Does Art Need to be Smart? Florida museum curators emphatically say, “YE S!”
No.
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THE ARTS + CULTURE ISSUE
70+ CULTURAL CATALYSTS ART, M US I C, E NTE RTAI N M E NT, FAS H I O N P DESIGN S HAP I N G TH E STATE
A R TI S T
For Floridians. By Floridians.
LUCKY STRIKE How
Stand-up Star BERT KREISCHER Made It Big
x
MARILYN MINTER
“I WAS CONSIDERED A TRAITOR j FEMINISM.”
MADE IN MIAMI: fashion desiGner silvia Tcherassi
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ADV E RTO RIAL
Amelia Island TRADITION
A VISIT TO NORTHEAST FLORIDA DURING THE HOLIDAYS OFFERS A CHANCE TO EXPERIENCE THE ERA OF CHARLES DICKENS WITH ENTERTAINMENT AND GOOD CHEER.
If the thought of curling up by a wood-burning fire, inhaling scents of peppermint and pine, wrapping yourself in a cozy blanket and sipping a cup of hot chocolate from one hand while Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is fanned open in the other sounds like the epitome of the holiday season to you, an even more inviting experience exists on Amelia Island. The classic tale of curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by three ghosts and inspired to edit his outlook on Christmas, comes to life on the historic main street of Fernandina Beach from Dec. 13–15 during DICKENS ON CENTRE. Though it’s a Christmas classic, Dickens’ novella was intended to capture a timeless message: quality time spent with family and friends, not wealth and fortune, matters most in life. A celebration of community, therefore, takes place annually during the Victorian experiential event. Think character appearances, horse-drawn carriages, carolers dressed in early Victorian clothing and a vintage Christmas atmosphere.
The fifth annual festival is familyfriendly with free activities in TINY TIM’S KID ZONE, including places to pen letters to the North Pole and take photos with St. Nick himself. Victorian-inspired entertainment will take to two stages, including a one-man act telling the story of A Christmas Carol and performances by Jason Woods and the King Guys Band. Two holiday markets, Peddler’s Village and Artist Alley, feature gifts from local vendors. Adult guests might head to Fezziwig’s Courtyard for beer and wine or purchase tickets for DICKENS AFTER DARK on Friday and Saturday night—when “spirits” takes on a double meaning as ghost tours commence and holiday libations are enjoyed. Amelia Island was recently named one of the best islands in the United States. But the destination isn’t reserved for summer vacations. The quaint coastal town is accessible year-round, with fun and exciting ways to make memories. And one of the best times to explore Amelia Island is during Dickens on Centre. ameliaisland.com/dickens
— fall 2019 —
CONTENTS F E AT U R E S
46
56
66
76
MARILYN ON TOP
SUNSHINE SOUNDTRACK
MASTERWORKS IN A SELFIE WORLD
RIDING THE LIGHTNING
BY ERIC BARTON
BY JAMIE RICH
For a time, Florida’s finest art museums chased turnstile numbers by hosting shows critics faulted for pandering to the masses. Now a new crop of curators have arrived to sell tickets with something novel: legit art.
When Rolling Stone named Bert Kreischer America’s No. 1 partier in 1997, no one (not even Bert) expected the outcome to be a successful 20-year career in entertainment. Flamingo catches up the funny man from Florida.
BY SARAH GERARD
From her studio in Manhattan, artist and activist Marilyn Minter reflects on the troubled South Florida childhood that propelled her groundbreaking career creating controversial images of women and challenging accepted ideas of beauty.
Cover Photography by
B Y S T E V E D O L LA R
We take a musical trip across the peninsula to discover Florida’s 40 quintessential artists and albums that make up the Sunshine State sound, spanning decades of influences, from Southern country waltzes to hip-hop.
BRANDON KIDWELL
On the cover: Adam Levine, director and CEO of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, is among the new class of museum directors eschewing mass-market exhibitions
On this spread: Marilyn Minter’s works on display at The Brooklyn Museum, which hosted her first retrospective in 2016, titled “Pretty/Dirty.” Photography by Jonathan Dorado
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D E PA R T M E N TS
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43
WADING IN
COLUMNS
ON THE FLY
16 /// THE SPREAD: Your favorite new dinner just might be charcuterie delivered from Jacksonville.
43 /// C APITAL DAME: The Spring House arose from acreage outside Tallahassee, served as a meeting spot for activists and now has an uncertain future.
100 /// BIRD’S-EYE VIEW: Eat, shop and play like a true Palm Beacher.
18 /// M ADE IN FLA: Miami designer Silvia Tcherassi ushers in fall with European texture and feminine flair. 24 /// FLEDGLINGS: She grew up with West Palm pop and punk, but Cassadee Pope has since discovered a Nashville vibe. 27 /// F LAMINGLE: Five artists change the state’s cultural landscape one cut, brush and mold at a time.
93 /// PANHANDLING: A wine-fueled purchase of a ticket to Paris, a second trip for all the friends and a missed adventure unfold. 98 /// F LORIDA WILD: Carlton Ward Jr. captures the natural order of things in Southwest Florida.
97 102 /// G ROVE STAND: Lindsay Autry’s journey from NC farm girl to lauded Palm Beach chef began at the fair. 106 /// DESIGN DISTRICT: Sustainable architecture and design emerge at the hands of Julia Starr Sanford. 110 /// THE ROOST: Homes with art at the heart of their design and decor 115 /// T HE TIDE: Can’t-miss events this fall
28 /// O NE-ON-ONE: E! News host Jason Kennedy shares how a fateful school field trip changed his life. 34 /// T HE STUDIO: Jenny Kiker launched a career as an artist after Instagram discovered her watercolors. 37 /// JUST HATCHED: From chic boutiques to sleek galleries to vegan eateries, dig in to what’s brand new around the state.
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EDITOR’S NOTE
was a sophomore at Florida State in 1997, the year Rolling Stone magazine arrived to write a story about the No. 1 party school in America. What the writer discovered was the No. 1 party guy, Bert Kreischer, along with a legion of revelers, laughing and chugging behind him, from bar to tailgate to house party. It seemed everyone at FSU—all 30,000 of us—knew Bert. Guys wanted to be him, or at least as funny. Girls wanted to date him or be his best friend. With his jokes and laughter Bert commandeered every party, bar, classroom or situation he stepped into. Equally lewd and loveable, he hung out with the older girls in my sorority. Standing half-naked in the median on Park Avenue, he would lead groups of fraternity pledges in serenading our house with silly songs of debauchery and sexual interludes. He would rearrange the furniture in the sorority house, to the chagrin of our house mom. He captivated everyone with a constant reel of stories on sex, booze and bad decisions. Twenty-two years have passed, and today Bert has a successful career in comedy and entertainment. In his Netflix stand-up special, The Machine, he’s the same old Bert who held court over the bonfire at the ATO house in the ’90s, but now with nearly one million followers on Instagram. For the feature in this issue, I spoke with my old FSU compatriot to find out where he is now. What I discovered is that he works as hard as he parties—and that’s still pretty damn hard. In this issue of Flamingo, we explore art, culture and entertainment from the
perspective of our own relationships. Ever since starting Flamingo, I’ve wanted to run a story about famed artist and activist Marilyn Minter, the aunt of my close friend. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Marilyn in her New York studio and experiencing the grandeur of her controversial paintings and photographs of women, which have appeared in the world’s most renowned galleries and museums. Award-winning author and Clearwater native Sarah Gerard, an artist in her own right, penned our beautiful story on
Marilyn’s Florida upbringing. It’s our personal histories that tie our team to the editorial content we feature: from Diane Roberts’ column on Spring House, the only Frank Lloyd Wright home in Florida and a place she grew up visiting; to Eric Barton’s feature on the changing philosophy of museum directors in the state, starting with the museum a mile from his home in Fort Lauderdale; to Steve Dollar’s piece on the Sunshine State soundtrack, which he based on a lifetime of knowledge gained by jamming out to Florida bands. Even our One-on-One interview with E! News host Jason Kennedy came to us by way of dear friends who grew up with him in Lighthouse Point. We highlight the people and places we know and hold dear to foster the relationship Flamingo has with our readers. In fact, after years of reader requests for a Flamingo home department, we felt the Arts and Culture issue provided the perfect launchpad for Design District, a spotlight on Florida architects and interior designers. This fall, we hope you enjoy everything you read in Flamingo’s pages and that now, more than ever, you feel a connection and sense of place. Sharing the Florida stories that we love and live by has been at the core of what we do since issue No. 1—which I’m proud to say features two of my great friends and their dog Wren on the cover.
E di tor i n Chi ef & P u b lish e r
let us know what you think. Email me at jamie@flamingomag.com
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ASHLE Y WOODSON BAILE Y
I
It’s Personal
B R I N G I N G S PA R KL E TO T H E S U N S H I N E S TAT E Miami | Tampa | Boca Raton | Jacksonville Palm Beach Gardens | Orlando | Sarasota
ISSUE
CONTRIBUTORS
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For Floridians. By Floridians.
• FOUNDED IN 2016 •
SARAH GERARD first saw Marilyn Minter’s work at the Brooklyn Museum in 2016, in a retrospective that spoke to her. For a feature in this issue, Gerard visited Minter in her Manhattan studio for an intimate interview with the South Florida–raised artist. Gerard is the award-winning author of the novel Binary Star, the essay collection Sunshine State and the forthcoming novel True Love. Most recently she was the New College of Florida writer-inresidence 2018-2019 and has been supported by fellowships from Tin House and Yaddo. She was raised in Florida and lives in New York City.
— fa l l 20 1 9 —
EDITORIAL Editor in Chief and Founder JAMIE RICH jamie@flamingomag.com Consulting Creative Director Holly Keeperman holly@flamingomag.com Photo Editor and Senior Designer Ellen Patch ellen@flamingomag.com Senior Writer and Cont ributin g Editor Eric Barton
BRANDON KIDWELL is a photographer and artist based in Jacksonville. He’s best known for his double exposure work, something he stumbled on by accident as a kid while playing with a disposable camera that wouldn’t advance the film forward, allowing him to capture a portrait of the same person with two emotions in one image. In addition to our Flamingo cover, his double exposures have been used in international campaigns for the Olympics, the film Rememory and major brands including Omega, Michelin, Oxygen and the Macallan. He lives on his microfarm with his wife, kids and animals.
Contributing Designer Victor Maze Cont ributin g Writers Jeanne Craig, Christina Cush, Steve Dollar, Prissy Elrod, Sarah Gerard, Alyssa Morlacci, Diane Roberts, Michelle Stark, Maddy Zollo Rusbosin, Nila Do Simon, Carlton Ward Jr. Contributing Photographers & Illustrators Ashley Woodson Bailey, Leslie Chalfont, Jamie Clifford, Brandon Kidwell, Beth Gilbert, Stephen Lomazzo, Libby Volgyes, Carlton Ward Jr. Copy Editors & Fact Checkers Brett Greene, Katherine Shy Editorial Interns James Hurley, Holly Tishfield
ASHLEY WOODSON BAILEY is a self-taught photographer who suffered a broken back and shattered spirit after a car accident. She channeled her love of flowers to aid in her recovery and search for a new path. As a result, her signature “florography” art prints launched in 2014 and expanded to include wallpapers, fabrics and limited-edition products. She creates her “forever flowers” in Jacksonville, where she lives with husband Brad, three children and three furry sidekicks. In this issue of Flamingo, Bailey combines petals and vinyl in producing floral art for our Florida music history feature.
SALES & MARKETING Publisher JAMIE RICH jamie@flamingomag.com Marketing, Promotions & Sales Annie Lee annie@flamingomag.com Digital Strategy Christina Clifford For general inquiries email hello@flamingomag.com
ALYSSA MORLACCI is a writer and editor from Pittsburgh who’s been living in South Florida for the past five years. She covers lifestyle topics including travel, food and wine, and interior design for various publications. When she isn’t obsessing over sentence structure, she’s probably ordering a latte with almond milk, packing her bags for a weekend getaway or trying to (finally) do a handstand in yoga class. In this edition of Flamingo, Morlacci highlights the latest openings around the state in our popular Just Hatched department. Check out Flamingo’s picks from Pensacola to Miami.
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P: (904) 395-3272, E: info@flamingomag.com
All content in this publication, including but not limited to text, photos and graphics, is the sole property of and copyrighted by JSR Media and Flamingo. Reproduction without permission from the publisher is prohibited. We take no responsibility for images or content provided by our advertisers.
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NOW OPEN IN WINTER PARK & JACKSONVILLE Winter Park: 620 W. Fairbanks Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32789 • 407-775-2155 Jacksonville: 1104 West Adams Street, Jacksonville, FL 32204 • 904-747-1142
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8 Great Ways to Live THE FALL ARTS & CULTURE ISSUE
Experience the stories beyond the pages of Flamingo with a curated list, inspired by this edition, of things to see, hear, eat, drink, shop and do.
1.WATCH Bert Kreischer’s Netflix comedy special, Secret Time. pg. 76
6. ELEVATE
2. PERUSE Sublime
Original online for that perfect organic touch. pg. 106
4. SEE artist Marilyn Minter and her latest works up close at Art Basel Miami. pg. 46
8. TOAST to FALL Because specialty cocktails are just more fun. Bacardi.com
KING CUATRO
3. LISTEN to the new Tedeschi Trucks Band album, Signs. pg. 56
5. IMPRESS friends by making an amazing grazer board for your next party. pg. 16
7. FOLLOW E! News
host Jason Kennedy on social media for an insider’s view of celebrity life, @thejasonkennedy. pg. 28
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BERT KREISCHER, NATE EBERT, MARILYN MINTER, LIZ SERGEANT, EDUARDO RESENDEZ, E! NEWS, BACARDI
your wardrobe by shopping Silvia Tcherassi’s fall-winter 2019 collection. pg. 18
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11
PROFESSIONAL THEATRE SEASON
ALL SHOW TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
VERO BEACH: 772-231-6990 RiversideTheatre.com
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Flamingo’s Fall 2018 Arts & Culture issue was recognized by the Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for best single issue. And our profile story, Bringing Back the Funk with P-Funk Legend George Clinton, took home the first place prize! To buy your own copy of issue No. 11, or to collect them all, email us at hello@flamingomag.com.
Follow us @theFlamingoMag
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2019
8/7/19 10:29 AM
A DV E RTO R I A L
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY
Star-Studded Stays Vero Beach redefines travel for performers with one of the only extended stay hotels in the U.S. catering to talent and visitors.
A
cross Merrill P. Barber Bridge, in the quaint coastal town of Vero Beach, situated along the Atlantic Ocean, where visitors from the north and south retreat in search of respite, an artistic revival is unfolding. The renowned Riverside Theatre’s board of trustees and the local community invested in a 60room extended stay hotel with an ambitious agenda: to offer affordable accommodations to the Broadwaytrained actors, directors and costume and set designers involved in performances at its venues. Behold the Star Suites by Riverside Theatre, an $8.5 million hotel complete with a clubhouse, pool, on-site laundry, fitness facilities, center courtyard and garden terrace, situated between the Jackie Robinson Training Complex and Vero Beach
Regional Airport. LLW Architects Inc. of Memphis designed the hotel to offer spacious, one-bedroom suites complete with private kitchenettes. Since the hotel opened in spring, special guests have included My Fair Lady’s Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods and a cast of supporting characters. For those who want to check it out (or rather, check in), during select dates when artists don’t occupy the rooms, the Star Suites by Riverside Theatre opens bookings to the public. Anticipated upcoming professional productions for the 2019/2020 season at the Stark Stage include Beehive, which runs from Oct. 29 to Nov. 17 and recalls more than 40 female musical mavens from the 1960s, including Leslie Gore and Janis Joplin; and Thoroughly Modern Millie, which takes the stage from Jan. 7 to 26 with music, costumes and tap numbers that transport audiences back to the Jazz Age. Meanwhile, the Waxlax Stage will welcome performances like The 39 Steps,
Calendar of EVENTS Riverside Theatre 2019-2020 Professional Th eatre Season BEEHIVE: THE 60S MUSICAL
Oct. 29—Nov. 17
THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE
Jan. 7—26
THE 39 STEPS
Jan. 21—Feb. 9
LOST IN YONKERS
Feb. 4—23
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
March 10—29
BAKERSFIELD MIST
which shows from Jan. 21 to Feb. 9 and meets a challenge of including 150 characters played by only four actors in a whodunit, laugh- worthy show; and Bakersfield Mist, which is a comedy-drama running from March 24 to April 12 about a middle-aged bartender who may have—without realizing it— purchased a piece of art worth millions from a thrift shop. Vero Beach is stealing its spotlight as the cultural hub of Florida’s Treasure Coast. Now with the opportunity to offer accommodations to the nation’s most talented performers, the Riverside Theatre boasts an unsurpassable list of live theater shows, comedies, ballets, concerts, lectures and more. riversidetheatre.com
March 24—April 12
THE BODYGUARD
April 14—May 3
Vero Beach Museum Exh i bitions CIRCLE OF ANIMALS/ ZODIAC HEADS:
Gold June 1—Dec. 15
L’AFFICHOMANIA:
The Passion for French Posters Oct. 19—Jan. 12, 2020 FROM HOMER TO HOPPER:
American Art from The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC Feb. 1—May 31, 2020
Visit Indian River County An n ual Events SEBASTIAN RIVERFRONT FINE ART & MUSIC FESTIVAL
Jan. 18—19
69TH UNDER THE OAKS ART SHOW
March 13—15
5TH ANNUAL VERO BEACH WINE + FILM FESTIVAL
June 20
This page from top: Pink fans wave in a number from Chicago; The Star Suites by Riverside Theatre; Dancers performing in West Side Story
MCKEE BOTANICAL GARDENS WATERLILY CELEBRATION
June 20
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For Floridians. By Floridians.
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COMING DECEMBER 2019
the outside issue
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WADING IN — The Spread —
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— MADE IN FLA —
A d eta iled look at Mi am i de s i gne r Si l vi a Tc he r as s i
— FLEDGLINGS —
C assa d ee P op e trade s pop-punk f or a Nas hvi l l e s ound
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Wa tercolor t r opi c s by ar t i s t Je nny Ki ke r
T he best new pl ac e s t o e at , s t ay and pl ay t hi s f al l This page:
Tedeschi Trucks Band’s album Signs was released in 2019.
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ASHLE Y WOODSON BAILE Y
— Just Hatched —
C
e” Lov the r o “F ios’ tud S I &
Y A D R Y B TTE Y N HO N SU EN HT. EV NIG BY
hub e v i ith at cre le — w s, d n a an sic uderd sessio the u m r a ort La e jam es off d e v F o u n us Unc reater areho nd ven re sou ation, n in G ivals, w eries a is whe imagi ore at l s t fes ge gal h. Thi meets earn m t a gar ten pa ic, film hion. L s bea ts mu ets fas e me art me music / and y.org n sun
WADING IN :THE SPREAD FLO RIDA-F R ESH BITES & BEVS B y M i ch el l e S t a rk
Amazing Grazing A
t first glance, one of Liz Sergeant’s creations almost looks too good to eat: a board covered with dried apricots, cheese wedges, chocolate-covered pretzels, honeycomb, savory dips, blanched almonds, slices of kiwi, fresh herbs and more, all arranged in a gorgeous, eye-popping pattern. Sergeant’s ornate food spreads are inspired by the idea of grazing. Popular in Europe and Sergeant’s home country of Australia, grazing taps into a way of eating that doesn’t revolve around one main sitdown meal. Instead, the practice is a way to
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lazily lounge over a varied collection of nibbles that appeals to all your senses. “Grazing is so much more than cheese and meats,” Sergeant says. “There’s literally something for everybody, from the picky eater to the carnivore.” Sergeant, who lives in Jacksonville with her husband and 4-year-old son, started The Board Grazer at the end of 2018 after trying the stay-at-home mom thing for a few years and realizing she was “craving that entrepreneurial spirit.” Before that, she worked in marketing, a skill set that has come in handy as a new business owner. She comes from a foodie family, so running
a food business seemed like a natural path. “My mother would always put out these big, elaborate spreads,” she says. After spending six months in Barcelona with her family, Sergeant was sold on the idea of grazing. “Over there, we’d go to the market and get our paper-wrapped cheese and salami and tomato and just eat until we were sufficiently full, rather than have one big meal,” she says. The boards and boxes available through The Board Grazer (theboardgrazer.com) are unique creations, each one a different assemblage of, well, a little bit of everything. They vary based on seasonality and availability, or the customer’s
TIFFANY JOYCE
A Jacksonville company proves more is more, creating charcuterie boards that might redefine your next dinner party
preference, and range from $90 to $330. And they’re not quite like the cheese and charcuterie boards trending in restaurants for the past couple of years. Unlike small appetizer boards served in restaurants, Sergeant’s showstopping spreads, packed with all manner of savory and sweet items, can take up the entire length of your table. In less than a year, she has gone from making small boards for her friends to preparing orders for birthday parties and baby showers, corporate events and weddings. In addition to providing an alternative way of noshing, Sergeant says the boards make for great icebreakers, helping to foster more of a social interaction around food. “When I entertain, I always get stuck in the kitchen,” she says. “And these grazing boards are great because you can put out a nice, beautiful spread and you don’t even have to turn on the oven or turn on the grill.”
