We’re almost a month into Creative Loafing’s 10/100/1000 Challenge and we’ve already garnered some innovative ideas in the Arts & Culture category.  Below you’ll find just a few of the great ideas that have been submitted so far.  Make sure to vote for your favorite idea to make Tampa Bay a better place to live or share your own great idea at cltampa.com/ten100.

Within the Arts & Culture category, the biggest vote getter so far is Chalk Walk.   Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts (TBBCA) is hosting Chalk Walk in  Hyde Park March 18-20, 2011.  Through this three-day art festival featuring colorful  chalk drawings by local artists, six local musical talents, face painting and a bounce  house, TBBCA hopes to engage the Tampa community in the creation of art.  Proceeds from Chalk Walk go to helping fund college scholarships to high school art students.  If TBBCA’s Chalk Walk wins, they will use the money to enhance a healthy cultural presence in Tampa and encourage local students to continue building upon their artistic skills.

Other promising and interesting ideas within the Arts and Culture category include:

  • New Home for FMoPA– The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, a non-profit organization in downtown Tampa dedicated to exhibiting important photographic art, is looking for a new home.  A larger permanent location for the “best kept secret in Tampa” will help FMoPA reach out to Tampa’s community by expanding their classes, adding a community gallery, displaying their permanent collection, and making more art available to the Tampa public.  These important changes will allow FMoPA to educate and involve Tampa’s community in the arts.
  • Ybor Arts Incubator– Hampton Arts Management, a non-profit dedicated to promoting and developing the artistic communities of Tampa, presents the Ybor Arts Incubator.  This inventive approach to developing Tampa’s art community provides business development and coworking space for non-profit arts organizations.  The Incubator focuses on strengthening the business behind the arts by providing guidance and consultation in crucial development areas such as strategic planning and finance.
  • The Freedom Wall Mural– Thundershirts would like to provide Tampa with a public art light, story, and sound mural venue.  Located at the Poe Garage in downtown Tampa, this wall mural would be the largest outdoor sheltered light, story, and sound show and would act as a public theater venue for the River Walk area.  The Hillsborough Arts Council and Tampa Arts has already offered to pay all expenses, but a lease from the city is still needed to recover the private investment. The projection wall project would put local artists, sound & lighting engineers, and writers to work developing new shows.
  • Second Chance– This contender would like to shoot a pilot reality show titled “Second Chance” of which the goal of each episode is to get one homeless family off the streets.  They will meet with and follow a homeless family through their day to see how they live their lives and hear their stories.  Through sponsors, these families will be provided with clothing, job assistance, education, and living arrangements for a minimum of 6 months, allowing homeless families to get back on their feet.

The 10/100/1000 Challenge is an initiative of Creative Loafing and Creative Tampa Bay inviting you to share your ideas for making Tampa Bay a better place to live.  After a span of 100 days (which began Jan. 13), the 10 best projects will be selected by judges from CL and CTB, reserving one spot for the project that gets the most votes.  The top ten ideas will be announced April 7 and the winner of $1,000 will be announced on April 14.

This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2011.