Celebrate Artistry at Art in the Park!

Kathy Gibson is a regional Art Consultant and creator of ArtHouse3. Gibson selects and

installs contemporary art, working with a variety of clients, artists and spaces, primarily

in west central Florida. She is a former Gallery Director for Hillsborough College Dale

Mabry Campus where she doubled the exhibition space, established a permanent art

collection, rebranded gallery name, and organized thirty exhibits over a three-year

tenure.

As an Independent Curator, Gibson won an Individual Artist Award from the St.

Petersburg Arts Alliance for her Drive-by Window Project; an ArtsUp Grant as curator for

the Tongue & Groove exhibition; a microgrant from the Gobioff Foundation applied to

her 2024 Strength of Character exhibit in the Gallery at Creative Pinellas.

Gibson was the first Guest Curator for the St Pete/Clearwater Airport - Sightline Gallery -

working with Creative Pinellas on designing and installing the 2025 inaugural exhibit.

Neil Bender b. 1976) was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and currently lives and works

in Tampa, Florida. His work deploys a healthy sarcasm and black humor to investigate

culture’s stilited morality around the body and sexuality, using the flatness of Sienese

paintings and the luscious play of the Baroque to make fields of fluid, flowering fragments.

His work has been shown nationally and internationally, at the Boston Center for the Arts,

the CUE Art Foundation in New York, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Palazzo Casali

in Cortona, Italy, The Front in New Orleans, Circa PR in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the St.

Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL, Tempus Projects, and many other

venues. He received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant after getting his MFA from the

University of Georgia, attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the

Painting’s Edge residency in Idyllwild, CA, and the Vermont Studio Center. He was co-

founder of the former-Tampa cohort of drawers, Quaid, and is Associate Professor of

Painting and Drawing at the University of South Florida.

Danielle Rush feels called to create every day, through painting, developing a new

recipe, or filling the pages of her journal. Her love of art began in childhood, with

frequent trips to the arts and crafts store in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and a mother who

encouraged her curiosity with paint, canvas, and an easel. That early devotion grew into

a lifelong pursuit, leading to a bachelor’s degree in Art History.

As an illustrator and painter, she works in watercolor, acrylic, oil, and mixed media. She

also enjoys working with clay, a medium that connects her to the memory of her

mother, a ceramic artist. Her subjects are inspired by nature, the food she loves, and

whimsical or abstract impressions that arise from lived experience.

Danielle spent seven years teaching art to students from kindergarten through high

school and later owned a gallery and studio in Virginia with her daughter, where they

sold art supplies, exhibited original work, and taught classes.

In addition to her visual art practice, she is a yoga teacher, chef, and published author.

She holds a master’s degree in Artistic Meditation and believes deeply in the healing and

integrative power of the creative process. She hosts art and yoga retreats throughout

the United States and internationally, with upcoming retreats in Florida and Europe.

Danielle is married and part of a blended family with four children, four grandchildren,

and the best dog ever.