Become a Charcuterie Master We asked Liz Sergeant of The Board Grazer for a few tricks on how to shop for and assemble a stunning charcuterie board as a dinner party appetizer, or better yet, the main course. BOARD LAYOUT
Space out small bowls or ramekins for holding oily and briny items, like cornichons, olives or dips. Place larger food items, like meats and cheeses, on the board first. Then fill bowls, fan out crackers and add fruits and vegetables. Lastly, fill gaps with smaller items such as nuts, chocolates and berries. Garnish with fresh herbs and florals.
TIPS AND TRICKS
Use a variety of cheeses with different textures. Beginners can’t go wrong pairing a soft cheese such as a brie or Camembert and a hard cheese like a sharp vintage cheddar—a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Add the wow factor, something that sparks conversation and interest such as an unusual seasonal berry, unexpected chocolate flavor, interesting jam or honeycomb to accompany the cheese.
THE SHOPPING LIST: CHARCUTERIE & CHEESES
Peppered salami, prosciutto, capocollo, double-cream brie, vintage cheddar, Camembert, aged Gouda, blue cheese
BREAD & CRACKERS
asparagus, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, pomegranates, blueberries, kiwi slices, grapes
PICKLED & BRINED
Pitted and stuffed olives, cornichons
Thinly sliced and lightly toasted baguettes, and an assortment of crackers
DIPS & SPREADS
DRIED FRUITS & NUTS
SWEETS & CHOCOLATES
Hummus, spinach and artichoke dip, fig spread, honeycomb
Apricots, cranberries, sun-dried tomatoes, almonds, pistachios, cashews
Dark chocolate pretzels and raisins, good quality dark chocolate bark
FRESH FRUITS & VEGETABLES
Rosemary, sage, eucalyptus, bright carnations, spray roses
Mini cucumbers, rainbow carrots,
GARNISH & FLORALS
Roasted in Jacksonville, FL. Shipped to your Door. 15% off coffee orders with code: BOLDFLAMINGO www.boldbeancoffee.com Jax Beach 2400 South 3rd St.
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[ WADING IN :MADE IN FLA B y Ma d d y Z o l l o R u sb o si n
COLOMBIA CALLING
Meet Miami-based designer SILVIA TCHERASSI, who’s going global with her eye-catching womenswear.
This page: Dakia top
and Delaney skirt from Tcherassi’s fall-winter 2019 collection
Opposite from left:
Dasha jacket with Daimi pant from fall-winter 2019 collection; one of Tcherassi’s design illustrations; Miamibased fashion designer Silvia Tcherassi
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EDUARDO RESENDEZ, ANDRES ESPINOSA
W
hether it’s an asymmetrical silhouette in her latest ready-to-wear collection or a dramatic vertical garden in her Cartagena hotel, Silvia Tcherassi isn’t afraid to make a statement. This flair for all things fabulous has catapulted her into the spotlight and made her one of the most sought-after designers for the jet-set crowd. While her namesake brand has gone global, Tcherassi has put roots down in Miami: Not only is her international headquarters based out of Coral Gables, but
she also opened her very first boutique in Coconut Grove twenty years ago. Tcherassi was born and raised in Barranquilla, Colombia: “It was a port city open to the world and the hometown of many famous Colombian women such as Sofia Vergara, Shakira, and Nina García,” she says. Growing up in such a vibrant place, with the influence of her European heritage, Tcherassi developed a strong sense of style at an early age. She went on to get a degree in interior design, but before long, she began dabbling
in fashion as well. “I started experimenting with shirts embellished with exotic materials, and then I wanted to create pieces to complement them,” she remembers as to how she got into being a designer full time. “In a natural and organic way, I came up with a style that fitted perfectly with the spirit of the 90s and [before long] the brand Silvia Tcherassi was born.” Today, Tcherassi is celebrating her thirtieth year in the industry, and her chic womenswear collections continue to reflect the designer’s appreciation of different cultures and her own travels and experiences. “I am inspired by many things— places like Forte dei Marmi and Barcelona; art pieces such as works by Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo and Anne Truitt; or concepts such as effortless elegance and happiness,” she explains. “Lately, I have been inspired by motion, multiculturalism, globalism and optimism, concepts that
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WADING IN :MADE IN FLA
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two Tcherassi Hotel properties (opened in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2009 and 2016), she uses the labels from her garments to create a dynamic texture on the bedspreads and materials from her haute couture collection on the lamps to invoke a stylish—and unexpected— ambience. Because of Tcherassi’s elevated eye for design, her
This page from top: Top and Beatrice pant from Tcherassi’s pre-fall 2019 collection; Darcy dress from fall-winter 2019 collection
PATRICIA CHINCHILL A , EDUARDO RESENDEZ
reflect our current way of life.” One of the ways she channels her vision and kickstarts the creative process is by choosing the right fabric. For example, in her first collection for Milan Fashion Week, some of the textures looked like the trees in Coral Gables, and in her most recent collections, she continues to be inspired by nature, flowers and geometry. Tcherassi especially enjoys turning traditional fabrics like tweed, wool and velvet on their heads by giving these stereotypically heavy materials an air of lightness and freshness. Within her
ever-growing client list spans from South America to Europe and beyond. That’s part of the reason why she decided that Miami should be her company’s home base. She has lived there with her family for the past 15 years. “Miami is multicultural, and you can feel a cosmopolitan and global flavor across different areas. The mix of many cultures and traditions produces a very appealing result,” she says. “It was the perfect springboard for the international market.” Within the community, Tcherassi has been actively involved in the arts, supporting Art Basel and the New World Symphony and serving as a board member at the Istituto Marangoni. While Tcherassi has her hands full expanding her fashion label’s digital operations—currently she has partnerships with Moda Operandi and Net-a-Porter, and this fall she’s teamed up with Italian shoe designer Gia Couture— at the end of the day, the designer’s main goal is to make women feel their very best when they wear her clothes. “I design for a woman who values quality and little details. She loves fashion but is not a fashion victim,” she explains. “I try to enhance her outer and inner beauty through my designs ... I prefer that people say ‘she was gorgeous’ and not ‘she was wearing a gorgeous Tcherassi dress.’” Shop Silvia Tcherassi at silviatcherassi.com
I design for a woman who values quality and little details. She loves fashion but is not a fashion victim.
This page: Aiko blouse with
Beatrice pant from Tcherassi’s pre-fall 2019 collection
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WADING IN:FLEDGLINGS FLO RIDA MUSICIANS ON THE R ISE B y C h ri st i n a C u sh
A New Monday With pop-punk roots in the Sunshine State, Cassadee Pope finds a new vibe with a Nashville sound
C
assadee Pope turned the Big 3-0 this August. It can be a nerve-wracking milestone for someone without a strong inner compass, but not for this hazel-eyed, dog-loving gal. She’s already had an epic musical journey, fronting pop-punk band Hey Monday after attending Wellington High School and touring in Japan, Singapore and New Zealand in 2009 while opening for
Fall Out Boy. She landed on season three of The Voice, and ended up with country megastar Blake Shelton as her mentor. Soon after winning, she released an album, with two singles hitting No. 1 on the Billboard country charts. Almost six years later, with a second album and a move to Nashville behind her, we caught up with this busy crooner right before she left on a multistop USO tour.
DOES BLAKE SHELTON DOG-SIT YOUR FRENCH BULLDOG, CUPPY?
CP: I keep in touch with him a little bit, but we don’t hang out. He let me do this album release at his Nashville bar, Ole Red, in January. I have his cell number—I can text him.
HAS YOUR HOME STATE INFLUENCED YOU?
CP: Florida is such a melting pot. Growing up and moving around the state—living in Boca, Wellington, West Palm and Royal Palm—I was meeting people of different cultures, races and ways of life. That was so influential. I grew up with different hobbies and tastes in music and fashion. It took me a while to harness who I wanted to be because of that.
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FAN FAVES
by Cassadee Pope
1 2 3
TAKE YOU HOME’” “ Stages “WASTING ALL THESE TEARS” Frame by Frame “IF MY HEART HAD A HEART” Stages
4 5
SUMMER” “ Summer EP
“ONE MORE RED LIGHT” Stages
occ.you.pa.tion coder designer strategician triathlete
WHAT’S YOUR VIBE NOW?
CP: I’ve landed in an authentic spot. Now, I look at myself solely as country, with pop and rock influences. My style is dark roots in my hair, wearing sporty or wild clothes, mixing a little leather and lace. In my new songs, I’m vulnerable but try to be strong and stand up for myself. That translates to my fashion.
WHAT DO YOU MISS MOST ABOUT FLORIDA?
CP: I miss the beach. I love boogie boarding and rolling with waves. Thankfully, I have family in Fort Lauderdale, so I have a place to stay. But I love Nashville in the fall, when the temperature drops and the leaves change.
DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE PLAYING SUNSHINE STATE VENUES?
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CP: It’s nerve-wracking to play at home. When you see familiar faces, you feel like you have to prove that you’re doing well and getting better than your last show. But when you play somewhere new, they’re automatically excited to see you.
NICHOL AS GARVIN
WHAT’S NEXT?
CP: I’ll be hanging out with Cuppy, my boyfriend Sam [Palladio] and his whippet, River. Sam is a musician and actor [he played Gunnar in Nashville], and it’s fun to date someone in a different part of the entertainment industry. It’s festival season, so pretty much every weekend I’ll be performing. I’m also accumulating songs for my new record that I’ll try to release by early 2020, if I feel like songs are ready to go.
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WADING IN :FLAMINGLE A FLO CK OF FASCINATING F LOR IDIANS B y Ja m es H u rl ey
New Wave Talent
ILLUSTR ATION BY STEPHEN LOMAZZO
natives and Newcomers alike, these Florida artists are making a name for themselves and the state with their work
PEPE MAR
CONRAD GARNER
Bright Spot
Mad Man
Mar’s wildly intricate multimedia pieces use fabric, paint, sculpture and paper to completely fill up a room with bright colors and busy-yet-cohesive patterns. The 42-year-old Mar reimagines traditional motifs and accepted cultural icons through his abstract works. Mar received his MFA from Florida International University and now lives in Miami, where trendy restaurants seek to display his art. His largescale multidimensional pieces have appeared in influential galleries from Miami’s lauded Locus Projects gallery to Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory.
There’s something timeless about the look of Conrad Garner’s posters and murals, like they took inspiration from the Mad Men era of advertising, his illustrations full of glamorous women with intricate up-dos and men whose beards follow the lines of their chiseled chins. It makes sense, then, that Garner’s work has ended up gracing so many products, from a Miller Lite beer bottle to a Queen concert poster. Even the logo on his website is a beer can emblazoned with his name and the promise “100% fresh, never expires.” The Tampa native’s work has been on display at the Epicurean Hotel.
VICKIE PIERRE Haitian Heart
Pierre expresses her artistic vision through colorful, fluid shapes reminiscent of bits of fabric or clouds wrapped in string, pearls, ribbon, flowers or even hair. The threads hang and link the clouds together as they float through polka-dot skies. Born and raised in Brooklyn, the Miami-based artist draws on feminine preconceptions and ideals as well as her own history as a descendant of Haitians. Pierre has shown her art since the 1990s across the East Coast and in Miami’s Wynwood arts district. In 2019 she became a finalist for the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art.
LILIAN GARCIA-ROIG
HIROMI MONEYHUN
Landscape Lover
A Cut Above
Born in Cuba, Garcia-Roig heads up the painting and drawing program at Florida State University. She produces massive oil paintings of green, earthy environments. GarciaRoig’s explorations of treescapes have graced the halls of FSU’s Fine Arts Building and the galleries of the Orlando Museum of Art. Showcasing delicate strokes and careful application of color, GarciaRoig’s award-winning works are just as beautiful close up as they are from a distance, capturing every detail of the landscapes around her from Florida tropics and swamps to the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest.
After moving from Japan to Jacksonville, the artist began her journey while caring for her motherin-law, who’d suffered a stroke. Although she has no formal art training, her distinctive style mixes traditional Japanese art, the modern aesthetic of metropolitan cities, giant images of moths, women in traditional clothing and motifs of her daughter. She creates lace-like patterns on large pieces of paper with a sharp traditional Japanese cutting tool, which she uses to cut away paper, slice by slice. Most of Moneyhun’s work reflects personal inspiration from her daughter, her mother and her life as a woman.
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WADING IN :ONE-ON-ONE CO N VE RSATIONS, INTERVIEWS, STOR IES B y Ja m i e R i ch
Live with Jason Kennedy The news-obsessed South Floridian had a career in television before he had a driver’s license. Now, he’s among the best broadcasters in Hollywood.
WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE FOR YOU GROWING UP IN LIGHTHOUSE POINT?
JK: It’s a smaller town in between Pompano and Boca Raton. My dad had a construction company at the time. My mom was working as a guidance counselor at my high school, Westminster Academy in Fort Lauderdale, which was a great experience. But ever since the fifth grade, I would just get so excited about anything to do with broadcasting because I took a trip to a local news station. When I went down there and met the news anchors, something inside of me just blossomed. It was one of those things where I went home and I put up a bedsheet in my basement and borrowed my mom’s camera, and long story short, it turned into a full-on news studio. We had four cameras, 16 TVs. I had a green screen in there. The good thing about my dad being in construction is you’ve got guys that can build you a news desk. You’ve got guys that can put an extra circuit breaker in because I kept blowing the power out because I needed more studio lighting, you know?
WHAT KIND OF CONTENT WERE YOU CREATING AT 10 YEARS OLD?
A
t the age of 10, Jason Kennedy became enamored with broadcast journalism after a fifth-grade field trip to Miami’s WSVN Channel 7 changed his life. What began as a hobby—practicing newscasts in his parents’ basement—grew into a healthy obsession that led to Kennedy landing his own weekly Sports Talk show, interviewing the likes of Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino and racing to beat local news teams (who later bought his footage) covering shootings on I-95 all before he could drive. These days, the E! News host and Today show contributor has built an impressive career covering the biggest stories and people in the entertainment industry. Flamingo’s editor in chief, Jamie Rich, recently turned the questions on the South Florida native, who opened up about getting his big break with E!, losing out on Ryan Seacrest’s job, finding the love of his life and even his favorite Sunshine State entertainers.
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HOW DID YOU KNOW WHAT STORIES TO REPORT?
JK: I just remember coming back from school, if I saw a news truck anywhere in Broward County, I would have my mom go to the scene. We would sit there, and I would hang out with the reporters, and I would just learn from them. And I did that as much as possible. I couldn’t drive at the time. I was 14 years old. One time, there was a shooting on I-95. I hired a cab, and he dropped me off on the side of I-95, and I was doing a broadcast for no one to see. I just wanted to be there and
JASON KENNEDY
Above: Kennedy got an early start in newscasting and says Dan Marino is his favorite Florida celebrity.
JK: We were just practicing, really. I mean, we would take what happened in the news that day—and when I say we, I mean my neighbor Alex DiPrato, who worked at Channel 7 as a reporter and now is up in Boston as a reporter, and I—we would essentially remove the anchors from the local station there and put in our faces.
F RO M
CO T TAG E S
to Castles
practice. And then all the news trucks went back to the station for a break or for dinner, and I’m standing on the side of I-95 by myself, and I’m 14 years old. I didn’t have a cellphone or anything like that. My parents [saw the news and] figured out that’s where I was, and they came and picked me up in a ditch on I-95.
WHEN YOU WERE 15, YOU WERE BEATING SOME OF THE LOCAL NEWS CREWS TO THE SCENE. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?
JK: I went to RadioShack and got one of these massive antennas because I needed the police scanner to reach a certain radius of the city. This thing was the size of a Prius. And then I had my friend put it up on the side of the house, and my mom didn’t notice it for a few months. I could listen in to the police reports on the radio, and I would hear about stuff, and then I would either take a cab, or by the time I hit 16, I would just drive.
ANY BIG STORIES YOU BROKE AS A KID?
JK: One time, the Lighthouse Point police officers won the lotto. It was one of the biggest stories that happened at Lighthouse Point in all my time down there. And they weren’t giving interviews to the media because six officers split the lottery ticket. CNN was there! So, I went to the chief of police at the time, Chief Tierney, and I walked up there, and all the crews had tried to get the interview. And I knocked on the door, I was like, “Kim, this is Jason
1193 Ponte Vedra Blvd.
Below: Kennedy with his E! co-host Giuliana Rancic on the red carpet
(904) 553-2032 ELIZABETHHUDGINS.COM
BR ANDON HICKMAN
(904) 334-3104 SARAHALEXANDER.NET
Specializing in Florida’s
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WADING IN :ONE-ON-ONE CO N VE RSATIONS, INTERVIEWS, STOR IES
was a live show once a week. And I was just in the zone. I wanted to do anything possible on camera. I wanted to get all of the practice that was out there. So, by the time I went to University of Miami, I felt like I was kind of ahead of the curve because I’d been practicing since I was a kid. I studied broadcast journalism at UM.
HOW DID YOU MOVE FROM SPORTS TO CELEBRITY NEWS?
basement, which grew to included 16 TVs, four cameras and a green screen.
Kennedy. I’m 15, and I’m assuming you probably need some milk or maybe some eggs because you can’t leave your house right now and all the press is out here. Can I go get you some milk?” And she loved it so much she ended up giving me an interview. And I got to sell that to the local station.
THAT’S AWESOME THAT YOU WERE MAKING MONEY.
JK: Yeah. My parents were incredibly supportive. But the part-time work was either selling the footage or videotaping weddings. But that didn’t go very well because my first wedding was someone that worked for my dad. And I had a two-camera setup. And both cameras somehow only recorded audio for their big day. I was mortified. I decided to take a bunch of pictures and lay it over the audio so I kind of recovered it and gave them some sort of a wedding video. But I realized that was not my specialty so that only lasted a few years. But it helped with the finances, and we needed to put more stuff in the studio. I mean, I needed money for a new news desk. Every three years, you’ve got to get a new news desk if you’re 16.
HOW DID YOU GO FROM A CAMERAMAN TO ON-AIR TALENT? JK: The camera and stuff was really
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because I wasn’t an incredible athlete, and at Westminster Academy, there were a lot of great athletes. So I said, “All right. Well, why don’t I videotape the football games? Why don’t I help out the announcer for the basketball games?” Then there was a cable-access channel, and they had a sports show. And I said, “The show needs a little something. You guys need footage. You’re just sitting there talking around a desk.” So I would video games, and they gave me a press pass to cover the Miami Dolphins. So on my lunch break at school, I would drive to Davie, which was like 25 minutes away, and I would interview Dan Marino. And then, I would come back, and I would be slightly late for my class, but my mom worked there, so she would write me a hall pass, which was always a nice thing. I was living the dream. So, then they realized, “Maybe he could do some interviews.” And then from interviews, [I went on] to hosting the sports show—Sports Talk. And that was around for four or five years. It was really great because my teachers were watching, and I would give them shout-outs. And my friends. It
CLEARLY YOU HAD A LOT OF EXPERIENCE FROM A YOUNG AGE, BUT HOW DID YOU LAND THE JOB AT E!? JK: So I worked at the mall. I worked at Diesel at the Beverly Center in LA. Below: Kennedy discovered his passion for
news on a fifth-grade trip to Miami’s Channel 7.
