TWIS Talks RIAF: Ringling Arts Festival Fetes Sarasota’s Surging Art Scene

The fourth annual Ringling International Arts Festival will take place October 10-13 at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

Each year the Ringling International Arts Festival brings Sarasota closer to the forefront of the international art scene, where it joins Miami as a primary tastemaker and influencer in the performing arts sector.

As a student of art history and museum studies at Florida International University, I had the great privilege of spending three years simmering in the arts-and-culture melting pot that is Miami, Florida. The choice to leave Miami’s culturally-diverse, vibrant and sophisticated art scene upon graduation was a difficult one to make, but I was fortunate to be greeted by a rapidly-growing international arts scene — heralded by the inaugural Ringling International Arts Festival — upon my move to Sarasota in 2009.

Click  here to read the rest of “Ringling Arts Festival Fetes Sarasota’s Surging Art Scene” and subscribe to the official RIAF 2012 blog.

Jessi Smith


Jessi Smith is a senior staff writer at This Week in Sarasota. She lives and works in downtown Sarasota with Margot, the most magnificent cat to ever set paws on this planet. Jessi is passionate about engaging the community with the arts, traveling, eating really good food, and the Oxford comma. She smells like patchouli and occasionally does yoga.