GOOD EATS Soul food

GOOD EATS

Fellowship Fare

Soul food is the stuff of heartfelt gatherings

by ROCHELLE KOFF

When it comes to soul food, you’ve got to have that fried chicken, collard greens, mac ’n’ cheese and cornbread.

That’s just for starters.

Stop at Olean’s Cafe, open on Adams Street for 26 years, and you’ll also find smothered pork chops, green beans swimming in pot liquor, oxtail, chitlins and catfish, all served to a soundtrack of gospel music.

The venerable restaurant is a storied place that has been visited by both President Obama and President Joe Biden; both have dishes bearing their names.

“Biden loves soul food, too,” said owner Olean McCaskill.

She learned to cook when she was just a girl, watching her mom and grandma cook on a wood stove in Conecuh County, Alabama. By age 14, McCaskill was working in Tallahassee restaurants.

To this day, she cooks from the heart.

“Soul food is something that is good for your soul, and it makes you feel like home,” said McCaskill. “Customers, students, they come to Olean’s and they get soul food, they get gospel music, they get everything they need.”

Jennifer Young understands the connections. For her, soul food has been synonymous with family and fellowship.

“It was all about bringing family together

↑ The three young women who founded Bourne Brilliant in Tallahassee prepare for sale plant-based dishes like this one (recipe at right), baked goods and natural products.

↙ Sauteed Kale & Sweet Potato Leaves

(from Bourne Brilliant)

➸ 1 bunch curly kale and 1 bunch of sweet potato leaves, washed, drained and torn into small pieces ➸ 3 tablespoons sunflower oil ➸ 1 medium red onion, chopped ➸ 5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped ➸ 2 tablespoons tamari ➸ 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast ➸ 1 cup water ➸ 1 scotch bonnet pepper (poke holes in it, rather than slicing)

Place the kale and sweet potato leaves in a large pot with all of the ingredients. Add one cup of water. Make sure all of the leaves are coated by tossing them together. Let simmer for 1 hour. Remember to remove the scotch bonnet before serving.

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Pound Cake

(from TC Bakery) ➸ 2 sticks of butter ➸ 3 cups of sugar ➸ 6 large eggs ➸ 1 cup heavy cream ➸ 3 cups all-purpose flour ➸ ½ tsp salt ➸ ½ tsp baking powder ➸ 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Make sure all ingredients are room temperature. Cream butter and sugar until fully incorporated. Next, add eggs one at a time, beating after every addition. In a separate bowl sift flour, salt and baking powder. Alternate flour mixture and heavy cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat after every addition. Be sure not to overly mix. Once finished, stir in vanilla extract. Pour batter in a well-greased Bundt pan on 325 degrees. Make sure the oven is not preheated. Bake for and hour and 15 minutes. Insert a clean knife to check for doneness. If clean, cake is done.

for Sunday dinners,” said Young, owner of TC Bakery on Tallahassee’s Southside. “It was all about fellowship.”

When she was a little girl, Young’s mother and father ran a popular soul food restaurant in Tallahassee called Ma Mary’s Kitchen from 1989 to 1994, in the same location where Young now has her own bakery.

She was 10 years old when her mother, Tommie C. Williams, passed away in 1994 at age of 45. Young’s dad, Isaac, then taught her how to cook her mom’s recipes, which were “passed down from generation to generation. I have five children, and I hope to pass these recipes down to them.”

Young originally served soul food as well as baked goods in her cafe, but since the pandemic, she now sticks to her cakes, cupcakes and cheesecakes.

“I’m the only bakery on the south side with a Southern soul,” she said.

Soul food has a rich history immersed in the AfricanAmerican culture.

A style of cooking “now associated with comfort and decadence, was born out of struggle and survival,” Vanessa Hayford wrote in an article titled “Humble History of Soul Food” for the site “Black Foodie.”

To Syrheda La Shae, “soul food, like soul music, makes you feel good, is addicting and carries the fondest memories for each person who consumes it.”

She is the mother of three daughters — Lyrica Leo, 13, and sisters Zaira, 12, and Nadira, 9 — who founded a business called Bourne Brilliant. The young entrepreneurs cook plant-based dishes, baked goods and natural products for sale at a cafe on Orange Avenue and in a shop in Railroad Square.

“Soul food can be whatever you interpret it as — there are no longer any rules,” said Zaira. “It represents your culture, as well.”

While foods like collards and kale are packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants, there are concerns that they become unhealthy when cooked in fatback or with lots of salt.