JASON KENNEDY
Above: With the help of his dad, a 10-year-old Kennedy started building a newsroom in his
JK: Celebrity entertainment wasn’t always the goal when I was younger. I wanted to be a sports broadcaster, but then I realized I didn’t know enough about all the sports. And after doing some internships, I realized this wasn’t really for me. Towards the last couple of years at UM, I said I wanted to move out to LA. And I was a PA [public address announcer] on a show in Miami for NBC. And one of the judges happened to be a manager in LA, and I picked her brain and she brought me on. We worked together for 14 years. I moved out to LA right after I graduated from UM. And I remember she said, “A quick success in LA is three years for you to land any sort of job in the business.” And I’m like, “That seems like a long time. I’ve got to do it quicker than that.”
WADING IN :ONE-ON-ONE CO N VE RSATIONS, INTERVIEWS, STOR IES
I folded jeans and hated every minute of it. But I knew that was good for me because I hadn’t worked in retail before. And then I went into casting for a little bit. As I was on a casting gig, I got a phone call saying, “E! wants to bring you in.” So I went on the audition, again on my lunch break. I didn’t hear back for six months. So I said, “Oh, it’s not going to happen.” And then six months later, almost to the day, they said, “We’d love to bring you back for a week.” And my boss was nice enough to let me take a week off. I covered a party at the Emmys, and I thought I did pretty good. But then I heard nothing back. Then maybe a few weeks later, they said to come back for another week. My boss was like, “Well, I’m going to have to let you go. [Giving you this much time off] won’t look good.” So I said, I’m unfortunately going to have to step away from the casting job. After that second week at E!—I didn’t
hear back for a little bit—they offered me a full-time contract. I started in 2005, and I can’t believe it’s been 14 years. I started out as the weekend anchor and as reporter. And I was a nervous kid that didn’t even know what I was doing, and I’m just so thankful for the opportunity that E!’s given me.
WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF THE MOST COMPELLING STORIES YOU’VE COVERED THROUGH THE YEARS? JK: I would say my first big one that really resonated with me and has a South Florida connection was the death of Anna Nicole Smith. I remember I was just pulling into the office when I heard that she had passed away at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino there, and my boss said, “All right. You’ve got a connection down there. Get on a plane.” It turned into over a month that I was gone. But I was totally fine with that because my parents would bring me lunch and they
Above: Kennedy and his wife Lauren Scruggs
live in LA but come back to South Florida often.
could do my laundry. I was in and out of the courthouse. Then there was a dispute about burial, and I had to go to the Bahamas to cover that. And it really shaped me because I
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WADING IN :ONE-ON-ONE CO N VE RSATIONS, INTERVIEWS, STOR IES
JASON KENNEDY’S
FIVE FLA FAVES •••••
1
•••••
2
•••••
3
•••••
4
•••••
5
•••••
FAVORITE FLORIDA CELEBRITY? JK: I would say Dan Marino. Going back to being able to interview him as a kid, and then going to those games and watching him with my dad—I’ll never forget that. •••••
had never covered any story like that. I felt like I had really matured, and I just wanted to learn as much as possible. I’ve never seen a presence like that in terms of media from around the globe. We were at her funeral in the Bahamas and there was a jib camera on a crane in front of the church, and hundreds of reporters. I’m like, “This is a funeral.” It was wild.
HAVE THERE BEEN ANY CAREER LOWS THAT CHALLENGED YOU?
JK: Yeah, years ago, after Ryan Seacrest left, I thought that I was going to get the hosting job, and it didn’t happen. I was really prepared to get it. And it was pretty crushing. They brought someone in, and he turned out to be one of my really good friends. So, I made a good friend in the process. And after he left, I got the job, so, it just wasn’t God’s timing for that, and I learned a lot in the process. But it opened up the door for me to work at the Today show and contribute there for six or seven years, which was my dream. I would stand outside the Today show every year with my family at 30 Rock and watch. In 2013, they were like, “Willie Geist is going on vacation. You’re going to anchor the entire week.” I was really nervous, but when I got on that set, I felt so comfortable. It was a dream come true.
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SO WHAT IS JASON KENNEDY UP TO IN FIVE YEARS?
JK: Once I got married, my focus, first and foremost, became my wife and making sure she felt good out here in LA and working on a family, and then trusting God that career-wise, the next thing will happen when it happens. And I would love to stay at E! as long as they will have me, honestly. So that’s kind of where my head’s at, because I don’t even know what’s going to happen a year from now, let alone five years. I think goals are great. I’ve just learned that sometimes you’ll set a goal and it’s like, “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t even need to do that right now.” Below: Kennedy has worked for E! for 14 years
and regularly contributes to NBC’s Today.
•••••
FAVORITE PLACE TO EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY? JK: Casa Tua in Miami. It’s so cool. Downstairs, anybody can make a reservation. I think it used to be someone’s house, but it’s really intimate. It’s turned into one of my favorite places. •••••
FAVORITE BEACH? JK: South Beach for sure. I realize that it’s not for everybody, but it makes me feel like I’m back in school. I’m big on nostalgia. There’s so many great memories that I’ve had there. •••••
FAVORITE FLORIDA MUSICIAN? JK: I like Gloria Estefan. We’ve gone dancing before on an E! news shoot. I spent a lot of time with her and Emilio, and they’re just incredibly kind and generous people. I’m a Gloria fan. I like what she’s done for the city of Miami too.
K YLIE GAYER, LINDA KIM
Above: Kennedy, pictured with the Kardashian family, says celebrity news wasn’t always the goal.
FAVORITE HOTEL, AT THE MOMENT? JK: We just stayed at the Biltmore in Coral Gables for the first time since I graduated, and that was really cool. I like the old-school vibe and feeling of it.
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Begin your perfect summer escape at DiscoverMartin.com
WADING IN :THE STUDIO FLORIDA ARTIST PROFILES By Nila Do Simon
THE GREEN THUMB A Delray artist’s career sprouts like the plants she captures in watercolor
A
green tropical plant known for large leaves with deep slits and holes, the monstera plant makes a statement in any room. But in botanical artist Jenny Kiker’s Delray Beach studio, the monstera serves as a baseline. That plant, she says, helped her find her voice, got her 169,000 Instagram followers and gave her icon status under her nom de plume, Living Pattern. In actuality, the monstera is one of several plants that helped launch Kiker’s career as one of the nation’s premier botanical artists. Ferns, orchids, philodendron xanadus, areca palms, triostars and cacti are among the subjects that 36-year-old Kiker gives life and personality
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to through her watercolor hues. Painted on paper, Kiker’s pieces are modern, clean and concise, yet somehow fun and bold, perhaps a reflection of the artist herself. Born into a family of “mega-recyclers and plant lovers” in Charlotte, North Carolina, Kiker’s earliest memories include planting fruits and vegetables at her home and flowers in her grandparents’ nearby garden. She carried that love of nature with her as she studied illustration and painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design. After a foray into fashion design, creating textiles for children’s apparel brand Carter’s and visual merchandising and display at URBN,
the parent company of brands like Urban Outfitters, Kiker turned away from fashion, having become “sick of the corporate world.” She went back to painting, initially creating custom wallpaper before hitting her stride with botanical works. At the urging of her graphic designer husband, Chris Johnston, Kiker created an Instagram account around 2013. Almost obligingly, she began posting her watercolor paintings of cacti, not quite realizing her potential to profit. “Every time I posted, they sold,” Kiker says. “That was nearly six years ago, and fast forward to now, and I’m doing commissions—all because of Instagram.”
JENNY KIKER
Above from left: Balance, watercolor; Kiker began posting her botanical watercolors on Instagram in 2013 and quickly built a following; Shield Ferns, watercolor
WADING IN :THE STUDIO FLORIDA ARTIST PROFILES
Her popularity on the social media platform has grown among followers looking for a beyondthe-typical art piece. In fact, despite her large following, Kiker isn’t represented by any art gallery, a move that traditional artists might consider risky. But Kiker looks at it as a testament to how her generation of artists influences the industry. “The new-school way for artists is selling on Instagram,” says Kiker, who now sells her prints for around $50. “It means more to me for people to have my work in their homes than hung in a gallery. I feel lucky that I can sell directly to customers.” Each Living Pattern print is carefully wrapped by Kiker, complete with a thankyou note, an added touch that she says allows her to better connect with her clients. Her Instagram presence has even sparked collaborations, catching the eye of national quilting fabric company Paintbrush Studio Fabrics, which tapped her to create a line to be sold nationwide early next year. Kiker says more collaborations are in store. From the looks of it, the monstera plant is not the only thing growing inside Kiker’s Delray Beach studio; her career is too.
It means more to me for people to have my work in their homes than hung in a gallery. -Jenny Kiker
livingpattern.net
This page from top: Begonia watercolor,
Shield Ferns print on fabric, Zebra Haworthia watercolor
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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (NORTH) SHAKA SUSHI AND NOODLE BAR INLET BEACH
South Walton recently got a new 14,000-square-foot retail center called Shoppes @ Inlet, with one of the most anticipated openings at the trendy hub being Shaka Sushi and Noodle Bar. That’s likely due to Last Call Restaurant Group’s reputation for launching local favorites like Shades Bar & Grill in Inlet Beach and Pescado Seafood Grill & Rooftop Bar in Rosemary Beach. At Shaka Sushi, diners can belly up to the sushi bar to watch chefs James Sargent and Ken Duenas craft rolls, sashimi and nigiri. More filling options include ramen and poke bowls, which can be washed down with sips of sake, wine and beer. shaka30a.com
ZUMA WELLNESS CENTER
Above: Diners pack the bar at Shaka Sushi and Noodle Bar in South Walton.
EMORY CLOTHING JACKSONVILLE
Located in the Shoppes of Avondale, three blocks from the river and just a quick walk from restaurants like Biscottis and Orsay, Emory Clothing made its debut this spring. Owner Lauren E. Meek, a Jacksonville native, dresses local women for everything from the office to happy hour in casual-butcool brands like Xirena, Velvet, Joie and Emerson Fry. The boutique space incorporates dark concrete floors to contrast white walls with seasonally rotated art from Caleb Mahoney. Inventory isn’t limited to daily wear—like the jeans from Citizens of Humanity or J
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Brand that will last for years—as Meek also carries cocktail and wedding attire from La Maison Talulah, Parker, Caballero and Capulet, as well as designer jewelry and bags from Jenny Bird and Clare V. “I wanted to have a little bit of everything and be a one-stop shop for people,” Meek says. emoryclothing.com
ODD BIRDS LOFT ST. AUGUSTINE
Meant to be just a six-month pop-up, Odd Birds Bar served its first libations four years ago in St. Augustine, right in front of the historic landmark Castillo de San Marcos. It quickly became a local favorite and
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permanent drinking hole, so in the spring, co-owners Shane McFarland, Asdrubal Martinez and Cesar Diaz opened an extension upstairs called Odd Birds Loft. The space combines mismatched glassware acquired at thrift stores with rare and obscure spirits. Inventive cocktails are the bar’s specialty, like the Canario, made with ginger and turmeric syrup, bourbon, lemon juice and Angostura bitters. Diaz says, “80 percent of our cocktail sales are ‘bartender’s call,’ which is pretty much ‘let the bartender serve you a tailored cocktail that suits your preference, spirit of choice and flavor profile.’” oddbirdsgroup.com/loft
Improve your well-being from the inside out at the state-ofthe-art ZUMA Wellness Center, built in the signature organic, contemporary, white style of Alys Beach. This modern hub for all things health and fitness has everything from lifting, cardio and recovery rooms to a junior Olympic–sized indooroutdoor pool to a cafe serving Amavida coffee, NaturBaker bakery food items, smoothies and more. Classes in yoga, XPT, TRX, boxing, spin and tennis are offered onsite, as well as Bogafit—a class taught in the pool that sees participants balancing on floating boards while fusing HIIT exercises with vinyasa yoga. To alleviate sore muscles, a visit to the treatment rooms is in order. Guests of Zuma must be living or staying in Alys Beach to use the facility. alysbeach.com
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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (C E N T RA L ) with shops, restaurants, a Bellagio-like synchronized fountain show and now, The Daytona. Marriott Autograph Collection’s new luxury boutique hotel offers 144 rooms with speed tracks and vehicles subtly worked into the decor and famous cars parked in the lobby. Sir Malcolm, an upscale restaurant inside, is named after the record-breaking British speed motorist and journalist, Sir Malcolm Campbell. Blue Flame, a bar that spans the hotel’s terrace overlooking Victory Circle, offers “moonshine specialties” as an ode to the Prohibition era, as well as a menu of custom and craft beers and cocktails. thedaytona.com
VINIA WINE BAR Above: The lobby at The DAYTONA, a luxury boutique hotel directly across from the Daytona International Speedway
BRASS BOWL KITCHEN & JUICERY ST. PETERSBURG
A couple of years ago, Robert Newhart, now the owner of the Brass Bowl Kitchen & Juicery, learned about veganism from his son. It sparked Newhart’s decision to make a lifestyle change—eating better and working out—that’s allowed him to drop 60 pounds. But eating healthy at restaurants was hard, especially in a hurry. Enter the Brass Bowl concept, Newhart’s affordable, fast-paced restaurant with fresh, organic, gluten-free, gourmet-like dishes. Menu items range from cold-pressed juices to fusion bowls inspired by cuisines from India to Spain. A best-seller is the chakra bowl, made with free-range chicken breast,
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roasted seasonal veggies, house-made naan, electric cabbage, garbanzo popcorn and red curry–spiced coconut milk. Beyond the menu, the restaurant accomplishes a farmhouse-chic interior with exposed ceiling beams, an open kitchen and a custom, rustic wood façade built by a local carpenter. brassbowlkitchen.com
SALT SHACK ON THE BAY TA M PA
With toes in the sand, guests at Rattlesnake Point’s Salt Shack on the Bay, which opened this summer, can dock their boats and catch a glimpse of the sun as it leaves the sky. What’s this about rattlesnakes? Don’t fret: When the invasive species
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infested Tampa during the early 20th century, a man named George End decreased the pest population by canning their meat and calling the creation “SnakeSnaks.” While this isn’t a menu item at Salt Shack on the Bay, the quintessential Gulf Shore waterfront restaurant does dish freshly caught seafood (try the Day Boat grouper sandwich) and Caribbean-inspired craft cocktails (think: signature margaritas) that cause internal clocks to change to island time. salt-shack.com
THE DAYTONA D AY T O N A
Across the street from Daytona International Speedway lies One Daytona, a 300,000-squarefoot entertainment epicenter
Paula Gamba and her husband, Fabio Perricelli, visited 15 cities in 10 days throughout South and Central Florida before deciding on Winter Park as the perfect place to open Vinia Wine Bar. In Hannibal Square, two blocks off of Park Avenue, chef Ronnie Vance prepares seasonal tapas, like artisanal cheese boards and daily flatbreads, to the tune of Brazilian bossa nova music in a small and cozy European-style lounge. “Most people don’t even know we have food,” Gamba says. “My husband and I don’t know why in the U.S. wine bars usually don’t have food.” Gamba is from Brazil while Perricelli is from Italy, so the couple’s two worlds collide inside Vinia. Live music scores Wednesday night happy hours and every other Sunday brunch as guests explore a curated menu of boutique wines. viniawinebar.com
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WADING IN :JUST HATCHED DEBUTS TO PER USE (SOUTH) free on Fridays and Saturdays— the perfect excuse to fill up on delectable dishes after feasting the eyes on works by Matisse and Picasso. norton.org/visit/ eat-shop
SPACE S / 223 MIAMI
As the anticipation grows for this year’s Art Basel and Miami Art Week, both of which take place annually in December, the city’s Design District, a destination for high-end art, fashion and architecture, gears up with a new gallery: an artistic initiative in Paradise Plaza called Space S / 223. The secondfloor venue rotates artists’ work each month. For those seeking creative immersion—and free admission—Space S / 223 hosts group exhibitions, like “All That is Solid” and “Afrofuture,” along with solo displays by artists like Cristina Lei Rodriguez and Andres Ferrandis. miamidesigndistrict.net
TIDAL COVE WATERPARK
SAGE
S A R A S O TA
Mixing more than cocktails at its rooftop bar, Sage blends new and old inside a threestory historic building the Sarasota Times used to call home. The 20th-century Mediterranean-style marvel no longer delivers the news but instead turns out elevated menu items by award-winning chef Christopher Covelli, like the Thai bouillabaisse of lobster, shrimp, scallop, cod and crab on top of lotus rice and seasonal veggies in a coconut curry broth. Dishes are enjoyed in the two-story dining room, which has a rustic vibe
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and Prohibition-style copper bar. The third floor is reserved for events with groups of up to 150 people, but the rooftop bar is accessible for 360-degree views of downtown paired with sips of refreshing cocktails like crowd favorite The Conclusion, made with tequila and yellow Chartreuse. sagesrq.com
THE RESTAURANT AT THE NORTON W E S T PA L M B E A C H
The reimagined Norton Museum of Art made its debut in winter, and one of the most exciting additions from the $100 million expansion effort is The
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Restaurant at the Norton. With an airy, modern dining room that flows seamlessly into the rest of the museum, the space looks out at the Pamela and Robert B. Goergen Garden. Fare matches the interior aesthetic with dishes that are light and current, like the grilled Spanish octopus on a white bean puree with saffron aioli, oven-roasted tomatoes and black olive crumbles. The concept comes from Constellation Culinary Group, the team behind Verde at Pérez Art Museum Miami and many other museum eateries spanning the country’s East Coast. Entry to the museum is
AV E N T U R A
Just in time for the state’s year-round heat, South Florida got a new water park. As part of the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa’s rebranding effort, the golf and spa destination created a draw for kids: Tidal Cove Waterpark, which offers 5 acres of pool deck, seven water slides, a 4,000-square-foot kids pool and one of the first FlowRider triple surf-simulation pools in the U.S. Adults may prefer kicking back at the lazy river, breezy cabanas or two poolside eateries, Surf House Bar & Grill and Freestyle. Access to the park can be purchased with a day pass or overnight stay at the hotel. jwturnberry.com/ tidalcove
LIBBY VOLGYES, JENNY ACHESON
Above: Grilled Spanish octopus at the Norton Museum restaurant in West Palm Beach
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ADMIRE
ALL TALLAHASSEE THE ARTISTRY
It’s easy to lose yourself in the flourishing art scene of Tallahassee. Especially when the fall leaves change color, painting the perfect backdrop for exploration. There’s a rhythm humming around every corner, particularly from our famous Bradfordville Blues Club. Your senses will come alive with the variety of artistic offerings of one of Southern Living’s Top 10 Cities In The South. Find the artistic experience that speaks to you at VisitTallahassee.com
VisitTallahassee.com
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— Unf ilter ed Fodder —
Capital Dame By Di ane R o b ert s • I l l u st ra t i o n b y S t ep h en L o m a zzo
A HOME AS WILD AS THE LAND The story behind Spring House, the only residence in Florida designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Clifton Van Brunt realized the ambition cherished by all Tallahassee’s white debutantes: becoming the May Queen of 1936. The local newspaper breathlessly reported how she was crowned with lilies under the ancient May Oak “in one of the most beautiful festivals ever staged in the Capital City.” Clifton seemed set up to live the privileged life of well-off white folks in
the South, but just 20 years later, you wouldn’t find her at the country club: she was too busy demonstrating in favor of civil rights, speaking out against social injustice, and integrating the town’s oldest and poshest Episcopalian church by bringing a black city commission candidate to Sunday services. In 1940, she married George Lewis, a well-bred young man from a prominent Tallahassee family who worked
in one of Florida’s oldest banks—a bank his family founded in 1856. George was also an activist, and when he became president of the Lewis State Bank, he loaned money to African Americans when no one else would. The Lewises could have raised their children in one of the town’s pretty antebellum mansions (the Lewis family owned several in their time) or built a French
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Capital Dame UNF ILTER ED FODDER
provincial or Mediterranean manor in the suburbs. But they didn’t want to be like the people Clifton called “the Tallahassee Fix,” the town worthies whose life’s mission was to protect white supremacy. The Lewises wanted a different life, imbued with a more progressive, more egalitarian, more ecologically aware set of values. They thought their house should reflect their ideas. In 1950, Clifton and George attended a reception in Lakeland in honor of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design of the “Child of the Sun” buildings at Florida Southern College. The Lewises admired Wright, having read his autobiography and his architectural manifestos. Egged on by George, Clifton walked up to the most important architect in America and said, “Mr. Wright, we’re the Lewises from Tallahassee. We have many children and not much money and we want you to do a home for us.” Wright, 83 years old by then, told them, “find your ground,” by which he meant not some lot on some ordinary residential street with tame shrubbery and clipped lawns, but wilder land, real Florida land. Then, maybe, he could do something for them. A year later, Clifton and George bought 5 acres off a red clay road a few miles north of Tallahassee. There were oaks and magnolias, and an icy little spring down the hill that would give their house its name. Wright used photographs and topographical maps to design the 2,300-square-foot dwelling (he never visited the property), sending Nils Schweizer, one of his Taliesin Fellows, to supervise the construction. In 1954, the Lewises and their four children moved into Spring House, the only private Frank Lloyd Wright house in Florida.
