Celebrate Artistry at Art in the Park!

Rocky Bridges is a native Floridian growing up with his 8 older siblings in Tarpon Springs. Rocky is a mixed media assemblage artist. He stared exhibiting his work in sidewalk art festivals in 1982 at the age of 17. Rocky has won numerous awards in outdoor festivals including Best of show at Mainsail Art Festival and Art Harvest. Rocky has had solo exhibitions at The Corcoran Museum in Washington DC, The Polk Museum of Art and The Leepa Ratner Museum of Art to mention a few. His work is in major private and corporate art collections throughout the United States.

Rocky has received a SURDNA Fellowship Grant for Guilin, China, a Fulbright Memorial Fellowship for Okinawa, Japan, a Rothenberg Fellowship for Istanbul, Turkey and an Artist Residency through The National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Rocky is also passionate about art education. He has been a professor of Art at The University of South Florida, Maine College of Art, St. Petersburg College. For the past 34 years Rocky has been on the Art Faculty at the prestigious Harrison School for the Arts.

Judith Powers served 21 years as the executive director of the Pinellas County Arts Council and the Cultural Affairs Department and 12 years as the director of the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center in Belleair. She served as a board member and president of the Florida Association of LocalArts Agencies and has been active with a number of community organizations including the Junior League of Clearwater-Dunedin, the PACE Center for Girls, the Pinellas Community Foundation and the Pinellas County Historical Society. She has served on both the Clearwater and St. Petersburg Public Arts Commissions, the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance and on the City of St. Petersburg Arts Advisory Committee.

She holds an MA & MFA from the University of South Florida and is a working artist with a studio in St. Petersburg. Her work is several collections including the Florida State House of Representatives, City of Orlando, Winter Park, Pensacola Community College, and the Polk Museum of Art. She has participated in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions and for several years was an active participant in outdoor festivals, winning best in show awards at Gasparilla, Mainsail, Art Harvest in Dunedin, Gainesville, St. Augustine, Pensacola and many others.

Michele Tuegel’s most recent entrepreneurial venture was Michele Tuegel Contemporary art gallery, which was located on Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete from 2012-2016, and featured work by both local and nationally-known artists in all fine art and craft media. Prior to the gallery, she was Media Relations and Arts Specialist for the Pinellas County Cultural Affairs Department, and the founding Executive Director of Florida Craftsmen, Inc. from 1986-2004, promoting the work of artists statewide. Michele received her BA and MFA in Printmaking and Papermaking from the University of South Florida, Tampa. She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the State of Florida in the late 80’s, using that opportunity to study at Dieu Donne Paper Mill in New York City. She taught studio papermaking throughout Florida and at institutions like Arrowmont (TN), Haystack (ME), and Eckerd College. Tuegel has participated in more than 100 solo and group exhibitions, including invitationals such as “Paper as Medium,” Smithsonian Institution; “Paper Today,” USA TODAY Headquarters in Washington, DC; and “Paper: Finland/USA,” an international traveling exhibition. Her work is in many corporate, museum and private collections. In 2002, she organized a cultural exchange exhibition with the University in San José, Costa Rica, and curated a national traveling exhibition in 2005, sponsored by FiberArts magazine, titled “Twist + Shout: The New Needle Arts.” Tuegel served as a board member of the American Craft Council SE, and she continues to jury exhibitions, outdoor art festivals, plus mentor artists and lecture on the topics of contemporary art and fine craft.