Daily Loaf

Welcome to On the Radar, where we preview up-and-coming arts events to mark your calendar for. This Sunday, Czar hosts Sweatshop III, a massive mash-up of music, art and fashion.

Lately it seems like, all of a sudden, the artsy folks of Tampa Bay looked up, discovered each other, and decided, “Hey! Your stuff is pretty rad! Maybe we can help each other out.” And from that realization came a string of collaborations mixing the worlds of art, music, fashion, and the need to be seen and heard. Sweatshop is at the forefront of these kickass pan-art events, and its third incarnation “celebrates the decades-long love affair between fashion and rock music,” with runway offerings from Ben Chmura (whose raven wing dress is pictured) and DEMENTA by Raven Reda, and a stylish soundtrack from The Vera Violets and In Fireworks. Properly Polished presents a live painting and fashion installation, and Jedd Lancaster and James Dormer-Schneider rock out fabric art. As if local couture mavens weren’t already drooling to get in the door, there’s also a trunk show where you can find the latest (and the yet-to-be-discovered) from independent designers. Sun., Sept. 6, 10 p.m., Czar, 1430 Seventh Ave., Tampa, $13 ages 21 and up, $15 ages 18-21, czarybor.com. – Franki Weddington

A traveling exhibition organized by Chattanooga’s Hunter Museum of American Art, I Heard A Voice: The Art of Lesley Dill brings nearly 30 of the acclaimed contemporary artist’s works — with an emphasis on sculptural installations — to St. Petersburg. Poetic and psychologically charged, Dill’s constructions often combine fabric and figures (or dress forms) with text to spellbinding effect; works featured in I Heard A Voice respond to poetry by Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu and Franz Kafka. Expect to be moved by the artist’s ideas and awed by her craft. Oct. 10-Dec. 27, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, 727-896-2667, fine-arts.org.

Pictured right: Dill’s Breathing Leaves (2004). Ink, thread, glue on tea-stained fabric. Courtesy of the Artist and Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

More of Lesley Dill’s artwork after the break. Read the rest of this entry »