I’ve known the Lewises all my life. They are brave, determined and eccentric, with a love of music, books, painting and sculpture. For them, every human choice—even what your house looks like—should be in the service of doing good. Clifton once said to me, “Mr. Wright said he felt like a noble life needs to have a noble architecture for noble uses.”
Spring House remains, unbombed and intact, in its tangle of green. I was 8 or 9 years old when I first saw it. My mother was dropping something off for Clifton, probably something to do with the LeMoyne Art Foundation—which Clifton helped found and my mother, a potter, joined. I was exhorted 1) to be very polite to Mrs. Lewis and 2) not to touch anything. I thought the house looked like a boat, magically run aground in a North Florida forest, or maybe an ancient temple. It was completely unlike my house or my friends’ houses, with their green shutters, pastel-tiled bathrooms and straight lines. Instead of hard edges, Spring House has curves. Even the kitchen is round. One side of the house is glass, the other is wood and blond Ocala block, a concrete and limestone mix, with lower windows that look like portholes and upper ones that open out like sails. Clifton Lewis told me later I was right to think of the house as a boat, though the correct Wrightian term is “pod.” She always saw in the house an echo of the red cypress boat her husband George made for her and named The Clifton. “It was so beautiful,” she’d say, eyes sparkling: “George knew how to build curves.” Wright was pretty good at curves, too, and used cypress for Spring House. This iconic (and terrifically durable) Florida tree, also known as bald cypress or swamp cypress, can live for hundreds of years. The question these days is: can Spring House make a hundred years? George died in 1996; Clifton died in 2014 at the age of 94, an agitator to the end. One of the last times I visited her, she was on an oxygen tank, but determined to talk about the persistence of racism in Florida and our chronic water pollution. There was a huge LGBTQ rainbow
The house took us out into the woods. Even the lines on the floor take you to the door—it says ‘come on out’!
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In the ‘50s and ‘60s, even into the ‘70s, Spring House became a locus of activism. Clifton launched campaigns to save Tallahassee’s most historic buildings, including the Randall-Lewis House, built in 1835 by George Proctor, a free black man. In the late 1950s, she turned the building into artists’ studios and performance space, hosting the likes of Marcel Marceau, German actress Lilli Palmer and homegrown talents such as painter George Milton and potter William Watson. She also helped found an art gallery and a natural history museum, when she wasn’t out marching with Tallahassee civil rights leader the Rev. C.K. Steele. Her husband George helped black-owned businesses when no other bank would let them in the door. In 1961, he was appointed chair of the Florida Advisory Committee to the federal Commission on Civil Rights. He and Clifton often helped post bail for anti–Jim Crow activists from Florida A&M University who’d been arrested at lunch counter sit-ins and demonstrations. The Tallahassee Fix didn’t like it. Some snubbed Clifton and George. Some took their money out of the Lewis State Bank. One night someone, maybe a Klansman, called Spring House and said some men were coming to bomb it. Clifton shrugged it off.
EARTH’S FAVORITE STRAWS
flag draped over her bedroom door. Clifton’s dream was that Spring House would become a place for artists and social activists to get together and make the world a better place. That’s going to take a lot of money. The house still looks as though it’s growing from the North Florida soil, not imposed on the land but somehow of the land, as much a part of it as the oaks and magnolias that surround it, serene as a cathedral. But, according to Byrd Lewis Mashburn, George and Clifton’s only daughter, the house suffers from a leaky roof and foundation subsidence. Some of the plate glass has been replaced by plywood. The National Trust for Historic Preservation listed Spring House as one of the nation’s “11 most endangered” sites of 2014. One hot July morning, Byrd and I sit on the semicircular built-in sofa, an arc answering the glass arc looking east. She now lives at Spring House, and it is not air-conditioned. But with the doors and windows open, there’s a shadecooled breeze, fresh as well water. Byrd says growing up in Spring House was a child’s dream: “It’s so open and free. And the house took us out into the woods. Even the lines on the floor take you to the door—it says ‘come on out’!” I look down: the lines in the concrete floor, dyed Wright’s favorite Cherokee Red, indeed draw your eye to the hundred shades of green beyond the glass. The house will not let you ignore Nature. As Wright wrote in The Natural House, “We have no longer an outside and an inside as two separate things. Now the outside may come inside and the inside may and does go outside.” During their lives, Clifton and George tried to take care of the house, but their many social and cultural causes spread them pretty thin. Despite their grand lineage, the Lewises were not rich. The bank declined, partly because of the couple’s politics, and was taken over in 1974. Byrd and the rest of the family would like to sell the house to the Spring House Institute, a charitable organization set up to preserve it.
Byrd gives tours of her home, and the SHI and its scores of volunteers make repairs and clear the grounds of the invasive plants that threaten Clifton’s garden. Byrd points to the plantings her mother, who usually dressed all in white, put in: gardenias, sago palms, two-winged silverbells, and a white-blooming member of the Tradescantia family—commonly called a wandering Jew—spreading out its delicate leaves. “Mother called that one wandering gentile,” Byrd says. This past summer, UNESCO named eight Frank Lloyd Wright buildings World Heritage sites, putting them in the same class as the Taj Mahal, Chartres Cathedral and Stonehenge. They’re mostly the famous ones: the Guggenheim Museum, Fallingwater, Taliesin, Hollyhock House. Spring House is not among them. But this global designation underscores Wright’s importance to our artistic patrimony. Byrd hopes Wright’s World Heritage status will bring more attention to Spring House, helping the Institute to raise the $1 million it needs. Until then, she’ll show paying customers the circular fireplaces and sweeping balconies, apply for grants, marshal volunteers. It’s what her parents would have done. After all, Spring House isn’t merely a dwelling, it’s a sculpture, a work of art by one of America’s great artists, imbued with the generous Florida souls of Clifton and George Lewis. preservespringhouse.org
Diane Roberts is an eighth-generation Floridian, educated at Florida State University and at Oxford University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and the Tampa Bay Times. She has also authored four books, including Dream State, a historical memoir of Florida, and Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America.
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Marily Famed artist Marilyn Minter on growing up in Florida, sexual agency and sunlight as disinfectant By SARAH GERARD // Photography By MARILYN MINTER
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Minter in her New York City studio Opposite:
Minter shot Lady Gaga for The New York Times Magazine and says: “I cut her bangs.�
on Top
Clad in all black, with black-rimmed glasses and icy-blue eyes, Minter is warm, if slightly distracted, as she leads me into her spacious second-floor workroom. Behind her, facing the white walls, assistants are making final strokes with their fingers on three paintings going to Art Basel—Minter’s collaboration with her assistants has been described by one of them in The New York Times as “the closest thing there is to a Renaissance workshop.” The paintings are enormous, photorealistic enamel-on-metal depictions of women bathing behind steamed-up panes of glass simulating showers. “Have you ever noticed that art history has a lot of women grooming themselves?” Minter says. “All throughout history, this is a way to present women to the male gaze. I just thought, ‘How can I do it in a way that is empowering?’” Her models have character; they’re not the kind of girls you see in Pantene commercials. They’re mixed-race, fullbodied, with tattoos, pubic hair and piercings. During our conversation, Minter gestures at a redhead in one of the paintings, to whom her studio manager is busy adding armpit hair. “She just looked too pretty, so I thought I’d make her more real,” she says. “You go to Brooklyn now, and all the girls have long armpit hair.” I ask her if the humidity frequently depicted in her work has anything to do with her Florida upbringing. “I wonder about that too,” she says. “I’m a sweater. I used to make everything wet.” I note her signature use of condensation on glass. “There’s condensation in Florida because everything is air-conditioned,” she says. “I thought everything looked better a little wet. Sweaty. And now I think everything looks better if”—she deploys another aquatic term—“there’s some kind of filter.” She invites me to sit at a long folding table. Stacks of books and papers rest at either end. I ask her how she felt about her own freckles as a child coming of age in South Florida with what she terms “cheap Irish skin.” “I just hated mine,” she says, apologizing for having to multitask while we talk. She begins rummaging through files. Along with Art Basel preparations, she is gathering reference images from her paintings for a monograph that publishers Paul Schiek and Lester Rosso are compiling for the art press TBW Books.
PREVIOUS SPREAD, PAGE 47, NADYA WASYLKO; NEXT SPREAD, PAGE 51, JASON SCHMIDT
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sooner am I allowed inside Marilyn Minter’s Manhattan studio than she remarks on my freckles, saying, “No wonder you like my work.” The artist is known for making visible what is typically airbrushed: sweat, pimples, body hair—or what is often thought private: addiction, sex. She’s also renowned for honoring what’s regarded by patriarchal standards as unimportant: housework, fashion, glamour. Freckles are a favorite subject. As sunlight draws melanin to the skin’s surface (skin and surfaces are Minter’s fascinations), so are disgust and desire brought to the forefront and made to commingle in Minter’s work, which for the last five decades has broken down cultural barriers for women by querying society’s contradictory attitudes toward the feminine body.
This page: Minter Her paintings begin as photowith a friend in her graphs, which she shoots in the UF years, when she had a run-in 2,500-square-foot SoHo loft she’s with the legendary rented for a thousand dollars a photographer Diane Arbus Opposite month since she moved to New from top: Minter York in the 1970s—a rent-condocumented the troubled life of her trolled rate that is shocking to mother in photos, including Mom in anyone with a cursory knowledge Mirror With Line, of real estate in that neighborhood. 1969; a self-portrait from her time at the “The landlord would love to get University of Florida rid of me,” she laughs. “He’s got a in 1968 camera aimed at my front door.” After the initial shoots, she picks a photo to be painted, and moves it through dozens of stages of digital manipulation as the painting progresses. The final touches do not appear in any of the reference images, only on the enamel. She spreads images out on the table. Among them is
the photograph she used for Blue Poles, a close-up of the freckled bridge of a woman’s nose, caked on either side with glittery teal eye shadow, finished with a whitehead above the left eyebrow. “You’ve seen freckles now in the culture, but they were nowhere when I was growing up,” she says. “I was a skinny, freckled rail. I don’t think there’s anyone who’s born without feeling that there’s something wrong with them, though. They might not admit it, or might even lie to themselves, or not know it, but everyone feels like they’re different.” Later, doing commercial work, Minter discovered that freckled models looked fresh because people had never seen them before. “Then other people started using them too.” She smiles mischievously.
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A Really Bad Girl Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Minter moved with her family to Miami Beach around the time she entered elementary school. Louisiana was conservative, too straight-laced for her parents, who were beautiful like movie stars and wanted to live like them. Minter says they liked to drink, do drugs and party. Though her dad had a job in Louisiana working for Caterpillar, he preferred to make money
when Minter was 8, he joined up with one of his wife’s friends, and Minter’s mother had a nervous breakdown. They divorced, and she became a drug addict. Her father moved in with the friend. “My mother got a little crazier all the time,” Minter says. In her 40s, she felt she had been discarded. She had never had a career and had no money or training to fall back on. She didn’t even believe women should work. “I’d seen my mother being this Southern belle, depending on a man to take care of her. I did the
People made fun of me because I was dirty. I was an open wound. —Marilyn Minter
gambling, and once he moved to Florida, he never had a proper job again, Minter recalls. “He was a scratch golfer, a high-end hustler, a semi-gangster. In Florida, you could get away with anything,” she says. “People went there to escape. In the ’60s, it was the land of no parents.” Minter and her two older brothers ran wild. “We were riding our bikes all over the place. We ran in packs, barefoot.” It was hot, but they lived on Biscayne Bay, so there was a breeze. Everything was across a causeway. “You walked across bridges to get everywhere.” She remembers walking to the drug store for a cherry Coke. This was during the Jim Crow era, when black people were not allowed to sit at the fountain counters. But even as a child, Minter knew racism was wrong. She insisted on using the “colored” drinking fountain. “I was pissed off that there even was one,” she says. “I saw a guy go to a counter to get a grilled cheese sandwich, and he couldn’t even sit down. He had to stand up to get it.” She invited him to sit and ordered it for him. As she says now, she’s always been an activist. She recalls that her father was a womanizer. Shortly after the family moved to Florida,
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exact opposite. I was always going to take care of myself, and I always have.” Minter’s relationship with her father grew distant due to her mother’s resentment and obsession with getting money from him. One of her brothers had moved in with him. When Minter was about 11, her mother moved the remaining two kids to Fort Lauderdale. They lived in an isolated co-op, the first one on the otherwise virgin Galt Ocean Mile. The first four floors of the building were a luxury hotel; the upper 10 floors were condos. Minter’s friends lived a mile in either direction. No one she went to school with lived in her building. Within a few months, her brother graduated high school and went to college. Minter was left alone with her mother, who spiraled deeper into her addiction. She talked about Minter’s father incessantly and began compulsively pulling out her hair. “It was so frustrating to just get my basic needs met,” Minter says. “She couldn’t pull it together.” That year, at the age of 12, Minter taught herself how to drive. “I was hungry,” she Right: Minter at her studio, says. “No one took any care with a papiermâché rabbit of me. People made fun of me
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because I was dirty. I was an open wound.” By the time she reached Pompano Beach High School, she was what she calls a “really bad girl.” She got in trouble all the time for confronting her teachers for their racism. People bullied her for her beliefs. “I was at the dean’s office every week,” she says. When she did see her father, he always had a girlfriend with him. “I grew up with my dad dating girls that were 18 when I was 16. There’s this old man, and then these really beautiful
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This page from top: The Brooklyn
Museum hosted Minter’s first retrospective in 2016, titled “Pretty/Dirty”; Bazooka, 2009, enamel on metal, is owned by Wicked director Joe Mantello.
BROOKLYN MUSEUM, JONATHAN DOR ADO
young girls. It was very distorting.” Her desperation to leave home reached a fever pitch near the end of high school. She began making money from her brother’s friends, drawing reproductions of Vargas pinup girls. Then she figured out how to backdate driver’s licenses, turning eights into threes, for instance. She went to jail for that. She had her driver’s license taken away for speeding three times before she was 21. “I was high,” she says. At 17, she escaped home to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville. She first majored in art—she’d begun drawing when she was 5: “I was drawing since I could breathe, practically”—then photography, drawing with light. Exposure. When Minter finally left Florida, it was with her first husband, a Vietnam veteran and fellow anti-war activist whom she’d met as an undergraduate. She’d enrolled in the graduate program at Syracuse University, where she’d study for two years before teaching school to save for her move to New York City, a “liberal bubble” where she’s lived ever since. The couple drove up from Florida in a 1950s Jaguar they’d restored in a garage. “We almost died from the exhaust,”
she said. “We had to drive with the windows open.” Before Syracuse, she had never gone to school with many black students—even after integration, there had been barely a hundred black students in the entire student body during her time at the University of Florida. All of a sudden, at Syracuse, she was surrounded by a mix of people. It was what she’d been looking for her whole life. “I felt normal,” she said. “I didn’t feel normal ever in Florida.”
Clockwise: While shooting Lady Gaga, Minter convinced her to ditch her no-makeup persona; Dirty Heel, 2008, owned by the Guggenheim, hanging at the Brooklyn Museum for Minter’s retrospective; Shy Shoes, 2005, enamel on metal, 24 by 48 in.
I Hate The South A few weeks later, Minter invites me to a panel titled The Art of Sexuality, a part of Playboy’s New York City “Playhouse” pop-up. The weekend gathering brings the magazine’s Gender & Sexuality issue to life with events like an educational talk by Playboy Advisor Dr. Chris, a build-your-ownvibrator workshop and an erotic coloring session. The panel is being held in a basement room furnished with furry, padded stairs the color of labia minora, atop which are splayed listeners of all ages, colors and genders. Jerry Saltz, Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic for New York Magazine, moderates. Minter is joined by the African American artist Xaviera Simmons and artist and model Natalie White, who has appeared in Playboy numerous times. “There are no politically correct fantasies,” Minter says. “Sexuality is not politically correct, ever. I think it’s very frightening for people. It’s very frightening for women to own sexual agency.” She tells the story of being “kicked out of the art world” in 1989 for her series of paintings depicting hardcore porn stills. “Excoriating press,” she says of the public reaction to the series. “I got dropped from shows, and my gallery had to close the show a week early.”About the series of porn images that earned her such scorn, she says that she was curious
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whether creating the images as a woman would change their meaning. “I was ahead of the time in the sense that I was convinced women should have images for their own pleasure and their own amusement. Women should own the production of sexual imagery. That was unheard of. I was considered a traitor to feminism.” What masks the truth? What prevents us from seeing it? What do we use to distort the truth, or hide it? How do we create, destroy or expose it? What is an exposure? “Sunlight is a disinfectant,” Minter says, paraphrasing the late Louis Brandeis, a former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who was known for breaking up monopolies, fighting for workers’ rights and defending civil liberties. When we share information, celebrate difference and reject the shaming effects of a political system that exacts control through the repression of the truth, we build community. We strengthen our society. We are collectively healthier and happier. Even today, 30 years later, Minter sees young women like Miley Cyrus, with whom she’s collaborated as an activist, trying to work with sexuality and getting slut-shamed by men and women. “It just makes no sense to me that women can turn on each other so easily,” she says. We need to be mindful of why we criticize, because “equality is not a pie”: we don’t need to compete for it. Everyone can have it. Even Minter’s mother turned on her at one point. “I have letters from my mother that are about what a loser I was,” she tells me, for trying to make it as an artist. In a strange way, though, it was Minter’s mother who saved her career after the hardcore porn upended it. The story goes like this: Minter was an undergraduate at the University of Florida. The legendary photographer Diane Arbus visited the school. She hated everything she saw by the graduate students, romantic pictures of seashells in the sky and such. Minter, a lowly undergraduate, happened to walk past the room. “You’re going to like this,” Minter’s teacher said to Arbus, ushering Minter inside. In her hands, Minter held a contact sheet of photos she’d taken of her mother, smoking and grooming herself, at home in her nightgown, a lens into Minter’s dark childhood. Arbus loved them. Other students were horrified—they had never seen addiction depicted so honestly. Ashamed, Minter ultimately stuck the film in a drawer for 25 years. “I didn’t even think about it at the time [the photos were taken],” she told me. “I just said, ‘Hey Mom, will you pose for me?’ I had nothing else to shoot. Nobody sees their mother as unusual. She was all I knew. But when I showed the pictures in 1995, it was, ‘Wait a minute, [Minter] must be a serious This page:
There were always women artists, they were just written out of history. —Marilyn Minter
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SAR AH GER ARD
Torrent, 2013, 96 by 60 inches, owned by a private collector
great artists. One reason she persevered despite the pushback of the patriarchal culture was that she had access to another liberal publication, an art magazine called the Evergreen Review. “There were these women who were well known in the ’60s that I was reading about,” she says. “Eva Hesse and Helen Frankenthaler. There were always women artists, they just were written out of history.” With a name similar to that of the most tragic classic film star, an archetype of the dirty underside of glamour, it’s fitting that Minter is driven by the power of exposure. She has a last name homonymous with a maker-of-money. Its suffix means more-than, means a person-who-does. And she does. “I’ve had people—literally, my studio— rebel because I spend too much time doing activism,” she tells me. She views her activism as part of her art practice; art and activism have always coincided. She’s been honored by Planned Parenthood for her reproductive rights advocacy, raising millions of dollars for the organization. Recently, she took part in the Women’s March, and has done work with Swing Left, the Halt Action Group and the political action group Downtown for Democracy. On the day we meet, she’ll find out whether the PAC has secured funding for an action. “If it works, we’re going to do it in Alabama and Missouri and [other] places with the abortion bans,” she tells me. I ask her if she’ll reveal what exactly they’re going to do. She says no— for now it’s a secret. “But you’ll know immediately,” she says. “It will be everywhere.”