Southern cooking may have similarities “but soul food and Southern cooking are not exactly the same things,” said La Shae. “In our opinion, soul food speaks to the struggles that African-Americans have faced with gaining access to healthier or alternative foods.”

“We were used to being given the scraps, the most unhealthy or undesirable portions of animals, the waste, and so now that translates to our gravitating towards heavily processed foods and beverages,” La Shae said.

While her daughters are learning healthy alternatives, they do have family favorites based in longstanding culinary traditions.

“We are lovers of mac ’n’ cheese, mixed greens and can- IF YOU GO … died yams,” they wrote in an ➺ OLEAN’S CAFÉ email. “All of these things re- 1605 S. Adams St. mind us of gatherings of our (850) 521-0259 family that are located here in ➺ TC BAKERY the States. Our Nonnie has al- 614 Eugenia St. ways made the best baked mac ’n’ (850) 577-1776 cheese; she even changed many ➺ BOURNE of her recipes to accommodate BRILLIANT CAFE our dietary choices. So, her mac ’n’ cheese is now mac ’n’ pleeze.” 618 McDonnell Drive (at 242 E. Orange Blvd.

“I feel soul food evokes emo- and shop in the tions when eating,” added Lyrica. And for Nadira: “Soul food Breezeway Market at Railroad Square Art District) just tastes very yummy.” TM (850) 391-8541

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RVing Travelers’ Answer to Social Distancing

STORY BY KAREN MURPHY // PHOTO BY COLIN HACKLEY, VISIT FLORIDA

St. George Island

Over 40 million Americans, especially Floridians, find that freedom, touring the backroads, coastlines and natural parks of our massive country in a recreational vehicle (RV).

Following a year of severe travel restrictions due to a pandemic and traveler unease with hotels, cruise ships and airlines, this year is expected to be a record year for those in the RV business.

The Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) sees North American RV sales surging 19.5 percent in 2021 with 507,200 units sold. That would be the industry’s best year ever.

RVIA President Craig Kirby said that 2020 was the fourth-best year on record, surpassing 2019 by nearly five percent, despite the nearly two-month shutdown last spring.

And Florida ranks fourth in sales of RVs, behind Indiana, California, and Texas.

Who is buying all these RVs? Elderly couples, with little dogs? Well, yes, but it’s not just them. Generation X and Baby Boomers are still the biggest segments of the industry, but Millennials make up approximately 38 percent of campers. The average RV owner in the U.S. is 48 years old, according to the RVIA.

Households in the 35-54 age demographic, with a yearly income of about $62,000, are the most likely to own an RV in the U.S., according to the association.

Erwin Jackson, the owner of three RV parks in the Panhandle, says his parks have been packed since the COVID-19 lockdowns were eased in Florida in May 2020.

“I think the popularity of RVing right now has a few main reasons. Baby Boomers are retiring and traveling. It really caught on, especially with people who like to travel with their pets. Then COVID hit.”

RVs provided travelers with their own safe, personal mobile cocoons. It was a way to travel large distances while still social distancing.

Topsail Hill Preserve State Park

PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISIT SOUTH WALTON (TOPSAIL HILL PRESERVE STATEPARK) AND VISIT FLORIDA: COLIN HACKLEY (RV), RUSSELL MICK (ST. GEORGE ISLAND) Big Bend Scenic Byway (U.S. 98), Leonard Landing, Alligator Harbor

10 of Florida’s Great RV Parks

1 Florida Caverns State Park, Marianna 2 Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, Santa Rosa Beach 3 Anastasia State Park, St. Augustine 4 Fort Pickens Campground, Pensacola 5 St. George Island State Park 6 Juniper Springs National Recreation Area, Ocala 7 Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort, Orlando 8 Fort De Soto Park, St. Petersburg 9 Lion Country Safari KOA, Loxahatchee 10 Bahia Honda State Park, Florida Keys

Source: Visit Florida

RVs BY THE #s

Millennials make up approximately 38%

of campers

Average age of RV owner in U.S. 48

Typical household income for RV owner $62,000

Source: The Recreational Vehicle Industry Association

St. Andrews State Park in Panama City Beach is a popular stop for campers touring the South in their RVs.

