Arts & Culture

What a good friend “Friends” has been for the actors who starred in the popular show, which began its 10-year run on September 22, 1994. Each actor gets 2 percent of that syndication, or $20 million a year. The Song of the Day, 'I'll be there for you" was written by The Rembrandts. But the first band choice was R.E.M.

In lieu of our weekly airing of Gulf Coast Life Arts Edition, we listen back to one of the very first episodes of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories featuring co-owner of Winged Foot Title and former Executive Director of the Alliance for the Arts Lydia Black.

Less than a month after the Naples City Council voted to approve the permit for the 2023 Naples Pride Festival in Cambier Park, Naples Pride announced they will host the drag show portion of the festival indoors due to safety concerns.

The 37th Annual All Florida Juried Exhibit is on view this month in the main gallery of the Alliance for the Arts. The show continues to grow in stature and statewide recognition, as evidenced by the fact that the Alliance received 120 more submissions this year than it did in 2022. That presented this year’s juror, Grace Gdaniec, with quite the challenge when it came to deciding which 60 or so works to include in this year’s exhibition.

November is Native American Heritage Month, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum is marking the occasion with its annual American Indian Arts Celebration on November 4-5.

Southwest Florida artists and founders of Artsemble Underground Cesar Aguilera and Brian Weaver are using their artistic talents to encourage dialogue and provide community representation through large-scale murals.

A Centennial Park monument in downtown Fort Myers honoring Black soldiers who served during the Civil War has done a 180. Now, community members and activists say the bronze statue named “Clayton” is facing the correct direction.

The Baker Museum at Artis-Naples has emerged from challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and damage from Hurricane Irma with new exhibitions “True Likeness,” and “Recent Acquisitions: 2019 – Present.”“True Likeness” invites viewers to re-examines why we are so mesmerized by our own faces and the ones we encounter as we re-emerge from our homes in the wake of the pandemic.“Recent Acquisitions” includes 50 works that have been added to the museum’s permanent collection since 2019, most of which are now available for public view for the first time.

Executive Director of the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers, Lydia Black, is stepping down after 13 years at the helm of the nonprofit community arts center. Black led the organization through an era of impressive growth, change and expansion based on a vision that a community arts organization should serve the needs of the whole community. Black has also been a tireless advocate for the arts. She spearheaded the first economic impact study providing empirical evidence about the importance of the arts in Lee County. Black joins us to reflect back on her expansive and transformational impact on the Alliance for the Arts.

Denise Castronovo is a producer of chocolate who contracts with small growers for precise cocoa beans, which she then crafts into award winning chocolate.…