Clockwise from top:
The ephemera of sketches and pictures laid out in Minter’s studio before her retrospective show; Blue Poles, 2007, enamel on metal, 60 by 72 inches, owned in a private collection; Minter finishes Red Flare with studio manager Johan Olander, who has worked with her since 1997.
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artist because she comes from dysfunction.’ So, she was a horrible mother, but she really helped my career.” She laughs. “I always think, you know, she made up for it.” At the end of the panel, someone asks if any of the artists had reservations about being at an event hosted by Playboy. “Not at all,” says Minter. “I read two issues before tonight, and I thought, ‘This is like the Playboy when I was a kid.’” She describes an issue from the 1960s she still has at home, containing interviews with Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and James Baldwin. “I was in the Deep South, and it was the only liberal magazine I could get at a newsstand.” Later, I ask her whether she still considers herself a Southerner. She says bluntly, “I hate the South.” She hates the politics and what she describes as widespread ignorance. She hates that she was told in art school that women aren’t
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sun shine s o und track By STEVE DOLLAR // photography by ASHLEY WOODSON BAILEY
Take a musical road trip across the peninsula, from Jacksonville’s Southern rock to the sunburnt conch acoustic of Key West, with the 40 most influential albums in Florida music history
If Florida had a sound, what would it be?
It’s
very likely not the official state song. Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home,” widely known as “Swanee River,” has nothing to do with Florida, besides its deliberately misspelled reference to the Suwanee. The “father of American music” never visited the state and picked the Suwanee in 1851 almost at random, after his brother pointed it out on a map. History can make a stronger case for the Bahamian, Haitian and African American ballads and chanteys first collected in 1935 by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in Eatonville and Belle Glade, among other places, for the Archive of American Folk Song. History also has an argument for the Conch songs of Key West collected in ’37 by Stetson Kennedy for the Federal Writers’ Project. As befits a state surrounded by water to the east, west and south, a portal into the New World and a pivot between the
Americas, Florida nurtured multicultural rhymes and rhythms before anyone had a label for them. The cultural trove known as Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, archived by the Library of Congress, boasts 376 recordings made on fragile acetate between 1937 and 1942, and “features sound recordings in many languages, including blues and work songs from menhaden fishing boats, railroad gangs, and turpentine camps; children’s songs, dance music, and religious music of many cultures.” In later decades, one might claim the robust, gospel-fired R&B of Georgia-born but Floridaraised Ray Charles. Or the keening Southern rock of the Allman Brothers Band—whose sound was incubated in Jacksonville over the course of a fateful few months in 1969. Or the bubbling, seductive and soulful grooves of early ’70s Miami disco artists like George McCrae and Betty Wright, avatars of the TK Records sound. For any style or era you want to punch up, Florida makes an irresistible jukebox. The state that birthed Fats Navarro, Mel Tillis, Gram Parsons, Tom Petty, Ariana Grande, Jim Morrison, N’SYNC, The Royal Guardsmen, Bobby Goldsboro, Elizabeth Cook, Pitbull, Against Me!, Debbie Harry, Panama Francis, Gwen McCrae, Dashboard Confessional, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, T-Pain, L ’Trimm and the Florida half of Florida Georgia Line can boast a pantheon of music legends—and fleeting pop meteors (Vanilla Ice, anyone?)—in every genre from jazz to bluegrass and punk rock to Soundcloud rap, with definitive artists in every field. Impossible to narrow to one city or style, Florida’s sonic signature is a lot like the Vulcan philosophy espoused by Mr. Spock on Star Trek: infinite variety in infinite combinations. A road trip across the peninsula doubles as an all-American (and Caribbean) jukebox. Jacksonville? Southern rock. Miami? Hip-hop, Cuban dance music, rhythm and blues, disco, jazz and EDM. Gainesville? Indie rock. Orlando? Teen pop. Tampa? Death metal. Key West? Well, inevitably, Jimmy Buffett, and a thousand sunburnt singer-songwriters. Tallahassee? A little bit of everything. Our Sunshine State Top 40 isn’t meant as the definitive list of the best albums made by Florida artists, reflective of Florida scenes or, occasionally, just too synonymous with mythical Florida to be ignored. But it should reveal why these sounds matter so much and how fantastically expansive they are.
North Florida The Allman Brothers Band, TH E ALLMAN B R OTH E R S (1969) — Although it became
synonymous with Capricorn Records out of Macon, Georgia, the seminal Southern rock act nurtured its sound during a pivotal Jacksonville residency, where Duane and Gregg and the rest coalesced during a series of jam sessions. On this debut, you can hear the some of the first results of those jam sessions—many of which became staples of the band’s marathon live shows, like “Whipping Post,” Gregg’s epic lament, which here clocks in at a modest five minutes.
Southern Country Waltzes, VASSAR C LE M E NTS (1970) — Florida’s most fabled fiddler shows
off his dexterous fingers and command of tradition in this collection, which includes tracks like “Florida Waltz” and “Tampa Waltz.” The Kinard native, known as the “father of hillbilly jazz,” got his break at 14 when he first played with Bill Monroe’s band. Before he died in 2005, he had played with Paul McCartney, the Grateful Dead and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with whom he fiddled on the classic album Will the Circle be Unbroken.
Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, LYNYR D
S KYNYR D (1973) — The triple-guitar powerhouse fronted by charismatic singer and lyricist Ronnie Van Zant rocketed out of Jacksonville with a classic debut album that winks at the band’s unusual name (a riff on Leonard Skinner, the band members’ gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School). “Free Bird,” the anthem written to honor Duane Allman, became a Bic-flicking concert favorite, but Van Zant’s soulful lyricism made “Tuesday’s Gone” and “Simple Man” indispensable.
Seminole Wind, J O H N AN D E R S O N (1992) — The Palatka native penned an all-time Florida classic with the title track, which could replace the antique “Old Folks at Home” as the state song. The singer name-checks Okeechobee and Micanopy, watches “the eagles fly and the otters play,” laments that “the Glades are going dry” and hears “the ghost of Osceola cry.” It’s maximum Florida.
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Get On Up and Dance,
Q UAD C ITY DJ’S (1996) — In Jacksonville’s gift to ’90s Southern hip-hop, Jay Ski, C.C. Lemonhead and JeLana LaFleur burned up the disco floor with their hit “C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train),” a funky successor to Ski and Lemonhead’s previous smash “Whoot, There It Is.”
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The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted “Wrong-Eyed Jesus,”
J I M W H ITE (1997) — The Panhandle singersongwriter found his unique, and uniquely twisted, voice after an adolescence shaped by drugs and Pentecostal holyrolling. Escaping the Gulf Coast for film school and cab driving in New York City, he brought it all back to Pensacola in this debut album, full of off-kilter story-songs (“A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes”) and gothic reveries.
Lochloosa, JJ G R EY AN D M O FR O (2004) — Few acts evoke that swampy Floridian wilderness like these Jacksonville groove specialists. “I swear it’s 10,000 degrees in the shade/ Lord have mercy knows, how much I love it/ Every mosquito every rattlesnake …” frontman Grey sings on an album that’s a passionate cry on behalf of a troubled landscape. The Complete Early Recordings, 1949–1952, RAY C HAR LE S (2011) — Brother Ray, whose loss of eyesight as a child consigned him to the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, bounced around Florida before his career took off in the early 1950s. Hear his earliest sides, the first few recorded in Tampa, on this swinging compilation, as he built up to the atomic breakthrough of “I Got a Woman” in 1954.
Trouble with a Capital T: 1980s Punk and Underground Music from Florida’s Capital City, VAR I O US ARTI STS (2018) — The 15 bands on this rowdy
compilation— including the Slut Boys, Hated Youth and Paisley Death Camp— run the gamut from boozy garage rock to snarling hardcore punk to spiky new wave, often shaped by a distinct Panhandle perspective. It’s a monument to the Southern punk rock movement no one expected.
Signs, TE D E S C H I TR U C KS
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BAN D (2019) — Guitar
phenomenon Derek Trucks and bluesbelting guitarist Susan Tedeschi carry the promise and the torch, ignited by the Allman Brothers Band, of Southern rock. This latest album from Jacksonville’s husbandand-wife duo reflects on painful mortal loss with an inclusive touch that pulls together jazz, blues and rock sources with brassy arrangements, soulful grit and stinging guitar.
CentralFlorida Out of Hand, GARY STE WART (1975) — The performer of the immortal country hit “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” got his break when Nashville legend Mel Tillis caught his show at an Okeechobee roadhouse. This album is Stewart at his peak, a honky-tonk milestone that lives anywhere a shot of whiskey, the sorrow of infidelity and a good jukebox can be found.
Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with the Rootettes,
R O OT B OY S LI M (1978) — The greasy-grooving Orlando satirist was the auteur behind keg party classics like “Boogie ’til You Puke” and “Mood Ring.” But it’s the cautionary saga “In Jail in Jacksonville” that deserves to be a Sunshine State standard.
You and Your Sister, TH E V U LGAR B OATM E N
(1989; reissued 2015) — This Gainesvillespawned cult favorite has its strength in University of Florida media studies professor Robert Ray and founding member Walter Salas-Humara, who went on to lead The Silos. The band’s best-known album is full of the scruffy poetry and guitar jangles that made rock stars of fellow travelers like R.E.M. and the Replacements.
Altars of Madness, M O R B I D AN G E L (1989) — Tampa can take pride in some notable accomplishments: its cigars, the piratethemed cosplay of its annual Gasparilla celebration and death metal. That last item likely won’t show up in any tourism brochures, but it brands the city as a unique site in music history. Tampa is home to Temple Terrace’s Morrisound Recording—at once the mecca and ground zero for the gnarliest of dark metal bands. Cannibal Corpse, Deicide and Obituary are among the best-known, but Morbid Angel is perhaps the most seminal.
Smells Like Children, MAR I LYN
MAN S O N (1995) —Everyone in Florida knows someone who went to Broward Community College with the shock-rocker, known as Brian Warner, who produced his first albums in South Florida.
Sacred Steel: Traditional Sacred African-American Steel Guitar Music in Florida, VAR I O US ARTI STS (1997) — Smoking-hot gospel played with finger slides on steel guitars has been a musical
tradition in black churches since the 1930s. This archival compilation celebrates the robust Floridian branch of the genre, whose most popular present-day exponents include Miami’s The Lee Boys.
Millennium, BAC KSTR E ET B OYS (1999) — Orlando’s ambassadors to the teen-pop masses owned the known universe with their third album and the single “I Want It That Way.” It’s a different world now, where megahits arise out of viral media like genies from a bottle. But once upon a time in Central Florida, this was the pinnacle of a pop revolution. Aurora, SAM R I V E R S AN D TH E R I V B EA O R C H E STRA (2005) — Visionary saxophonist and composer Sam Rivers spent his twilight years in Orlando, where a stirring late-career phase saw the jazz firebrand coaleasce this large ensemble, the RivBea Orchestra.
Drop on Down in Florida: Field Recordings of African American Traditional Music 1977–1980, VAR I O US
ARTI STS (2012) — This essential two-CD and book set doubles the amount of music from the historic 1981 recordings put out by the Florida Folklife Program in collaboration with the State Archives of Florida. The music touches on everything from the holy—seven-shape-note Sacred Harp singing, echoing at a Panhandle church convention—to the low-down, like Pahokee bluesman Emmett Murray’s lament, “Drinkin’ Bad Bad Whiskey.”
The Moon Rang Like a Bell, H U N D R E D
WATE R S (2014) — Born in Gainesville eight years ago, the electronic group created its own brand of trippy, intimate and strangely captivating pop that some critics called “digital folk.” The band’s sophomore release is a triumph of interior moods and dreamy splashes of melody and texture that suggests an entirely new Florida sound.
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SouthFlorida Mr. Cha Cha Cha, R E NÉ TO UZ ET AN D H I S O R C H E STRA (1959) — The obscure Cuban dance band leader earned his place in music history with his groundbreaking track “El Loco Cha Cha.” In 1956, R&B singer Richard Berry lifted its beat and wrote a little song called “Louie Louie”—with a riff that then became pretty much the greatest in rock ’n’ roll. Also: Desi Arnaz, Cuban ex-pat and television pioneer, played with Touzet.
Fred Neil, FR E D N E I L
(1966) — The songwriter is best known for “Everybody’s Talkin,’” a hit for Harry Nilsson and the theme song of Midnight Cowboy. His second solo album also features “The Dolphins,” a widely recorded ballad with a longing refrain: “I’ve been searchin’/ For the dolphins in the sea/ And sometimes I
wonder/ Do you ever think of me?” After reluctant stardom on the ’60s folk scene, Neil dropped out and circled home to his native South Florida—and those dolphins, to whose cause he was devoted for the rest of his days.
The Weird World of Blowfly, B LO W FLY (1971) — The alter ego of Miami record producer and R&B artist Clarence Reid, Blowfly was an outrageous, cape-wearing parodist whose obscene and hilarious versions of pop and R&B hits by James Brown, Otis Redding and endless others set new standards for bad taste while setting the table for generations of rap performers.
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, J I M MY B U FFETT (1973) — The first album in the Gulf Coast native’s Key West phase now plays something like the origin story of Parrothead Nation. The massive mainstream success of “Margaritaville”—and decades of lifestyle branding—was four years away when Buffett made this rum-soaked ode to poor decisionmaking (“Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” “The
Great Filling Station Holdup”) and colorful character studies (“He Went to Paris”).
461 Ocean Boulevard, E R I C C LAPTO N
(1974) — The English blues-rock guitarist was known as “God” during a heyday in the supergroups Cream, the Bluesbreakers and Derek and the Dominos (which also featured Duane Allman). But he fell to earth, shook a three-year heroin addiction and sought refuge in Golden Beach, recording this classic album at Miami’s Criteria Studios (where he and Allman recorded “Layla”). The collection’s simmering, laid-back vibe reflects the coastal influence, while hits like “I Shot the Sheriff” (a remake of reggae prophet Bob Marley’s original) and “Mainline Florida” speak for themselves. Criteria was at its peak during the era, serving as a sonic getaway for Southern California bands like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, who recorded two of the decade’s biggest albums there: Hotel California and Rumours.
Danger High Voltage, B ETTY W R I G HT (1974) — A stone classic from Miami’s
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queen of soul, its songs slip easily between seductive invitations (“Tonight Is the Night”) and undeniable party anthems (“Everybody Was Rockin’”), with a healthy dose of New Orleans syncopated strut (“Shoorah! Shoorah!”) mixed in—all sung by the 21-year-old artist, aka Bessie Regina Norris. Some 45 years on, the album spins as a pinnacle of the fabled sound fostered by Henry Stone and Steve Alaimo’s Hialeah-based TK Records, a seminal disco powerhouse whose roster included George McCrae, KC & the Sunshine Band, Gwen McCrae, Jimmy “Bo” Horne and Anita Ward.
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KC and the Sunshine Band, KC AN D TH E SU N S H I N E BAN D (1975) — Do a little dance. Make a little love. Get down tonight. The album taps into the essence of the 1970s disco era, as voiced by Miami’s chart-busting boogie crew.
Live at the Button, C HAR LI E P I C KETT AN D TH E
E G G S (1982) — Recorded over two nights in Fort Lauderdale, the album is a bar-band blowout from South Florida’s garage-rock heroes, whose furious performances mixed rockabilly, blues and punk into a dangerous and desperate call to misadventure.
Miami Vice (Music from the Television Series), VAR I O US ARTI STS (1985) — Not exactly the greatest piece of Florida music, Jan Hammer’s theme for the ’80s television phenomenon is at least iconic, its volleys of synthetic percussion and cascading keyboards conjuring visions of pink flamingos, speeding cigarette boats and bouncing bikini bottoms. The show also reframed the reverberant drums of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight,” now and forever, as an expression of dock-dwelling cop Sonny Crockett’s existential angst (as portrayed by actor Don Johnson).
Primitive Love, G LO R IA E STE FAN AN D M IAM I S O U N D MAC H I N E (1985) — “If you want to do the conga, you’ve got to listen to the beat,” might be the best party advice ever dispensed, and Florida’s reigning Latina pop diva made it a universal mantra on her band’s Englishlanguage breakthrough. The group was no
overnight success: The singer first met and performed with the band (then known as Miami Latin Boys), and her future husband Emilio Estefan Jr., a decade before at a wedding.
As Nasty As They Wanna Be, 2 LI V E C R E W
(1989) — It’s 2 Live Crew
and leader Luther Campbell’s ribald opus, which put the “dirty” in Dirty South hip-hop. The parental advisory classic was the first album to be declared legally obscene, by a federal judge not amused by thumping Miami bass bangers like “Me So Horny.” The verdict was overturned in a historic First Amendment case. But Campbell didn’t win every day in court: Star Wars creator George Lucas successfully sued to make Campbell change the name of his company, Skyywalker Records.
Flight to Freedom, ARTU R O SAN D O VAL
(1991) — Sandoval was a force behind the great contemporary Cuban jazz ensemble Irakere and then left for the United States in 1990, aided by his idol and friend, Dizzy Gillespie. The trumpeter’s distinguished American career began with this album of Latin-seasoned ballads and bop.
What’s My Name, DJ U N C LE AL (1993) — Miami DJ and producer Albert Moss (1969–2001), better known as DJ Uncle Al, was the godfather of Miami hip-hop and an activist for nonviolence. He died in a tragic shooting the day before 9/11. These rapidfire club tracks mix booty anthems with calls for “Peace-N-Da-Hood.”
Harry Pussy, HAR RY P USSY (1993) — The original Florida noise duo, composed of guitarist Bill Orcutt and drummer Adris Hoya, put Miami on the map as a city of more than Cuban dance bands, smooth jazz and rump-shaking bass. During the 1990s, they melted faces at grungy venues like Churchill’s Pub in Liberty City. Their debut album bears wrecking-ball witness with 20 minutes of unrestricted caterwaul. Master Sessions, Volume 1, CAC HAO
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(1994) — Masterful Cuban jazz bassist Israel Cachao López was no mere mambo king. He helped invent the form. After decades as an exile and a slide into the shadows, the Miami-based legend came back to prominence with this album, compiled by actor Andy García and laden with a Grammy.