PHOTOS BY DESIRÉE GARDNER (ST. ANDREWS STATE PARK) AND COURTESY OF VISIT FLORIDA: MALLORY BROOKS (ST. AUGUSTINE) AND STEVE BEAUDET, BOSHOOTS.COM (FLORIDA CAVERNS) Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine

RVs also allow families a way to go camping that is easier than traditional camping options — no tents or air mattresses. These families spend an average of four weeks each year using their RV in some way, according to RIVA. RVing is also over 60 percent cheaper than a traditional vacation at a hotel, bed and breakfast, or similar type of accommodation.

There are about 16,000 campgrounds and parking facilities throughout the country, both public and private, which support RV camping.

Florida is “one of the most popular RVing and camping destinations in the nation. It has beautiful beaches, lakes and rivers, unlimited recreational activities, fine dining restaurants, shops and attractions, professional and college sporting events, world-class fishing and amazing weather; but most importantly, Florida has hundreds of the best RV parks and campgrounds in the world,” according to the Florida Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds.

Many of the best RV parks in Florida are right here in the Panhandle.

Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna is a breathtaking destination for RVers. The park’s cave tours take folks underground to discover stalagmites, stalactites and other formations. The park offers hiking, biking, equestrian camping and kayaking on the Chipola River. There is also a nine-hole golf course.

One of Jackson’s RV parks is also right down the road. Florida Caverns Resort at Merrit’s Mill Pond has luxury and premium RV sites, many of which sit next to the water and offers kayaking, paddleboarding, canoeing, a pool, restaurant and more.

At the Gregory E. Moore RV Resort in Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Santa Rosa Beach, a person can take a tram down to one of the most unique beaches in the state. Hiking trails lead to Morris and Campbell lakes, two rare coastal dune lakes, found only in a few places in the entire world.

Even closer to home is St. George Island, often ranked as one of the best beaches in the country.

For history buffs, Fort Pickens Campground in Pensacola and Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine can take you back in time. Both are close to the forts and other historic sites as well as the beautiful beaches and hiking trails.

For those wanting to wander a little further and go “wild,” try Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort in Orlando, or even wilder, wake up to the roar of lions and the screeching of monkeys at Lion Country Safari KOA in Loxahatchee.

For a different kind of wild, escape to the very most southern part of Florida to Bahia Honda State Park on Big Pine Key in Key West.

With all these destinations, call well in advance to secure reservations, or you might find yourself camping in a Walmart parking lot. Lots of people do. TM

Florida Caverns State Park

COCA’s

Despite pandemic and funding challenges, hearts must be fed

BY MARINA BROWN

ou can’t actually see them, but if you’re near the downtown office of the Council on Culture & Arts (COCA) on Martin Luther King Boulevard, you might sense the vibrations, feel the enthusiasm, and hear the hums of optimism that emanate from two petite, but mighty, women who step each day into their roles as warriors for the arts. And the arts are grateful.

Amanda Karioth Thompson, the assistant director at COCA, is responsible for the nonprofit’s arts education and public art programming functions. Kathleen Spehar, the recently appointed executive director of the organization, brought to COCA a lifetime of experience in arts administration and collaboration with city and state entities. Together, the women are the two most prominent of the four full-time arts advocates working at COCA.

From them flows a cascade of ideas and flexible plans that they can adapt to shifting city and county priorities, variable budgets, even a pandemic. But their end goal is set in stone: to support the arts, their availability and enjoyment by as many Tallahasseans as possible. The women have built relationships that allow music, the visual arts, dance, choral music, theater and literature to thrive in the capital city at a time when funding, gifts and grants cannot be taken for granted.

Ask anyone who has been to the Tallahassee Symphony, the Tallahassee Ballet, the LeMoyne or the Riley House museums, each of which receive financial grants through COCA, or ask individual artists who see their work reproduced and biographies posted on the COCA Arts Guide, or their paintings hung at the City Hall or Airport Galleries, and you will glimpse the breadth of COCA’s ability to connect the city to the wealth of art available, and to add to that supply.

For both Thompson and Spehar, a commitment to the artistic “muses” arrived early. Florida-born Thompson was raised in a household where the arts played a major part.

“My father, Gerald Ensley, was a journalist, my mother Sally Karioth, a speaker, performer and educator,” Thompson said. “They say I attended my first play when I was a few days old, and ‘acted’ in one a few months later!”

With a grandmother who was a professional musician, a school environment filled with visual art, music and theater, and an elementary school art teacher who gave her “a voice to let me communicate what couldn’t be said,” Thompson knew early on that art would always be in her life in some way.

Spehar also found the world opening to her though music, dance and choral music. She was born in Chicago and lived in Detroit, a baby boomer whose parents introduced a piano into her life.

