SHINE, for the uninitiated (we're looking at you, guy from Tacoma who got off the plane yesterday) is St. Petersburg's annual "put a mural on it" paint party (yes, we did just co-opt Portlandia) whereby artists from near and far (we're partial to the ones "near") paint murals. Everywhere. Almost literally (we're wondering if the city's allowing all the high-rises simply as future SHINE canvases, TBH).
Seriously, though, SHINE — a riff on Mayor Rick Kriseman's "The Sun Shines Here" tagline (good thing he's not mayor of Anchorage) — offers artists the opportunity to make a little extra money, showcases the talent pool in the city (did we mention we love the local murals best?), and puts St. Pete's burgeoning (or has it already burgeoned?) arts scene at the forefront for visitors and locals. It's nice to have an art-dentity, and that's what SHINE does for us.
So we'll see you in early October, watching people paint. We could make a joke about SHINE being about that, and also watching paint dry, but we're worried no one would understand we actually think that part's pretty cool, too.
SHINE gets a ton of support from the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance, so make sure you check out what else they do to keep our art-dentity at the forefront.
Can't wait? You can take a July 7 bike tour of murals already around, or take a virtual tour of the murals we already have in St. Pete.
This article appears in Jun 21-28, 2018.
