Bank of America.
St. Petersburg Arts Alliance presents a report that offers possibilities for St. Petersburg’s future. We offer recommendations along with practical and possible processes to preserve and enhance our arts placemaking and cultural impact, as well as our Arts Districts.
St. Petersburg is a city of beautiful beaches, sunshine, sports and lively activities. St. Petersburg is also a vibrant City of the Arts.
St. Pete’s thriving arts and culture scene with outstanding museums, scores of independent galleries, a successful and close-knit community of working artists and crafts-people, and a stellar performing arts community is one of the best in the southeastern United States.
St. Petersburg is growing and changing rapidly as it attract those who want to join us. Five-plus years ago, you would find boarded up buildings and little activity along Central Avenue. Thanks to creative businesses moving into the 600 Block, the Central Arts District emerged as a vibrant, bustling city center.
However as a result, rents are rising, displacing vulnerable small creative businesses – some relocating, some disappearing entirely from our arts and cultural community. The pattern is repeated in our arts districts and enclaves as well.
The arts have impact. The arts in St. Petersburg not only improve the city’s quality of life, they are an economic powerhouse through cultural tourism. Fine art, theatre, music, dance, film and literary arts, along with the established and emerging Arts Districts play significant roles in our vibrant City of the Arts.
Our goal of presenting “Preserving our Cultural Spaces” is to provide context and suggestions that may inform those who shape the way our city is growing. We want to keep our arts and cultural community prospering.
Explore this downloadable proposal
Preserving Our Cultural Spaces
We welcome your input
You can email comments to [email protected] and [email protected].