The Creek Drank the Cradle, I R O N & W I N E (2002) — Miami International University of Art & Design film professor Sam Beam, better known by the stage name Iron & Wine, became an indie sensation with this contemplative debut of rustic, postmillennial American folk music. Beam didn’t linger in academe, or Florida, once his career took off, but these songs still possess a quiet allure.
Port of Miami, R I C K R O SS (2006) — Chronicling South Florida drug culture in a thick baritone over dramatic syntheiszed orchestration and insistent beats that never let go, the Liberty City rap kingpin redefined Florida hip-hop with his debut album, Scarface-style. Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label, VAR I O US
ARTI STS (2006) — An unexpected legacy of Florida A&M University’s Marching 100 band abides in this compilation of 1960s Miami soul hits and near-misses, which honors the pioneering African American record label founded by an inventive team of band alumni.
Meanderthal, TO R C H E (2008) — Don’t
misunderstand this outfit, hailed by Spin magazine as “the heaviest non-metal band in Miami.” Fifteen years after its formation, the group continues to subvert expectations, crafting big melodies with a fireball crunch not easily contained by metal’s colorful categories. This early album blends metal, punk, blues and psychedelia into a heady melodic brew that hammers, broods and exalts.
Astro Coast, SU R FE R B LO O D (2010) — After a decade of making music, the West Palm Beach group remains one of Florida’s most enduring indie rock acts. The band’s debut is packed with beachy vibes, melodic guitar hooks and plaintive, ruminating lyrics (“The tide will break in on itself./ There are no ghosts to exhume or unearth”).
Moonlight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), N I C H O LAS B R ITE LL (2016) — As
gorgeous, hypnotic and heartbreaking as the Miami movie it accompanies, this chamber music score of mostly strings and keyboards is inseparable from director Barry Jenkins’ landscape of struggle and desire.
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masterwork s FLORIDA’S MUSEUMS RETURN TO SERIOUS PLACES OF REFLECTION AND INSPIRATION BY DITCHING CROWD-PLEASING BLOCKBUSTER SHOWS FOR CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ART BY E R IC BA R TON
Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens (JACKSONVILLE) Lumber barons from Michigan, the Cummer family ran a company that once was Florida’s largest landowner, with a Tudor mansion on Riverside Avenue in Jacksonville. The home would become a museum in 1961, and after adding several buildings to the property, the Cummer Museum now has a collection of over 5,000 works and seven special collections. FLAMINGOMAG.COM /// FA L L 2 0 1 9
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Magnetic Fields by Jacksonville native Mildred Thompson was added to the Cummer Museum’s permanent collection earlier this year. 1990, oil on canvas
CUMMER MUSEUM OF ART & GARDENS, BR ANDON KIDWELL
CURRENTLY ON VIEW
in a Selfie World
Adam Levine, director and CEO of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens
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After taking over in Fort Lauderdale in 2013, Bonnie Clearwater set out to properly catalog the museum’s vast collections.
The echoing click of her heels on the terrazzo floors served as a backbeat to the tour she has just given me of the institution’s collection, and the sudden silence provides a dramatic effect. It is this piece of art, the museum’s curator explains, that inspires the entire show. The wall stretches probably 15 feet wide and twice as tall, and it appears to be quite nearly empty. Perhaps she’s about to explain that the piece has been removed for cleaning. You’d be forgiven for thinking Clearwater was joking. Wearing an ankle-length fish-print dress and a short-cropped haircut that gives her the air of a SoHo artist, Clearwater lifts up her hand and holds it parallel to the floor, as if balancing a teacup. Above her palm is a small placard. Black aluminum with a silver border and matching letters, it looks like a simple nameplate that would hang outside an office. Its message also
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happens to be the name of the show currently on display: “Remember to React.” Neo-conceptual artist Jenny Holzer made the piece in 1984. Holzer made a name for herself by printing and projecting messages on New York City buildings. Clearwater says not long after taking the job running the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale in 2013, she discovered the piece in the museum’s permanent collection. The museum possesses some 7,000 works, including the largest collection of the works of American painter William J. Glackens and the nation’s largest collection of COBRA works, products of a European avant-garde movement that sprung up after the Second World War. Clearwater, 62, had every piece pulled out of storage, photographed and recorded. The process allowed her to consider how the pieces might go together, ways in which she might
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be able to present them to the public with a clear theme. When Clearwater came to the Holzer piece, the message struck her. In this always-connected era, where we lose ourselves in our phones instead of what’s really in front of us, Clearwater appreciated the reminder to react, to process the thing we’re experiencing. Around that singular piece, she built a show that demonstrated how artists influence each other, how they react to the art of their time.
STEVEN BROOKE , GARY JAMES
Bonnie Clearwater pauses next to a stark white wall near the entrance of Fort Lauderdale’s art museum.
“There’s no aesthetic to it,” Clearwater explains. “Ultimately, its purpose is to be a sign.” The purpose of the sign, and of the show altogether, is to ask people to rethink how they define art. Whether you can appreciate it or not, it’s challenging and thought-provoking and, until recently, the kind of show you might have to go out of state to find. Since the early 2000s, many of Florida’s art institutions have chased attendance figures by hosting traveling exhibits that critics often roundly reject as pandering to the masses and offering little cultural value. A new class of curators and directors at many of the state’s art museums has changed that. They talk now about reshaping their institutions
into ones that will gain critical acclaim while still, they hope, attracting the crowds. “There’s no reason to program a museum for residents and winter visitors and want them to leave their brains behind,” says Kristen A. Shepherd, executive director of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. “You can have that thought-provoking, engaging show without that cotton candy experience.” So, how do the state’s museums forge a future without gimmicks? They all say, unequivocally, it’ll be about real, high-quality art.
Opposite far left:
Clearwater curated the show “Remember to React” to remind us that art can keep us in the moment. Below:
Takashi Murakami, Cosmos Wallpaper, 2003; the NSU Art Museum exterior
NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale
ON VIEW this fall Takashi Murakami, Cosmos Wallpaper, 2003, Happy! Oct. 27, 2019 through July 5, 2020
STEVEN BROOKE, TAK ASHI MUR AK AMI
It’s often said that, no matter what hangs on its gallery walls, the finest piece of art at Fort Lauderdale’s downtown museum will be the dramatic building designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Originally founded in a Las Olas storefront in 1958, the museum now boasts a lauded permanent collection and, under Clearwater, seeks an international reputation.
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Statue of Aphrodite, Roman imperial period, 2nd century C.E., marble stands among other ancient artworks at the MFA.
T h e N e w B lo c k b uster Ma st e r piec e The Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg is Florida’s only comprehensive art museum, meaning it displays everything from classics to contemporary, covering 5,000 years of human creativity. It’s akin to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and since Margaret Acheson Stuart founded it in 1965, the MFA has also strived for the Met’s level of excellence in art. Although, lately, not as much. From November 2018 through April, the MFA filled its galleries with the traveling show Star Wars and the Power of Costume. The show first opened in Times Square in 2015 as a way to help promote a new Star Wars movie, and it has traveled the country since. In the first three months the MFA attendance doubled as people sought out Princess Leia’s gown and Darth Vader’s, well, whatever it is Darth Vader wears. The museum saw a 97 percent increase in visitors from Tampa Bay and a 123 percent jump from visitors from other parts of Florida during the run of the show. Undoubtedly the museum drew crowds, but the show is also an example of the kind of blockbusters that will become far scarcer, if not entirely absent, at Florida museums.
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Above: David Hockney, Parade, 1981,
Kristen A. Shepherd, executive director of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
The Star Wars show in St. Pete was programmed before the arrival of Shepherd, 48, hired in 2016 to take the helm of the museum. Since her arrival, the museum has stopped hosting traveling exhibitions that often aren’t about art and instead has begun programming shows that will aim to provide a scholarly perspective. But the crowds won’t disappear just because the MFA won’t be displaying blockbusters anymore, Shepherd says. During the recent
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screenprint, collection of the McNay Art Museum, gift of the Friends of the McNay. Picasso to Hockney: Art of the Stage, On view Jan. 25—May 10, 2020.
show of Jean Schlumberger jewelry, “People would literally walk in and gasp” at the beauty of the pieces, she says. People would return to the show to bring friends, and images of the jewelry were frequently posted on social media networks. She expects the same reaction at this fall’s exhibition of work by Jennifer Angus, who transforms rare insects into little pieces of art on their own. The idea is to attract the crowds without a dumbed-down
There’s no reason to program a museum for residents and winter visitors and want them to leave their brains behind. — K R I S T E N A . S H E P H E R D, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM
THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, ST. PETERSBURG, JACK OLSEN GALLERY, MCNAY ART MUSEUM
OF FINE ARTS, ST. PETERSBURG
mass-market show, by offering exhibits that provide artistic and educational value. The huge traveling shows that have filled museums in recent years have not only attracted crowds but also often become points of conversation, pop culture references, for better or worse. Perhaps the best known of the bunch is one that got its start in Florida. Bodies: The Exhibition is a traveling collection of corpses preserved and stripped of their skin to reveal the muscles and organs beneath. It opened at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa in 2005. Since then, the show claims, more than 15 million worldwide have seen it. Aside from the question of whether the show offers artistic value, it has notably garnered criticism, along with some outright bans, by states and entire countries because of concerns over the origins of the cadavers. It’s also easy to question the financial worth of the shows. Generally these spectacles require museums to turn over every dime of ticket sales, and the shows often take over every gallery, meaning the museums don’t have the chance to display items from their permanent collections. All the museums get in return is the opportunity to sell more yearly memberships and to expose a new crowd to the very idea of visiting a museum—but studies have questioned whether either of those strategies comes to fruition after traveling shows leave town. Without high-profile exhibits with massmarket appeal, Florida museums need to find new ways to engage with audiences. Across
ON VIEW this fall Jennifer Angus creates patterned “wallpaper” using exotic, dried insects. Angus will present the biggest installation of her career. Oct. 12, 2019 through Jan. 5, 2020
The Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg Margaret Acheson Stuart founded the museum in 1965 with the goal of creating an intimate and elegant space, and it quickly became a city landmark. The museum hired Kristen A. Shepherd as its head in 2016, three decades after she had visited as a middleschooler—her first time in an art museum.
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Are we telling our community what they should think of as art, or are we asking our community what they think? I think it should be both. — M I C H A E L TO M O R , EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TAMPA MUSEUM OF ART
Above: In Tampa, Michael Tomor
the bay at the Tampa Museum of Art, director Michael Tomor is introducing a new series featuring visiting masterpieces. The idea is a single work so significant that it should be a draw on its own, a one-piece blockbuster. This fall, the Tampa Museum will display a piece by Jean-Michel Basquiat, who went from graffiti artist to neo-expressionist. It gives Tomor and the museum a chance to talk about the black American experience, how found objects can become art and the larger socio-economic and political issues raised by the late artist’s work. Aside from the potential crowds, Tomor says the idea behind the visiting masterpiece is quite simple: to provide a possible moment of inspiration. When he was a boy in El Paso,
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Texas, Tomor went on an elementary school field trip to the local art museum. Hanging on the walls were works full of rich colors and shapes that looked nothing like the world he knew before. “El Paso is extremely colorful— but it’s 5,000 shades of brown,” Tomor jokes. The moment he saw those masterpieces, Tomor knew he would work in the art world. After arriving in Tampa in 2011, Tomor gave an interview to the Tampa Bay Times that might have alarmed serious art aficionados. Tomor said that museums needed to act more like the Golden Corral, providing a lot of art for not a lot of money. “Nobody is selling the Golden Corral as fine dining,” Tomor, 56, says now, when asked about that comment. Likewise,
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museums, he says, need to balance the art that will be lauded by critics and serious art experts with the kinds of shows that will bring in families and those who might otherwise rarely visit a museum. “Are we telling our community what they should think of as art, or are we asking our community what they think?” Tomor says. “I think it should be both.” There’s no doubt far more people will come to the museum next year for the display of Egyptian antiquities than for that single piece. But Tomor imagines the Basquiat might provide a moment like the one he had as a child, where a one-piece show just might inspire someone to discover a new world of art.
GABRIELE BURGOS
hopes to attract crowds with a novel “one-work show” of visiting masterpieces, like that of JeanMichel Basquiat.
Tampa Museum of Art While the museum owns one of the largest Greek and Roman antiquities collections in the southeast, it’s also chasing modern art and hosting it in a dramatic new building opened in 2010. The space was designed by architect Stanley Saitowitz to look like “an electronic jewel box,” a dramatic image even for those who don’t wander inside.
on view this fall William Wegman Waiting for Dinner, 1988 Dye Diffusion, Polaroid Polacolor II. 34 x 27 inches
RICHARD BARNES , WILLIAM WEGMAN
A G oa l : R e al Ar t on Displ ay Adam Levine first set down the path of becoming a museum director after taking a work-study job in college at Dartmouth’s art museum. Over the next three years working in the museum’s public relations and exhibitions departments, Levine saw how museums can make great art accessible. Levine went on to get his doctorate in art history at Oxford. There, he had access to the Ashmolean, the world’s oldest university museum, opened in the 1600s. Levine, 33, says the museum provided “education for the studious and entertainment for the curious”—a goal he says should be adopted by all art museums.
Since January 2019, Levine has served as director and CEO of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, and it’s a constant point of awe for him that he spends his day among works of art that “can move you,” just walking by them throughout the day. Levine’s schedule for the Cummer doesn’t include a stop by traveling blockbusters. Like his peers in the new crop of museum directors around the state, Levine says he figures quality art will bring in attendees. He laughs when he says that, because he recognizes it should be an obvious thing to think quality first, but it hasn’t been true for many of the biggest Florida museum shows in recent years. What we’ve seen here in Florida has actually
been something of a worldwide phenomenon of late, as art museums put up shows that critics say sacrifice quality for the sake of attendance figures. In 2018, Slate magazine published an article declaring, “Blockbuster Shows Are Ruining Art Museums.” In Florida, the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is perhaps the museum to have benefitted most from these circus-like shows. It hosted a trio of crowd-pleasing exhibits, starting in 2003 with treasures from the Vatican, Princess Diana’s gowns a year later and then a King Tut exhibit that sold 750,000 tickets. To put that into perspective, the Cummer had 140,000 visits all of last year. Fort Lauderdale’s era of blockbusters ended when Clearwater arrived. “They knew what they were getting with me,” Clearwater says. “The board … really let me rip.” She says museums’ experiments with headline-grabbing exhibits showed there was little benefit—the crowds didn’t return, yearly ticket sales didn’t materialize and visitors learned little.
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CURRENTLY ON VIEW Coming Soon: Film posters from the Dwight M. Cleveland Collection Through Oct. 29, 2019
Norton Museum of Art (west palm beach) Industrialist Ralph Hubbard Norton created South Florida’s first art museum when he displayed his own collection for the public in 1941 in an Art Deco building. After decades of growth and years of construction, the museum expanded in Feb. 2019, adding an auditorium, restaurant and great hall to serve as its “living room.”
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Instead, museums across Florida are trying to retool crowd-pleasing shows with works that also earn critical acclaim. Levine hopes to offer something he thinks will be far more thought-provoking, like next year’s Outdoor Girls, 1800 to 1960 show, which will trace the history of women’s athletic wear fashion. “It goes without saying that we want to drive attendance to the museum,” Levine says. “But the bottom line for me is that the number of people coming to the museum year after year should visit the permanent collections and the gardens.” The trick, he says, is to figure out how to evoke that reaction in his patrons. There’s no doubt the non-art-focused shows touring worldwide nowadays attract more visitors, but Levine says his job is to expose people to quality art. From June until September, the Cummer hosted the show French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850–1950. It included 65 works that served as examples of the avant-garde movement that helped define modern art in the last century. The piece that stood out for Levine, even above those by Matisse, Monet and Rodin, was The Critic by Hungarian painter Lajos Tihanyi. It’s a portrait of a man whose harsh features display a morose expression, and it seems to beg the viewer to question what’s troubling the subject. Levine says it’s an example of how a piece by a lesser-known artist can define the worth of a show. “Quality doesn’t care about brand or the name of the artist,” he explains.
TOM TR ACY, CAPEHART PHOTOGR APHY, C . J. WALKER
For the Masses, Without the Pandering On a recent summer day at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, a little boy ran across a gallery room, laughing. He headed for a picture of a tree by Tacita Dean, so big it’s almost lifelike, scraggly gray branches jutting out like unkempt hair, its unattached trunk seeming to levitate. Watching from across the room was Elliot Botswick Davis, director of the museum. She couldn’t help but feel moved when the boy asked his mom to get his photo in front of the image. “It was so joyful and excited,” Davis recalls.
Above from left: Elliot Botswick Davis, director of the
Norton Museum of Art, says a museum’s goal should be to become “central to the human experience”; Fernand Leger’s Le Tournesol (The Sunflower), 1952
“He put his hands up over his head and said, “Look, I’m so big!’” The moment was an example of what Davis says museums must strive to do: give patrons a visceral reaction, a sense of joy if possible. While struggling with this idea of balancing crowd-pleasing exhibits with more refined art, Davis says her goal at the West Palm Beach museum is to find a way for art to resonate in the community, to become, she says, “central to the human experience.” By June of 2019, the Norton crossed the mark of 100,000 visitors, more than it had seen in the entire previous year. It was undoubtedly good news for the museum, and Davis says a large reason for it is that the Norton has reacted to what people want to see, without offering them critically panned blockbusters. She says the best example is the Norton’s portraiture exhibit, featuring 60 early daguerreotypes, pictures taken with silver plates and mercury, and shots by well-known modern photographers. In this era of selfies, Davis says
the works resonate with those used to seeing such images in a far more pedestrian setting, such as social media. The show was a crowdpleaser, and patrons often snapped photos of themselves in front of the portraits. That might seem bleak; the only reaction we have to art is that we should be standing in front of it for a photo. But Davis says there’s a far less cynical response. These days all museums are struggling to define their Instagram policy, and she says the more liberal rules mean museums can expose more people to art and allow them to interact with it in ways that simply didn’t exist just a few years ago. After just months on the job at the Norton, Davis has begun redefining the museum’s role. Instead of just a museum gala centered around a night of dressing up, she’s envisioning a week of project talks, art-making workshops and events honoring female philanthropists and their role in the art world. There will, she promises, be lots of Instagrammable moments.
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Riding f Lightning By JAMIE RICH // Photography by ROBERT SEBREE
stand-up Comic Bert Kreischer is a proud “florida man,” blowing up the comedy scene on his body shots world TOUR, with shows in the sunshine State this fall.
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omedian and Tampa native Bert Kreischer got his start serendipitously in 1997 when a reporter from Rolling Stone arrived on Florida State University’s campus to write a story about the No. 1 party school in America. What the writer found was a crude and endearing force majeure, holding court in every bar in Tallahassee, skipping class, drinking beers like water and inciting laughter up and down sorority row. The resulting article would name Bert the top partier in America and ignite a 20-year career in entertainment including multiple Travel Channel hosting gigs, a cooking show, a popular podcast, two Netflix comedy specials and, oh yeah, a world tour selling out theaters in Sydney, London, Los Angeles and everywhere in between. Also known as the Machine (for a bit about a class trip he took to Russia—check out the now viral clip), Bert brings his Body Shots world tour through the Sunshine State this fall. Flamingo Editor in Chief Jamie Rich caught up with Bert to find out what has happened since that notorious Rolling Stone article struck his career like a Florida flash of lightning.
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Hopefully, one of my daughters goes to Florida State, and then it’ll be a reason for me to go back to the school. I’ll get the chairman’s box. Waste a ton of money.
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This page from top: Kreischer is currently on his Body Shots world tour; Kreischer with his dad and two sisters; the article that started it all
Before I reached out, I asked my sorority sisters at Florida State for stories, and they reminded me how you used to rearrange our furniture and serenade us in the dining room with your shirt off—some things haven’t changed. BK: I have such a connection to that Tri Delt house. I literally was just telling my daughters. They were talking about sorority houses. I said, “You know what’s so funny? I was in a relationship, and I got cheated on. And one of my best friends was a Tri Delt, Erica Youngblood.” I said, “I went to that Tri Delt house every single day. I would eat lunch there, I would hang out in the annex. Literally, that was my safe space for an entire semester.” And [my daughters] go, “You’re like a sorority girl?” And I go, “No, guys.