Amanda Karioth Thompson, assistant director at COCA

Kathleen Spehar, executive director of COCA Muralist Matt Ketchum created Coexist in collaboration with Matthew McCarron; Tselote Holley and Elton Burgest provided general assistance; Street Art Tallahassee’s Chiara Saldivar served as curator, mural designer and project organizer; Daniel McCluskey painted backgrounds and was the production/ operations manager. Photos at bottom, from left: W. Stanley Proctor’s bronze sculpture, Florida’s Finest, at the Governor’s Mansion; the Pas de Vie Ballet, a recipient of Leon CARES funding; the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Darko Butorac.

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS (COEXIST), PTFPHOTO (PAS DE VIE BALLET), PERRONE FORD (TALLAHASSEE SYMPHONY), KIRA DERRYBERRY PHOTOGRAPHY (KARIOTH AND SPEHAR) AND COURTESY OF COCA (FLORIDA’S FINEST)

“I was an artsy kid, in a modern dance club, playing the flute, loving choral music and even becoming a drum majorette,” she said. Time only heightened her desire to participate in activities that “fed her heart.” At the University of Minnesota, she earned a master’s degree in arts administration, having been attracted to the variety of possibilities such a degree would bring. Thompson holds the same degree, earned in Florida. So credentialed, the two women advocate for all the arts and assist artists along the way.

Thompson began working part time at COCA 15 years ago, when the organization was already 20 years old. From assistant arts education coordinator, to later, assistant director, the dynamic Thompson said she prefers to be “the support person behind the one who is out front,” sounding delighted with every project in which she’s involved.

“I love that we can direct arts education grants to individual art teachers,” she said. “Twelve different teachers received grants, totaling $6,000, this year. Through our online galleries, we have teacher guides and lesson plans. We have also begun a wonderful relationship with the media where I can report on art projects and awards to school-age children.”

Not all plans made before the pandemic were shelved.

“COCA is working with Blueprint 2000 on a Capital Cascades Trail and on a History and Culture Trail where exterior sculpture pieces will eventually be placed,” said Thompson, who clearly believes that art should be a public encounter.

Spehar brings 13 years of national and international experience working in education, and with legislatures, granting agencies and nonprofits, often advocating from an “artistic tourism” perspective.

“COCA receives funding through a public arts contract with the City of Tallahassee and Leon County, and also through the Office of Tourism, from which it receives one cent of tourist development taxes,” Spehar explained. “From those sources, we then issue re-grants to nonprofit organizations which apply. This year our budget was to have been over $1 million for re-grants. Fortunately, while the pandemic’s effect on tourism has caused that to decrease over the last months, the city and county have offered additional funding through LEAN and CARES Act grant programs.”

Spehar and Thompson are optimistic and filled with new plans.

“We’ve already worked with the restaurant industry, having poets create short works to include in each take-out order,” Spehar said. “I would like to embed the arts into health care settings, perhaps in policing and de-escalation situations. And planning for the 2024 bicentennial has already begun!”

Listening is a big part of Spehar’s job.

“We want to hear from the public and artists, too, about what they need to keep art in their lives. Art has always been about resiliency, now more than ever. Artists have always had it. Now we’re all improvising,” she laughed. “It’s a good skill to have!” TM

PHOTOS BY SAIGE ROBERTS

COCA, in partnership with the City of Tallahassee’s Sustainability and Community Preservation Department, is taking a creative approach to addressing graffiti with its Graffiti Abatement Mural Program. Artists who submit proposals that are selected receive a stipend from the city, and their completed murals are finished with a graffiti-proof topcoat. COCA manages the submission and selection process and works with artists to facilitate installations. Sarah Painter, in photo, created Magnolias with assistance from Cosby Hayes and Matt Shanaghan.

↙ Michele Arwood, left, the director of the Thomasville Center for the Arts, and public art and marketing coordinator Darlene Crosby Taylor, stride past Joe Cowdry’s Pine Forest and Woodpecker mural on West Jackson Street in Thomasville.

ArtAT ITS CENTER

story by STEVE BORNHOFT

photography by SAIGE ROBERTS

Thomasville runs on creative talent

In December, news media from around the country and the world were captivated by the story of a prank that went down in Peoria.

An artist, Joshua Hawkins, for an agreed-upon sum, painted a mural of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster on a commercial building in that central Illinois city. The work was commissioned by a man who identified himself as “Nate” and dictated that the mural include three Russian words that translate to peace, land, cookies.

