SAYING YES TO ARTS

For five years, Bob Devin Jones has been saying yes to artists of all stripes at The Studio@620, a nonprofit arts alliance, performance and gallery space in St. Petersburg.

The result has been 19,000 visitors to the downtown storefront -Jones demonstrated the importance of the location by singing Petula Clark's 1964 hit "Downtown" to a gathering of Sarasota arts and business leaders as keynote speaker at Friday's first artsEXPO, sponsored by the Sarasota County Arts Council and the Nonprofit Resource Center of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

To Jones, a playwright, director and actor who has lived in St. Petersburg for 12 years, the word "art" is synonymous with "life."

"Art should be a daily nutrition, like the food that you ate just today," Jones said. "We don't go to Rome for health care. We go for the steps, the fountains, the art."

Collaboration both within and without the arts community is not merely necessary for success, Jones said, but as essential as breathing.

"Collaboration is what we do," he said. "We're social beings."

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