You’re missing the point.” Hopefully, one of my daughters goes to Florida State, and then it’ll be a reason for me to go back to the school. I’ll get the chairman’s box. Waste a ton of money. One of your first stand-up shows was at Potbelly’s Bar? BK: I’m looking at that picture right now, oddly enough. My girlfriend at the time, Kristen, wrote “Bert 4/97 First Stand-up Routine Tallahassee.” And it’s a picture of me at Potbelly’s. [That night] I ran into one of the guys I was doing that show with, Kristian Harloff. I got a beer when I got there, and he stops me and says, “Hey man. I know you’re doing this for your first time, so I’ll give you just a little bit of insight.” And he goes, “I wouldn’t drink that beer because if you drink it, you’re going to always need to drink a beer before you go onstage. You should do it sober.” It’s the greatest advice I ever got in my career. I’m always sober onstage. That’s what people are buying the tickets for. living in LA, How often are you back in Florida? BK: I’m in Florida once a year for like 10 days. My parents own a beach house in Clearwater Beach. I love running at sunset on the beach. It’s one of my favorite things in the world. I’ve been out of Florida for so long that I forget certain things that are just Florida. One time, I went running in the middle of the afternoon, and I ran one direction down to the end of Caladesi Island, turned around and ran back. I forgot, in the middle of every afternoon in Florida, there’s a fucking thunderstorm, and I’m like, “Oh, shit. Where’s my Florida senses, my Spidey senses?” What other favorite Florida things do you love? BK: I love those Publix sandwiches they have that are just massive. In Clearwater Beach there’s a Clearwater paddleboard company. I buy something new every single day. I’m like, oh, you can’t get flip-flops like this in LA. The hats here are better than in LA. I love cigars. Growing up in Tampa, everyone had cafe
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con leche and a cigar in the morning. And so I feel I earned the right to smoke cigars. At sunset, go for a jog, come home, glass of wine, cigar, eat grouper. You know the place you can find real grouper because they just caught it that day, none of that store-bought shit, right on the docks. I’m telling you, man, they may say it as a slur, but I will always be a Florida man. That’s awesome. Are there any Florida stories you haven’t told on stage? BK: I’ve always wanted to tell that story of watching that kid get struck by lightning at Publix. you saw a kid get struck by lightning? BK: Oh my God. It was a thunderstorm. This was the one Publix by us, and me and my dad were walking in and there was a kid going out to collect shopping carts. My dad literally looks at me, and he’s like, “Buddy, that’s called natural selection.” And the kid gets all the shopping carts. We’d literally just walked into the Publix, right by that green scale, right? Then whack! Shopping carts are scattered like cockroaches. The kid’s laying on the ground smoldering. I remember some lady going, “We should go get him,” and some other lady’s like, “Don’t go out there. There’s lightning out there,” like it’s a shark, right? What happened to him? BK: So, all of a sudden, the kid stands up, starts walking in and the old ladies are like, “Oh, dear.” He starts walking up. The two glass doors open almost like at a Broadway show. He looks at the whole room. This is 1982. He says, “What happened?” Like, “What happened, you’re allergic to donuts? What do you think happened? Your jewelry melted into you ... your nametag. You got struck by lightning, bro.” And this was at the time when Jim and Tammy Baker were really big. And in Tampa, everyone was saved. Everyone kept going, “Did you see the [heavenly] lights?” And my dad’s like, “Come on, buddy.” We were going to go shopping. And I go, “Hold on one second.” Ten years old, new to the neighborhood in downtown Lutz, North Tampa, I lean into this circle looking at this kid. They’re praying on him. And I lean in and go, “Do you think you
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The day Jimmy Buffett gets on stage and says, “Anyone who voted for Hillary get out of this room!”— that’s the day I stop going to Jimmy Buffett concerts.
have any superhuman powers?” My dad’s like, “Shut the fuck up. Why would you even bring that up? Come on. Let’s go.” But, yeah, I’ve got to figure that story out on stage.
LUCKY STRIKE You’re selling out shows around the world. How have you built a global fan base? BK: You know, it’s so funny. I think it was The Machine story going viral, the Netflix special [Secret Time] coupled with the podcast and just always being in everyone’s ear. When you’re an unknown comic, you literally are knocking on everyone’s digital door every day going, “Check out my content. Come see me do stand-up.” And so when the Netflix special came out, that was a game changer. So how did you land the Netflix special? BK: I would say I’m the luckiest man in the world. Like going from not studying in school to getting discovered by Rolling Stone, to getting a career in comedy, getting discovered by Will Smith—I mean all these weird things that have happened to me. I was doing stand-up, wasn’t really on the radar of Netflix. A guy named Robbie Praw is the head of Netflix stand-up comedy. He was coming through customs in Canada, and the guy at customs said to him, “What’s your business here?” He said, “I work for Netflix.” The guy goes, “What are you doing for Netflix?” He goes, “I’m shooting a comedy special.” Then the guy at customs said, “You got to do a special with the Machine.” So [soon after] Robbie Praw is on a flight from DC to LA shooting a Dave Chappelle special. But I happen to be at the DC Improv that week. Robbie Praw sat caddy-corner to me on the flight. I said hi to him when we landed, and he was like, “You know what? I’ve run into this guy twice. I should check out his comedy.” He watched The Machine and was like, “All right. Let’s do a special.” So it is sliding doors. It’s just luck. How did the special change your career’s trajectory? BK: I was in New York. It dropped at midnight, and I was walking down the street, and I just noticed people were looking at
me. I was like, “Holy shit. It seems like—is my fly down?” I was on the front page of Netflix and I heard people going, “Hey, I’m going to watch your special tonight.” And I was like, “Oh, cool.” And then it was really bizarre, and then friends were texting me, “Dude, you’re on Netflix.” So then we announced my first theater tour ever. I put the theater tour on sale. I don’t expect any change in my business. Tickets go on sale at 10 o’clock, and my wife came in, and she’s like, “Boston sold out like in 15 minutes. They want to add a show.” And so then, I get out of the shower and get in bed and my agent calls me. He’s like, “We’re adding like 7 shows today. We’re thinking about adding another 15.” This spread:
Kreischer as a child at home in Tampa; the cover art for Kreischer’s book, Life of the Party; Kreischer singing the National Anthem at the Braves game in Altanta
You tap into the nostalgia of college days with stories you still tell, and people really connect with that. BK: I think [my college friends] so informed who I am as a person. I found out I was funny at Florida State. That’s when I decided I was going to do comedy. I remember, going back to Atlanta, this place called the Funny Bar. And I was trying to be edgy or whatever. And I remember my buddy who was there going like, “Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with that new joke you’re doing. You should just go back to Bert.”
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[people on] both sides of that issue are going to equally cringe. Not to say I’m pandering to both sides of the audience, because there’s nothing wrong as a comic with just being funny. People are going through real shit—just be funny. If you voted for Trump and you go to my show, I think you should laugh. If you voted for Hillary and come to my show, I think you should laugh. If you like Bernie, I think you should laugh. The day Jimmy Buffett gets on stage and says, “Anyone who voted for Hillary get out of this room!”— that’s the day I stop going to Jimmy Buffett concerts.
You’re so open and honest about your wild days. And now you have teenage daughters. Do you ever hesitate about what you put out there as a dad? BK: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have this sex bit with my wife. And I’m like, “Oh, my daughters are going to see all of this.” And so I definitely have reservations at times, but for the most part, everything’s on the table. If it’s funny, I believe that other people have also gone through it, and they connect with it. There’s one instance—I’ll just say it’s about puberty with Isla—one of the hardest times I’ve ever laughed. And in the middle of my whole family laughing, Isla looks up and goes, “Yo, this doesn’t go on stage.” And I respect that. I’m definitely cognizant that they’re going to be grownups and have to live their lives as well. So I don’t want to try to ruin that, but I do want to pay for college, so. This page:
Kreischer’s big break came when his comedy special Secret Time aired on Netlfix in 2018; Kreischer on CONAN in 2018
Along with giggling and having a blast with other big-name comics on your podcast, at times you delve into issues like race, freedom of speech and the #MeToo movement. it’s hard to tell, though, where you land on the issues. BK: I think, as a comic, your responsibility should be to equally weigh both sides of any issue and then try to find out what’s funny. I get turned off by comics that are just one-sided. I have a bit about buying a gun right now that I think perfectly explains my politics. When they hear the bit, I think
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So you’re a Jimmy Buffett fan? BK: Oh, I’ve been dying to get him on my podcast because I feel like Jimmy Buffett’s thumbprint, his lifestyle, was so embedded in our DNA as Floridians that even who I am today, there are hints (obviously, few and far between artistically), but hints of Jimmy Buffett. I mean, people come to my shows and party and tap out and go, “We’re having a good time.”
TEQUILA TALKING Speaking of tapping out, this will be your third sober October. HOW DID THAT ALL COME ABOUT? BK: I really think Sober October is what makes the podcasts special. I was going to a Rockies game in Denver, and I was texting with three of my best friends: Joe Rogan,
People started texting us going, “I did Sober October with you, and I just got off opioids.” Or “I quit smoking,” or “I just got healthy, I lost 100 pounds.” It was really inspirational.
Tom Segura and Ari Shaffir. I was drinking at the time, and Joe was like, “How long do you think you could stop drinking?” And I was like, “90 days easy-peasy.” And he was like, “Bullshit.” And everyone started putting bets on it. Later, we went in to do a podcast, and Joe asked me how much I drink. And I thought I needed to be honest, which I’ve always done when podcasting because otherwise you get caught up in lies. So I said, “I usually drink about nine tequilas and Southerns in a night.” Nine tequilas every night?! BK: Now, Segura knows I drink doubles so those are 18 drinks technically. And Joe goes, “You can’t live like that.” And it gets very serious, and that’s how Sober October started. Joe then said, “All right, all of us are going to quit drinking.” And then we started talking about marijuana, about how much marijuana Joe uses, and he said something really telling like, “How am I supposed to enjoy my food?” I went, “All right, we all need to quit drinking and doing drugs for a month.” So, the four of us decided together to quit drinking and doing drugs for the month of October and to add some sort of physical challenge in it that would get us healthy. So we did 15 Bikram yoga sessions that first October and we didn’t do any drugs or any alcohol. And we fucking loved it. We would go to hot yoga together. We were texting nonstop. We were laughing. Our comedy was getting better. It was just a really great, great bonding month. And a bunch of fans did it along with us, and people started texting us going, “I did Sober October with you, and I just got off opioids.”
This page: Kreischer as a kid
in Tampa; The father to two teenage girls, says that he doesn’t want to “ruin their lives” with his act, but he also wants to pay for college.
Or “I quit smoking,” or “I just got healthy, I lost 100 pounds.” It was really inspirational. how did sober october impact you personally? BK: When I started drinking again, I drank exponentially less. I learned how to go to sleep without drinking. I learned how to fly without drinking, which was something I never could have done. And so it changed my life, Tom’s life, Ari’s life and Joe’s life, in different ways. So what do you do every Nov. 1? BK: We have a blowout party. Every Nov. 1 we’ve all gotten together, done a podcast, gotten the highest I’ve ever gotten in my entire life, gotten the drunkest I’ve ever gotten, and we’ve done a three-and-a-halfhour podcast together. Then we go out for steaks and just eat and none of us work out. well, What would you do with your act if you got thin? BK: Oh, you know what? Let me deal with that. God forbid. I would love to be in great shape. I would fucking love it. It’s never going to happen. The Machine would take on a new meaning. BK: I’m the fattest that I’ve ever been. I was just in Australia, and we were in Bali before that, and I’ve just been on vacation. By the way, my version of skinny is still a doctor’s version of obese. You’re still going to have some belly overhang? BK: Yeah. Netflix said, “We want to put a billboard on Sunset [Boulevard] for you,” and I was like, “Hell yeah. That makes sense.” And it was just a picture of my belly. Everyone got a picture with that. So what’s the next career step for you? BK: I came out to LA thinking I’d be an actor, so get into comedy, get into acting, do a sitcom, maybe be a movie star. And then I kind of was like, forget all that. I really don’t enjoy being on set. Then I realized, oh, I think I’d enjoy being on set if I created the project. So I have three projects right now that I’ve created that I would love to do. We’ve got one movie and two TV shows that we’ve semi-sold, but nothing’s a sure thing in LA. Stand-up’s the only thing I can promise. I can promise that I’ll be on tour. I can promise that I’m writing jokes.
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P RO M O T I O N
Fall Fête
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
B
eyond sandy beaches and bustling theme parks, the Sunshine State is home to some of the nation’s most sophisticated cultural destinations. Flamingo’s FALL FÊTE: A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture and Entertainment turns the spotlight on a diverse selection of must-see venues, celebrating visual arts, performing arts, science, botanical gardens, architecture, history and more. With so many world-class organizations dedicated to education and self-expression, the possibilities for artful adventures are endless from the Atlantic to the Gulf. We hope to inspire you to take a trip, across town or across the state, to visit one of Florida’s cultural gems.
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NIGEL YOUNG / FOSTER + PARTNERS, JACEK
This page from top: Works on display and performance artists at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach
P RO M O T I O N
Fall Fête
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 20, 2019 THROUGH JANUARY 12, 2020 ORLANDO MUSEUM OF ART & MENNELLO MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART In a co-organized exhibition, the Orlando Museum of Art and the Mennello Museum of American Art proudly present Edward Steichen: In Exaltation of Flowers. Steichen captured his world through fashion and flowers - 20 intimate black and white photographs and seven stunning gold-leaf mural paintings that previously had not been seen for 100 years. Experience and explore the luminaries of the roaring 1920s as seen through the eyes of Edward Steichen. The murals tell the story of philanthropists Agnes Ernst Meyer, Eugene Meyer, Jr. Charles Lang Freer (Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art), the mezzo soprano and dancer Mercedes de Cordoba, the artists Katharine Rhoades and Marion Beckett, and the dancer Isadora Duncan, along with their floral counterparts, inspired in part by the Symbolist writer Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1907 book The Intelligence of Flowers. The photographs feature the same friends along with multiple images of Steichen’s wife, his most beloved muse, Dana Steichen. Edward Steichen: In Exaltation of Flowers shares multiple facets of Steichen’s early work as a photographer and painter while also sharing a symbolic narrative about his circle of friends in both intimate and grand iterations. The exhibition seeks to celebrate Steichen’s genius in both mediums. TOP: Edward Steichen, In Exaltation of Flowers (detail), 1910-1913, Tempera and gold leaf on canvas. Art Bridges. © 2019 The Estate of Edward Steichen / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Art Bridges. BOTTOM: Edward Steichen, Lilac Buds: Mrs. S., 1906, Photogravure. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of Julia Marshall, 69.133.13.3. Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges.
O M A R T.O R G
MENNELLOMUSEUM.ORG
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Fall FĂŞte
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
P RO M O T I O N
Invent Yourself Visit the Cade Museum for Creativity & Invention, a museum for all ages in downtown Gainesville. cademuseum.org
Rent the Cade Host your spectacular event at the Cade. The perfect location for weddings, parties, and corporate events. cademuseum.org Photo Credit: StameyPhoto.com
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P RO M O T I O N
Fall Fête
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
A Festival as Chill as the Panhandle 30A SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL Jan. 17—20 • South Walton
SHELLY SWANGER PHOTOGR APHY
Drive the 24 miles of Florida Highway 30A with the windows down, and you'll likely catch the tunes pouring out of roadside honky-tonks, chill tropical bars and music venues with beachside views to rival resorts, places with names like Bud & Alley's, Hibiscus Backyard of Love and Shunk Gulley. It’s at these venues, 30 in all, where the 30A Songwriters Festival takes up residence every year. Forget the endless lines and behemoth stage of most festivals–here, big-name performers often do stripped-down sets to more intimate crowds. In total, 200 artists will do 300 performances at the four-day festival from Jan. 17—20. Past lineups have included Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Indigo Girls, Graham Nash, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle. But it’s not just the big-name singers that create a draw at 30A: among the performers are the songwriters who penned hits made famous by others. Proceeds benefit the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, which has spent a quartercentury improving the Panhandle’s arts community. 30asongwritersfestival.com
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Fall Fête
P RO M O T I O N
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
Lecturers
Jim, Phoebe, and Andrew Howard Interior Designers | Interior Retailers Juli Catlin Interior Designer William Nash Antiques Expert Julia Reed Southern Author
Paris iss iin Full Bloom 2019 ART & ANTIQUES SHOW
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Ray Booth Interior Designer Margot Shaw Founder/Editor in Chief, Flower Magazine Barry Dixon Interior Designer | Interior Retailer Elaine Griffin Interior Designer
JACKSONVILLE, FL
Art & antiques dealers from across the country,
Paris in Full Bloom Gala, and Children’s Fashion Show
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BENEFITING WOLFSON CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL WOMENSBOARDWCH.COM
P RO M O T I O N
Fall Fête
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
A Surprising Marriage of Art and History in St. Lucie
VISIT ST. LUCIE , ARIC AT TAS
Art can be inspired by anything. In St. Lucie, some of the most spectacular work has been created by those who found beauty and brilliance in the natural environment of this coastal region with a laid-back, Old Florida vibe. “The undeveloped beaches, the Spanish moss that creates a canopy over the St. Lucie River, the live oaks and mangroves, and the bottlenose dolphin that swim in the Indian River lagoon; all of these things play into the art and culture here,” says Charlotte Lombard Bireley, the Director of Tourism and Marketing for St. Lucie County. Art lovers visiting the area typically head first for the A.E. Backus Museum and Gallery in downtown Fort Pierce. It’s named after the self-taught American artist and Fort Pierce native, famed for his Florida landscapes. Backus, who began painting in the 1930s and died in 1990, has been called the first artist to really see the subtle beauty of natural Florida. He’s also renowned as a teacher of art. Among his protegees was Alfred Hair, also from Fort Pierce, who became a driving force behind the group of African American artists referred to as “The Florida Highwaymen” in the 1950s. The museum, located on the waterfront in historic downtown Fort Pierce, boasts the largest collection of Backus originals. The gallery also exhibits work by the Highwaymen and other artists, but mostly it’s dedicated to the work of the man who was named to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.
Visual art is just one piece of the cultural appeal here. The area has a historical story to share, too. On Hutchinson Island, the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum draws visitors from around the world. It preserves the history of the original Navy “frogmen” who served in World War II and first trained on the beaches of Fort Pierce. The museum’s collection includes rare artifacts, including World War II-era obstacles used for demolition training prior to the Normandy landings on D-Day. Another influential artist who lived and worked here was writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. The author of four novels, including Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Hurston’s work portrayed racial struggles in the South in the early 20th century. She died in 1960 and was buried in Fort Pierce. A heritage trail dedicated to Hurston
chronicles her life when she lived in Fort Pierce. St. Lucie has a rich cultural history, but creativity is expressed in real time, too. The Peacock Arts District, named after the plumed birds that have stopped traffic in the streets since the 1970s, has an emerging art scene. Street murals and terra cotta pots painted by local artists add color to the once-empty storefronts and are reinvigorating the area. There are quaint mom-and-pop inns as well as popular hotel brands throughout Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie and Hutchinson Island, so don’t be too quick to leave this chill part of Florida: Reserve time to shop the Farmers’ Market in downtown Fort Pierce every Saturday morning, which has ranked among the best in the country. Food, after all, feeds great art and culture, too. visitstlucie.com
Clockwise from top: The National Navy UDT-
SEAL Museum, a view of the St. Lucie River, Indian River West Shore by A.E. Backus, circa 1960, the Backus Museum
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Fall Fête
P RO M O T I O N
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
Showcasing the Treasures
& Architecture of the Gilded Era
American Brilliant Cut Glass Gallery One of the Finest Museum Collections of American Brilliant Cut & Engraved Glass in the Country.