Hawkins, joined by two helpers, completed the job, collected his fee and later found out that he had been dealing with a man who was not a Nate at all and not the building’s owner.

The real Nate Comte was unamused and moved without delay to white out Hawkins’s work, thus saddening and even angering some members of the Peoria arts community.

“Now I’m the evil Grinch,” Comte frustratingly told The New York Times.

Michele Arwood and Darlene Crosby Taylor are respecters of property rights. The manner in which they carry out public-art projects in Thomasville, Georgia, makes that clear. But sentimentally they would almost certainly align with those who were disappointed that Cookie Monster was a treat that lasted little longer than a dessert.

Arwood is the executive director of the Thomasville Center for the Arts, an entity that was known throughout most of its 30+ years as the Thomasville Cultural Center, but pivoted in a significant way 10 years ago. Taylor is the Center’s public art and marketing coordinator and has raised its profile in ways including the bombing of trees with yarn.

“The organization was founded by an amazing group of preservationists who saved our historic building, which was once an elementary school,” Arwood said, “and we had been doing our well-supported Wildlife Arts Festival for about 15 years when we saw an opportunity to expand upon our network of patrons and sponsors.”

In so doing, Arwood et al worked to engage the Thomasville community more generally in the Center and to employ the arts as an economic driver. The Center committed to making public art a priority, invested in the development of a creative district and focused on the importance of art education.

For many, their chief associations with Thomasville may include setters, springers, bobwhite quail and exquisite shotguns with gold inlays. The Wildlife Arts Festival has reinforced the connection between the community and sports afield.

“The hunting world we live in is part of our identity,” Arwood said.

But the Center is additionally passionate about experimenting with various types of art and discovering how they may generate conversation, bring people downtown and stimulate commerce.

“When people are connected and working together, that ultimately has a positive impact on the economy, and art

← The Imagination Playground, far left, encourages artistic expression and purposeful activity; the Center houses sculptures including one of long-billed curlews, We Three Kings, fashioned from bronze by Walter Matia; torrents of students populated the halls of the Center building during its days as an elementary school; Arwood and Taylor, with the Center in the background.

has the power to unite them,” Arwood has found.

As an example, she pointed to a multifaceted event conducted in 2014, which served to revitalize a part of town known as The Bottom.

The Center assembled a display of 25 murals related to the history of that neighborhood, which was decorated with black-and-yellow tape to suggest a construction zone. Bright yellow bicycles were positioned around town to encourage use of city trails that link its parks.

Further, the Center saw to it that The Bottom, once a vibrant Black and Jewish part of town, became an opportunity zone.

“There were 27 empty storefronts on West Jackson Street,” Taylor said. “Historically, it was home to businesses from barbershops to banks. We wanted to bring that back without changing the neighborhood’s historic demographics.”

In The Bottom, located in a depression that was once a river bed, you could buy a Sno-Ball, but not a meal. The Center’s Pop It Up event would change that.

The Center contacted owners of the idle properties and obtained permission to use them for the initiative. The spaces were cleaned and painted and made available free of charge as business sites for 30 days. Twenty-two businesses popped up.

And, when the month-long event had concluded, nine of them entered leases and stayed.

“Performance, public art, exhibitions, education — everything we do we do as a way to undergird the community as a whole,” Arwood said. “All of our projects involve collaboration. We may partner with the city or the History Center or Thomasville Landmarks, our historic preservation organization. It may be the Girls Club.”

That approach has paid dividends by engendering the trust of community residents.

“We listen to them and respond to their needs,” Arwood said.

The Center has worked with the local school district to establish an arts integration program at Scott Elementary School and to deliver fine arts curricula at its headquarters building.

“Each child at Scott gets two days a week in fine arts instruction, and that’s unheard of just about anywhere,” Arwood said. As she spoke, visiting students in a dance class kicked up such a commotion that Arwood had to move to another room to continue the conversation.

The Center’s Creative District adjoins The Bottom. As part of it, the Center acquired use of a vacant lot and brought in lights and seating. Today, the “UnVacant Lot” hosts art exhibits that are far from predictable.

“People have come to expect something new and dynamic there,” Arwood said.

At Grassroots Coffee on Broad Street, the Center displays works of emerging artists, many of them exiting the College of Fine Arts at Florida State University.

“They are growing as we are presenting,” Arwood said.

When the pandemic forced cancellation of traditional Wildlife Arts Festival exhibits and gatherings scheduled for last November, the Center opted for a public art alternative.

