Tampa’s Ally for the Arts

Spartan Spotlight: Michele Smith ’08

WOMAN IN YELLOW DRESS Michele Smith ’08 leads the Tampa Arts Alliance. Photo courtesy of Michele Smith ’08

By Lena Malpeli ’25

Michele Smith’s life’s work combines business and the beautiful.

With a creative mindset and a savvy business sense, Smith, who graduated from UT in 2008, has traveled extensively for her work and education, seamlessly collaborating with professionals in every field. She’s worked with billion-dollar companies like Bureau Veritas Group in business development, and before that, she helped found one of the first American-style communities in Honduras.

Now, she’s come home to help the artists of Tampa Bay.

Smith is the executive director of the Tampa Arts Alliance, a privately funded nonprofit organization committed to showcasing the successful art of the Tampa Bay community and connecting the business and artistic worlds, a mission Smith is well prepared to put into action.

Smith came to UT in her late 20s when she already had a career in international real estate development. She held onto her job while she double majored in international business and fine arts. She thought she would use her degree to move up and attract higher-level clientele — the art degree was just for fun, she said. But late in her time at UT, Smith got a chance to work with Edward Povey, a famous British painter, in Wales, and she saw a way to combine her passions.

“That was the first time I had seen an artist that was truly entrepreneurial,” Smith said. She ended up co-writing and teaching a program on business fundamentals for artists that was so successful, she continued with it back in the U.S.

At the newly formed Tampa Arts Alliance, Smith is committed to highlighting the diversity of art forms thriving in Tampa through a variety of storytelling projects. Her team is furthering an initiative with Artspace Projects to build affordable resident and live-work spaces for artists in Ybor City. She also helped ULI Tampa Bay get accepted into the international cohort Art in Place, which brings together real estate development, creative placemaking professionals and artists to enhance communities. She describes creative placemaking as “activating and programming an area to create community, to foster creativity.”

“It’s about making things beautiful and also thought-provoking.”

The arts alliance hosts an Artists Salon Series and regional networking events. For Smith, it’s part of ensuring her work in Tampa Bay stays true to the city by supporting socioeconomic diversity in the urban core and creating a platform for connection.

“Everybody wants to be happy. Everybody wants love. Everybody enjoys beauty. We just have different interpretations of it,” she said. “Art is a really great way to have conversation around it and explore it.”

In addition to running the alliance, Smith is an artist herself; she works in multimedia and is currently writing a children’s book. She also owns her own business, The Studio 111, to help others unlock creative expression and productivity. She is not surprised anymore about the crossover between the arts and business and actively seeks to bridge any gaps between the two.

“When you have (art) that is really well-produced, it strikes a chord in people that transcends,” she said. “(Art) gets right to the aspect of being human.”