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'Rare Air' art exhibit features endangered birds, bats, butterflies & bees

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Published  May 31, 2025 2:34pm EDT
St. Petersburg
FOX 13 News
'Rare Air' art exhibit features endangered birds, bats, butterflies & bees

'Rare Air' art exhibit features endangered birds, bats, butterflies & bees

FOX 13 photojournalist Travis Anthony takes us to the exhibit in St. Pete.

The Brief

    • The Rare Air exhibit is showing at the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art.
    • The exhibit will be on display until Sept. 14, 2025.
    • Jace Tunnell will speak about plastics impacting birds on June 6.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A visit to the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art will expose the viewer to not only some amazing artwork in the current "Rare Air" exhibit, but also to the conservation efforts underway to help keep some of the most beautiful flying creatures here longer.  

The backstory:

Rare Air: Endangered Birds, Bats, Butterflies & Bees is on display right now at the James Museum in St. Petersburg, and the exhibit showcases the art of Sarah Kaisar.

"There are 70 illustrations of butterflies, bats, birds and bees," shared Emily Kapes. She is the Chief Curator at the James Museum. 

"This exhibit is a great reminder of our shared world and the incredible creatures that we share it with," she continued.

The visitor will notice more than one common theme in the exhibit. The first is that each of the subjects of each piece are flying creatures, whether birds, bats or insects.

The second is one of awareness of how few of these fantastic creatures are left in the wild.

"The message running through the exhibition is certainly one of conservation," admitted Kapes, "There are certainly several calls to action that can be found throughout the exhibition where you can get ideas about building, say, a bat box or helping to provide native plants in your yard or in the community."

The artist tries to inspire the visitor to look up, look around and to experience the wildlife in nature around them. 

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"When artist Sarah Kaizar was working on this project," Kapes said, "Since the book has come out, two of the species of bees have gone extinct, so it just makes you realize that this is an ongoing problem and effort."

The exhibit is on display at the museum until September 14.

What's next:

The James Museum will host several engagements encouraging conservation and awareness of programs that help and/or impact our flying friends throughout the summer.

You can learn more about those events and the exhibit on their website.

The Source: FOX 13 photojournalist Travis Anthony gathered the information for this story.

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