Sharkapalooza Festival To Celebrate Art, Marine Life At Clearwater Park

CLEARWATER, FL — It’s a big year for Sharkapalooza, which hosts its fifth annual ocean-inspired festival on May 16, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Coachman Park in Clearwater.

Founders of the free festival, centered on art, education, community and ocean conservation, formed a nonprofit organization ahead of this year’s event, which will be its largest to date.

“Now, we're taking over all of Coachman Park, which is a beautiful city park in downtown Clearwater, and we’re going to have all three major aquariums there, which are the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Florida Aquarium, and Mote [Marine Laboratory & Aquarium,]” founder and executive director Jessica Adanich told Patch.

The festival will feature local artists, live music, educational speakers, food trucks, beer and wine, raffles, and hands-on activities for all ages.

All proceeds from the event will benefit OCEARCH, a data-centric organization that leads shark research expeditions, educates people about sharks, and shares real-time tracking data from tagged sharks and other marine life.

“Our four pillars are art, education, conservation and community. So, we’re raising money for an organization that actually does the field work to conserve sharks,” Adanich said. “We’ve partnered with OCEARCH. They’re a very well-known nonprofit that’s internationally known. They’re the guys that have the boats that tag the great whites [sharks].”

The concept for Sharkapalooza grew out of her company, Fuzzy Sharks, which designs and sells shark plushies, accessories and apparel.

“That company is a purpose-driven organization, where I design and create products to teach, raise awareness and inspire the love of sharks,” Adanich said. “Sharkapalooza came from the idea that if I'm designing and creating artwork to educate and raise awareness about shark conservation, why not create an event that bridges art and science and conservation together?”

The first festival was held in 2022 at 81Bay Brewing Company in South Tampa.

“It had 10 artists, and the only educational materials we had at the event were coloring sheets that I designed,” she said.

The Cleveland native has always been drawn to the water and the ocean, even while growing up in a land-locked state.

“I’ve always been attracted to the water for some reason. When I was little, my parents put me in swimming lessons when I was [3-years-old], and they couldn’t get me out of the pool, even if my lips were blue,” Adanich said. “And they got me my first fish tank when I made my first little fish tank out of construction paper and Tupperware and they were like, ‘Oh, that’s really sad. We’re gonna get you a real fish tank.’ So, they’ve cultivated that love.”

She rediscovered her love of the ocean in college.

“There’s just something that I absolutely love about it. There are things in the ocean that are just so well designed that if you believe in a higher power whether it’s God, Buddha, the cupcake in the sky, whatever you believe in, the things in the oceans are just so wildly designed that it’s fascinating,” she said. “I mean, cuttlefish, the goblin shark, the octopus, jellyfish, bioluminescence. There’s so many amazing, beautiful things, and we know so little about the ocean in comparison to how much there is of it.”

Art is a way for people to connect with oceans and beaches, which is why Adanich thought art and marine life was a meaningful combination.

“We’re all human beings. We have to work. We have to pay the bills. But we find tranquility and calmness in the water,” she said. “So, being able to have a piece of artwork of the beach or water in your home or your office or, you know, wherever, can bring some joy.”

Adanich attended the Cleveland Institute of Art, initially studying automotive design before switching over, briefly, to toy design.

“At the end of that year, something just hit me where I felt like I was going to be designing products that were going to go in a landfill,” she said, adding that “designing for mass consumers is maybe not necessarily what’s best.”

Ultimately, she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in sculpture with a minor in glassblowing.

“And I made a lot of very bad artwork,” she said.

Then came a life-changing moment: While in the middle of her studies, Adanich decided she wanted a pet.

“And in college, you can’t really have a pet,” she said.

So, she decided to sew herself a goldfish.

“I went to Joann’s Fabrics and picked out fabric. I had no idea what the difference was between fabrics. It was prom fabric. It was pretty and I made this bubble-eyed goldfish,” she said. “I sewed it by hand because I wanted it to be authentic and real. Then, I made another one. After that, it was a sea turtle, a stingray, a deep sea octopus, a 7-foot lobster, and my professor was like, ‘Can you please do some research and soul searching as to why you’re sewing all these sea creatures?’”

After college, Adanich worked for six years in branding, running the marketing and design department for a company that makes mace and pepper spray products.

It was mind-numbing work, though a bright spot were her scuba-diving trips after she became certified. During her third-ever dive, she dove with sharks.

“That was my ‘ah-ha’ moment. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m living my life for everyone else,’” she said. “I didn’t want to get to my deathbed and think about all the things I could have, should have, would have done.”

Adanich quit her job and moved to the Tampa area, drawn to the weather, the proximity to the ocean and the arts community, just three months before the COVID-19 pandemic.

She had been operating Fuzzy Sharks, originally called Ocean Four, since college, but decided when she moved to rebrand and refocus on the company.

Seeking community, she organized the first Sharkapalooza around her interests to bring artists together over their love of sharks and sealife.

Sharks get a bad rap, she added, pointing to OCEARCH’s tagline of “facts over fear.” And art could also be a way to overcome that fear.

“Many people fear sharks,” Adanich said, noting that branding could change people’s view of them. “Fuzzy Sharks is the name and the branding is based off the theory of biophilia, that we’re naturally drawn to things based on how they look. So, if sharks were fuzzy, would we think about them differently? Marketing is a form of art, and science in many areas could really advance with using marketing or better artwork because it pulls on the emotions. You can tell people stats and facts about how our oceans are dying or pollution or things that we need to change, but unless they’re emotionally connected to it or struck by it, then they might not change their behavior.”

She hopes that Sharkapalooza, rooted in art, can help make a difference as well.

Adanich is already thinking about the festival’s future, with plans to expand to a two-day event next year and hopes to have a more national reach.