This Week’s Issue

The Potter Who Opened Downtown’s Doors

Plus: Escambia schools finally earn their first-ever “A,” Gulf Winds becomes TruWorth, David Jolly takes aim at data centers, and Jelly Roll gets “banned” from the Panhandle—sort of. It’s all in the September 3 issue of Inweekly.

Art

Gretchen Paux digs her own clay. She pulls it from local riverbanks, mixes her own glazes from wood-kiln ash and turns it into pottery at Blue Morning Gallery on Palafox Street—work she says her decade as a landscape designer shaped more than she expected.

Paux is also the reason downtown has a new monthly art night. When construction on the New Palafox Project got underway earlier this year, she started asking why Blue Morning’s First Friday reception had to stay a one-gallery affair. By June, First Fridays Art Walk had opened the doors of ten downtown galleries and shops, linked by a trolley that loops the district every 25 minutes.

“It should be a little bit more laid-back, yet upscale, refined evening where you can take your time and stroll through the galleries and really check out the arts,” Paux says.

Writer Joshua Encinias talked with Paux about building the walk from scratch, why it isn’t competing with Gallery Night, and how it’s picking up a thread downtown dropped decades ago with the old DADA art nights.

Fall Arts Guide

That story kicks off Part 1 of our Fall Arts Guide, where we check in with the leaders of Ballet Pensacola, Pensacola Opera and the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra about a scene that’s growing even as state arts funding keeps shrinking. Florida set aside about $20 million for arts programming statewide this year, down from $52 million in 2023—and no Escambia County arts organization received a dime of it. “We all need your support now more than ever,” Pensacola Opera’s Chandra McKern says.

• Bonus: Check out my interview with Bianca Villegas, Ballet Pensacola’s new executive director.

News

Escambia County Public Schools posted a milestone this year: its first-ever district “A,” with 19 schools earning top marks and none rated below a “C.” Tom St. Myer talked with Superintendent Keith Leonard about the win and the number that worries him more—enrollment, which has fallen from over 44,000 students in the early 2000s to about 31,500 today, taking state funding with it. “You’ve got all these different people hired under contract,” Leonard says. “It makes it extremely difficult to be nimble.”

In Buzz, Gulf Winds Credit Union is rebranding as TruWorth and acquiring a North Florida community bank, pushing the Pensacola-based institution into South Georgia and South Alabama. CEO Daniel Souers walked us through the deal on “Rick’s Blog Live.” Also this week: Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Jolly told us he’d impose a one-year moratorium on new data center development in Florida, echoing a fight already playing out before the Escambia County Commission; Mayor D.C. Reeves previewed a consultant study on retrofitting Wahoo Stadium for soccer; and FloridaWest reported it’s running at 206% of its annual capital investment goal.

Opinion

Winners this week include Sandy Sansing, who gave $100,000 to childhood cancer research, and the Florida SBDC at UWF, named the state’s top-performing small business development center. On the Losers side: Meta’s $16.7 billion child-safety settlement and TikTok’s $400 million privacy settlement with the Justice Department.

And in Outtakes, I take on Congressman Jimmy Patronis for declaring Jelly Roll unwelcome in the Panhandle over a Trump joke on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Patronis can’t actually ban anyone from Pensacola—so consider this my counteroffer: Mr. Roll, the door’s open.

Rounding out the issue: A&E Happenings has your week of arts and entertainment, from Leanne Morgan’s stand-up run at the Bay Center to Ericka Streeter’s book release at Black Café and Bookstore and the “Road to Revolution” exhibit at the Pensacola Museum of History. Rob Brezsny has your Free Will Astrology. It’s all in the Sept. 3 issue—read it now at inweekly.net.