The Tall Timbers research institute identified 25 plants that benefit from controlled burns, an activity that also creates habitat favored by many types of wildlife. Artists then painted the 25 flora on sections of stove pipe that were placed on lampposts in the downtown area. Murals, meanwhile, depicted fauna.

Taylor recalls with fondness a yarn bomb tree project that began with a modest goal.

“We were hoping to have two trees decorated with crocheted yarn, and we wound up with 28,” Taylor said, adding that grandmothers approached the Center seeking permission to dress up a tree as something they could do with their grandchildren.

“I discovered a tribe of fiber artists,” Taylor enthused. “You can bring in

← Students in the fine arts program at Scott Elementary School regularly visit the Center; at right, two works by Cindy Inman, Night Life (owl) and Color Me Beautiful, enliven the corner of West Jackson and Stevens streets; an edition of THOM Magazine (inset).

artists to do installations, but public art works best for me when a lot of people come together for the greater good.”

Interviewed in December, Taylor, an architect by training, was seeking permission and making plans to restore faded advertisements and business identifiers painted on downtown buildings decades ago. In her vision, the “ghost images” would be made readable but retain a distressed look.

To her credit, Arwood, who left Atlanta for Thomasville years after telling her husband on her wedding day that she would never move to South Georgia, has seen to a diversification of the Center’s funding. The Center has always enjoyed strong private foundation support, but counts state and federal grants, corporate support, local sponsors, tuition and art sales as additional revenue sources.

Seven years ago, the Center partnered with the Savannah College of Art and Design to launch THOM Magazine, a vehicle for “profiling and showcasing creatives.” A Thom Summit, expected to take place this year, will bring together creative talents from around the country who are leveraging art to make a difference in their communities.

Taylor plans to make murals and pole wraps available to small towns, including Pelham, Cairo, Metcalf and Boston for display there.

As it happens, Arwood’s taste in art runs to the emotional and abstract. Her personal collection includes works by Rebecca Cabassa and John Gleason of Thomasville; Jeff Distefano and Denise Boineau of Tallahassee; and Billy Newman of Atlanta. Among the five, perhaps Boineau, whose subjects include fox hunters, might know the difference between a quail and a woodcock.

But give Arwood time. She hangs around South Georgia long enough, she may one day own a Jim Rataczak or a Tom Wosika. TM

LeMoyne’s Chain of Parks Art Festival Returns with Expanded Lineup

Celebrate Culture with 10 days of the Region’s Premier Art Festival

LeMoyne’s Chain of Parks Art Festival is North Florida’s premier outdoor fine art festival. Located in downtown

Tallahassee along Park Avenue, the festival is free and open to the public.

The festival has expanded this year, offering new and exciting programs to bring unique fine art experiences to the community in a COVID-safe way. The newly expanded event kicks off with the Zerbe Zelebration, a 10-daylong citywide celebration of renowned artist Karl Zerbe from April 9–18. The

“Zelebration” will include physical and virtual exhibits, lecture discussions, interactive social media activities and a custom crafted beer from Proof

Brewing. Other exciting news for this year’s festival includes FSU’s Opening Nights Special Presenting Artist event with muralist Michael Rosato on April 15 and Artist Workshops with printmaker Jim Sherraden at LeMoyne Arts on April 15 and 16 (virtual and physical tickets available). All of these events will be leading up to the festival weekend with Artists in the Park from April 17–18. Expect to have a first-class, funfilled outdoor cultural experience at the Chain of Parks Art Festival. View amazing, original and one-ofa-kind works of art in a delightful Southern outdoor setting. Enjoy a wide variety of live entertainment, professional chalk artists, a host of local food trucks and vendors and libations served enthusiastically at the festival bar. You can also register as a sponsor to help support the festival and have access to the coveted VIP tent (go to ChainOfParks.com for more information). Nationally ranked in the Top 100 Fine Art Festivals by Sunshine Artist Magazine for six years running, this annual two-day festival in the parks draws tens of thousands of people from the Big Bend and the Southeast to see 125-plus artists who have traveled from all over the country to display their original artwork.

As the world copes with the challenges of COVID-19, the Chain of Parks Art Festival will be implementing new safety practices and requirements to keep our artists and community safe. The festival will follow current scientific and governmental guidelines for safety. Some examples include limited festival entrances at key check-in locations, required face coverings, hand-washing stations, directional walking paths and more. For more information on the festival activities and safety guidelines, please visit ChainOfParks.com.