75 King Street, Saint Augustine, Florida 32084 | 904.824.2874
LightnerMuseum.org
Rooted in history. Committed to growth. The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens was established in 1961 as a center of beauty and culture for all of Jacksonville. We are committed to showcasing works of the highest quality, including our historically significant riverfront gardens, while making art accessible — and fun — for everyone. + LEARN MORE AT CUMMERMUSEUM.ORG.
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Fall Fête
P RO M O T I O N
A Guide to Florida’s Museums, Culture & Entertainment
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
GLOBAL ART OF THE 1970S
A BRUSH WITH HERSTORY
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American Impressionism through the French Lens
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Ponte Vedra Ocean Course #16
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— sunny dispatches from NW FLA —
Panhandling B y P ri ssy E l ro d
French Lemonade When life gives you a series of lemons, you just might be watching friends cavort overseas without you.
KMI DESIGN RETREAT
I
t was a Sunday afternoon when my neighbor pulled into the driveway. She and her husband were buying our house and wanted to drop by to measure our living room windows. As she was saying goodbye, she turned around: “I hated to impose on you but needed to wrap up all my loose ends. I’m leaving for France.” With packing, moving and unpacking occupying my worried mind, I wasn’t paying close attention to the details of her impending trip until I heard the words design retreat with Kathryn Ireland (one of Bravo’s Million Dollar Decorators, not the supermodel). Then I perked up. “Who’s going with you?” I asked. “Nobody,” she said. Impressive! I thought. Didn’t she have packing? For Pete’s sake! The girl was moving into the very house where I stood. As I closed my door a bird graced the air and landed atop the water fountain centered in our circular drive. She perched there staring at me. I was too busy for bird-watching and slammed the door, then went back to packing more boxes. According to my acupuncturist my brain is too busy. My massage therapist proclaimed me his tightest client in a 30-year massage therapy business. And Gina, my younger sister, calls me
Above: Prissy poolside near Toulouse, France at
the home of Art Linson (producer of Yellowstone television series) and his wife, Fiona Lewis
a street rat. She will text rat emojis when I don’t answer her texts or phone calls. So, basically, I’m a wound-up, busy-minded street rat. But rats are intelligent. If you catch one you can train it. I’m also an optimist, always trying to make lemonade from the lemons in life. But the summer of 2018 was different. Life was tart, and I was plum out of sugar.
I’ll spare penning my descriptive drama and just say a death, a homicide, two hurricanes, two evacuations, a move, a renovation and more did me in. Later that evening my mind was revisiting the afternoon conversation with the neighbor. She was going to France, and I had a crappy year. I’m the one who should be going to France. Heads up! Too much wine makes a person envious, convincing and way too brave. I decided to search online and see if I could find something about Kathryn Ireland’s retreat. It didn’t take long to locate a Travel + Leisure article. My heart raced as I read it, then immediately called for more information. It was a California number, and I hoped the three-hour time difference would work in my favor and someone might answer. The first sign came when Caroline, Kathryn’s assistant, said hello. “Yes, we do have one spot left,” she said. “One spot—that’s a sign!” I squealed. I believe signs and optimism are first cousins. “It must be,” she said through a soft chuckle. Cha ching! Sold to the lady with too much wine. I booked my trip to Tarn-et-Garonne, an hour north of Toulouse, France, before the clock struck midnight. In my defense, I think my husband was to blame. He should have stayed up past 8
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Panhandling
sunny dispatches from NW FLA
clicked and talked about our writing. I saw the p.m. This kind of thing happens when a Italy, but never to France. I would put my sun setting over the lake, so I headed outside husband goes to bed too early and leaves a travel consultant hat back on, but only if I to photograph God’s beauty. I strolled back rat drinking wine. could complete my ongoing Chasing Ordinary indoors to run my mouth and grab more wine Buyer’s remorse set in when I awoke the manuscript. I make the rules I live by. but realized I’d left my phone outside. I slipped next morning with cotton mouth and a I flew home rested, restored and ready to out to retrieve it. headache. I decided to wait a bit to share tackle my self-imposed challenge to finish my One false step and my size 6 foot let me my travel plans with my spouse. You know, manuscript. I’m a disciplined rat so I wrapped down. I heard a crack, snap and pop and fell on it’s all about the right moment. I decided to up the writing only six weeks later. my cushioned fanny. I was dazed in the dark. tell the poor man in the car with witnesses Summer turned to fall and then the holidays In shock. I heard a whisper and felt someone surrounding me. Thankfully, he’s not a killer. rolled in. We moved from a rental house into squeeze my trembling hand. “Go have fun—you deserve it,” he said. In our renovated house, a week before Christmas. “I’ll get help,” she said. truth, he was probably glad to be rid of me. Listen up—don’t ever do that! It was the author I’d been talking to in the Six weeks later, I was bound to a country I was so happy when 2019 arrived. It had to kitchen. Only later did I learn Rita (the author) filled with art and culture. It was a stone’s be better. Lordy—optimism is not for the faint was really Rita Coolidge (the legend). The throw from Heaven. of heart. ambulance arrived as diners sipped wine and There were eight guests who arrived: The In January, I turned my attention to the gazed at the state of me. I was hauled seller and buyer of the same house off. Even hospitalized. Four days later on Bobbin Brook Circle were surgery was performed to mend my joined by ladies from Colorado, You see, I really am one of those lemon-lemonade people. But not multiple breaks in one tiny ankle (plate, New York, California, London and in a preachy, sappy way. It’s more like a realistic acceptance of screws, rod). It wasn’t enough. Soon, Australia. Nobody knew anybody circumstances. What’s the upside of being positive? Everything. cellulitis, a UTI and shingles jumped on when we landed. board to keep me company. We spent our days lounging on I never got back to France. But everyone else hammocks as the scent of lavender infused farmhouse in France. Kathryn and I circled did. They oozed love from afar with pictures, the air. The plants spilled out from oversized around the best dates, knowing my book would calls and texts to make me feel I was with them. terra cotta pots scattered across the grounds. release in April. We chose June. In a way I was, after my friend Rhonda turned a Some days we went antiquing to obscure flea I made a list of friends and whetted their picture of my head into one of those fan-sticks. markets, devoid of tourists. appetites to see if they were hungry: Turned out She carried my chiseled smile everywhere and There was a French cooking class with they were starving. even stuck my head in empty wine bottles. It was Daniel de La Falaise, ex-model and actor As my best friend Gayle says, “Prissy can sell the quietest I’ve ever been in my life. turned French chef, fresh off the pages of fleas to a dog.” I oversold the trip in two days As I type this column, it’s been three months French GQ magazine. His food was almost as and had to add another week. A one-week trip since my accident. Yet my ankle is still unable succulent as he was. turned into three weeks for me. I would tell my to bear weight. We’re never prepared for the We were entertained by a hands-on workhusband I’d be gone for the month of June on our next car ride … again, with witnesses. unexpected in life. I should know this better than shop with a flower designer from London, a As April’s spring shined above, 2019 was most. After all, I wrote Far Outside the Ordinary painting workshop with an artist from Touturning out perfect. Which brings me to the based on this very truth. But we tend to forget, louse, and a private wine and museum tour beginning of my story. Remember those lemons, until life knocks us flat. given by the chateau owner himself. lemonade, rats and cages? Sometimes life puts us Regardless, I choose to believe that things When my glorious week was over, I felt to the test—but only after blindsiding us. happen for reasons beyond our understanding. guilty, compelled to share the oasis with It was a beautiful Saturday night, and we were You see, I really am one of those lemoneveryone I knew. I talked to Kathryn about going to a dinner party at our friends’ house. lemonade people. But not in a preachy, sappy recruiting clients to visit her bohemian-chic I wore my favorite white jeans, a funky pink way. It’s more like a realistic acceptance of farmhouse—La Castellane—for future top and my khaki wedges that made me taller. circumstances. What’s the upside of being retreats. She loved the idea! Once there, I meandered into the kitchen where positive? Everything. In my earlier years, I escorted travelers I was introduced to Rita, another author. We This busy rat was flitting around everywhere abroad to places like Hong Kong and
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and seeing nothing. I had to be slapped down in my cute high heels and caged. Although 2019 let me down, I’m focusing on the bigger picture. First, I’m getting better, even if it’s happening slower than I want. Second, I found a new friend named Rita. Had I not fallen, we might just be two authors who chatted at a party. Third, I don’t need to fly across the pond to inhale the euphoric scent of lavender. It’s in my own backyard, where abundant beauty thrives. It’s a tour-worthy oasis. Yet I never noticed it until it was all I had to look at. And that bird bathing in my fountain I ignored because I was too busy? It followed me to our rental house and to my current home. It was only when I stayed still long enough to notice and cared enough to study the traveling bird that I realized she wasn’t just any species. She was a red cardinal, just like the one perched on the branch outside my mother’s window as she lay dying in her hospice bed. It’s been said a cardinal represents a loved one who has passed. When you see one, it means they are visiting you when you need them most. Call me crazy, but I believe the red cardinal is my mother. It makes life easier. As for France, Kathryn and I are already planning the next retreat. But before you head off on your own vacation, why not circle around our own beautiful state where beauty abounds? Or gaze outside into your own backyard. Try to remember what this rat learned the hard way. In stillness you become aware. Not to mention so much wiser.
Prissy Elrod is a professional speaker, artist and humorist and the author of Far Outside the Ordinary. She was born and raised in Lake City and now lives in Tallahassee with her husband, Dale. Chasing Ordinary, the sequel to Far Outside the Ordinary, was released in early 2019.
WHERE GETTING CLOSER IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK.
SANDESTIN BEACH GOLF RESORT & SPA
8 6 6 -7 7 7- 6 1 7 8 • H i l t o n S a n d e s t i n B e a c h . c o m • # H i l t o n S a n d e s t i n
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TRUE TO YOUR NATURE Plan a getaway suited to your curious side.
www.VisitFlagler.com
— fine arts, favor ites, f lings —
ON THE FLY — FLORIDA WILD —
C a r l t o n Wa r d J r. c a p t u r e s a r a r e m o m e n t w i t h a h a w k
— BIRD’S-EYE VIEW —
O ur fa vor i t e pl ac e s t o pl ay i n Pal m Be ac h
— GROVE STAND —
Chef Lindsay Autry of The Regional
— DESIGN DISTRICT —
A r c h i t e c t J u l i a S t a r r S a n f o r d ’s c o n s c i o u s c r e a t i o n s
— THE ROOST —
Homes with art at the heart of their design
— THE TIDE —
NIGEL YOUNG / FOSTER + PARTNERS
Where and when you need to be this fall This page:
The Norton Museum in West Palm Beach underwent extensive renovations, completed in 2019
— FLORIDIANA —
Pioneer mailmen, barefoot and braving the wilds
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ON THE FLY: FLORIDA WILD P H OTOGR APHS & F IELD NOTES B y C ar lton War d Jr.
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Heavy Catch
I
t was late afternoon in early November. I was with a film crew scouting for locations for a sunrise shoot on Buck Island Ranch, a 10,000-acre working cattle ranch and research center in Highlands County (south of Sebring) managed by the Archbold Biological Station. While our primary mission that evening was to see the pastures we would be navigating with our cowboys in the dark the following morning, we also had our long lenses ready for chance encounters with wildlife. I already NOTES had my 600mm superzoom lens in my hands because we’d just stopped — HABITAT— to photograph a rabbit foraging BUCK ISLAND RANCH among the grasses on the trail. HIGHLANDS COUNTY When we resumed driving west, a red-shouldered hawk took flight — SEASON — from the low vegetation to our left, LATE FALL weighed down by a heavy catch that hung down like a dinosaur tail. — TIME OF DAY— When the hawk landed on a nearby LATE AFTERNOON fence post, the yard-long brown water snake was in clearer display. I held the heavy lens as steadily as I — SUBJECT— could and squeezed off half a dozen RED-SHOULDERED HAWK frames before the hawk took flight again, this time landing on a low branch in an old live oak—a sturdy dinner table. We watched and filmed the hawk enjoying its meal there, silhouetted by the setting sun. Of the 40 or so photos I captured, this early pose on the post made for my favorite. The soft backlighting adding a glow to the hawk and sparkle to the barbed wire. The out-of-focus hammock of broomsedge and oak in the background. The fence post as a measuring stick for the snake. And most importantly, the sense of place. Without reading my words, you could tell this is a ranch, and this ranch is supporting more than just cattle (though the cattle roundup the next morning was also magical). The film we produced here is called Cowboys and Scientists. Check it out for a deeper look at a special place, where committed ranchers and researchers are measuring and proving that Florida cattle, wildlife and water can thrive together in balance.
27°8’50.62”N
81°12’43.69”W
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ON THE FLY:BIRD’S-EYE VIEW
A WA L K I N G G U I D E TO O U R FAVO R I T E N E I G H B O R H O O DS
PB perfection
where to stay, shop, eat, retreat and party like a palm beacher
1. GREEN’S PHARMACY
Doubling as a luncheonette and a full-service pharmacy, this 1938 establishment serves up great food and history—it’s been said that the Kennedys dined at the counter. 151 N. County Road
1.
4.
2.
Way
2. SKINNY DIP PALM BEACH
Shop, sip and take a dip into this trendy boutique that offers a carefully curated array of new designers from around the country. 100 N. County Road 5. Road ounty S. C
6.
Royal Park Bridge
A luxe shopping and dining experience like no other, this pristine plaza houses 50 handselected stores from Hermès to Beach and eateries like the local fave Sant Ambroeus. 340 Royal Poinciana Way 10.
9.
11.
Worth Ave.
12.
The freshly remodeled restaurant dishes out classic Italian fare like soup, pizza and steaks. But don’t miss dessert! When the sun goes down, the joint goes from posh to party. 257 Royal Poinciana Way
4. ROYAL POINCIANA PLAZA
7. 8.
3. CUCINA
13. 14.
5. THE BREAKERS
Henry Flagler opened this ItalianRenaissance style hotel in 1896, and the sprawling resort has become the island’s most iconic place to stay. Toast to history at the fabulously glam HMF. 1 S. County Road
6. FLAGLER MUSEUM
Explore the rich history of Florida industrialist Henry Flagler at his former home, Whitehall, which now functions as a public museum. 1 Whitewall Way
7. LINDROTH DESIGN
Set your clocks to island time at this colorful shop by Amanda Lindroth with furniture and designs inspired by the breezy, vibrant atmosphere of the Bahamas. 312B S. County Road
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ILLUSTR ATION BY LESLIE CHALFONT
Royal Poinciana
3.
8. THE BRAZILIAN COURT
Relax at this historic landmark and luxurious resort that calls upon the classic Spanish architecture of Florida. Wine and dine at Café Boulud or melt away at the Frédéric Fekkai Salon. 301 Australian Ave.
9. BUCCAN
No trip to the island is complete without a taste of the new American cuisine at every Palm Beacher’s favorite restaurant. James Beard semifinalist Clay Conley is among the Southeast’s top chefs. 350 S. County Road
10. IMOTO
Break out the chopsticks and sample an A-list lineup of Japanese fusion dishes at this globally inspired spot, the sister restaurant to Buccan. 350 S. County Road
11. STUBBS & WOOTTON
Peddle over to the shoe store that made slippers fashionable again. This handcrafted footwear, in rich velvet or beachy straw, features tongue-in-cheek motifs and is as comfy as it is fun. 340 Worth Ave.
12. TA-BOO
The legendary Ta-boo bistro sits in the heart of the famed shopping district, a place to see and be seen since the 40s. With classic cocktails, American dining and a long list of awards, it’s been said that “you weren’t in Palm Beach if you weren’t spotted at Ta-boo.” 221 Worth Ave.
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EXPERIENCE & COMPASSION
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13. LAUNCHPAD
See what everyone’s coveting at this ever-changing haute boutique with a carousel of fashion and decor, from dresses and bags to sofas and candles. 150 Worth Ave.
14.THE COLONY
Relax in pink-and-green style at this timeless boutique hotel. Lounge by the pool, order in-room spa services or zip around town in a fringed-out golf cart. 155 Hammon Ave.
Jacksonville Beach
(904)853-6310
FCVETS.COM
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ON THE FLY: GROVE STAND SEASON’S EATINGS
By Er i c B a rt o n • P h o t o g ra p h y b y L i b b y Vo l g y es
Back to the South Though she once hid from her farm town roots, Lindsay Autry now embraces those old county fair memories
This page: Florida
snapper in banana leaf with salsa verde and warm tomato vinaigrette.
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indsay Autry was just a little pipsqueak of 6 years old when she started showing pigs at the county fair in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Prized lambs came next. Then, when she turned 9, things really got serious. Autry switched her attention from livestock to county fair grilling competitions. It wasn’t hard for her family to imagine. Growing up, Autry’s favorite game had always been playing restaurant. She’d get her little brother and sister to be the servers, running the orders from their parents, with Autry practicing her plating in the kitchen. The Cumberland County Fair judges would arrive to Autry’s station to find white linens, full place settings and a theme. She’d baste her meat with fresh herbs tied into a brush. “It was my secret weapon for years,” she says. She won her first contest. “But only because nobody else signed up,” Autry says modestly, with a drawl as smooth as sweet tea. The competitions did bring out something in her, though. “I fell in love with food. I really did.” Now, Autry regularly ends up on lists of the South’s finest chefs. She runs the kitchen of The Regional Kitchen & Public House in West Palm Beach, which keeps picking up its own version of county fair blue ribbons. Most notably, she was a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s best chef in the South award in 2018 and 2019. It’s funny to her now, because when she came home from Johnson & Wales University in Miami and told her parents she wanted to win a James Beard Award, her dad responded: “Oh, you talking about Jimmy Beard, the cotton farmer from down the street?” Culinary school helped her hone the skills she had learned from her grandmother, a Greek immigrant whose Sunday dinners combined Mediterranean food with Southern dishes: spanakopita served alongside collard greens, biscuits and fatback. Local grocery stores didn’t have the ingredients her grandmother needed for traditional Greek dishes, so she’d wing it, combining cottage cheese, overcooked minute rice and salt to create a makeshift feta for spinach pies. Autry recalls going to a good
Above: Autry was a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s best chef in the South award in 2018 and 2019. Below: Shaved fall vegetable salad with maple-spiced pumpkin seeds
Florida Snapper in Banana Leaf with Salsa Verde and Warm Tomato Vinaigrette S e rv e s 4 3 overripe beefsteak tomatoes 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons minced garlic 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved Kosher salt and black pepper to taste 1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped 1/4 cup basil chiffonade 1/4 cup dill, finely chopped 1/4 cup capers, drained and chopped Zest and juice of 1 lemon 2 whole yellowtail snappers, about two pounds each, head removed and butterflied, or 4 snapper filets, about 7 ounces each 1 package banana leaves
Place parsley, basil, dill, capers and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir in lemon juice and 1/4 cup olive oil. Salsa verde may be stored in fridge for 3 days. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Season the flesh side of the snapper with salt and pepper. Cover the entire surface of each snapper with 1 tablespoon of the salsa verde. Cut a piece of banana leaf large enough to accommodate rolling fish inside three layers. Brush 1 tablespoon olive oil on one side of leaf and place fish in the middle. Roll leaf into tight package. Place wrapped fish on baking sheet and bake until cooked through, about 10 minutes if using filets and 15 minutes for a whole fish. Place fish on a platter and make a slit in banana leaf to expose fish. Spoon tomato vinaigrette on top of fish. Serve alongside roasted vegetables.
PREPARATION: Cut beefsteak tomatoes in half crosswise and grate on boxed grater over bowl. Discard the skin. Add 1/4 cup olive oil and minced garlic to pan over medium heat and saute for 1 minute, or until garlic starts to turn slightly golden. Add halved tomatoes, season with salt and cook for 2 minutes. Add the grated tomato and cook for 5 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper before setting warm tomato vinaigrette aside.
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ON THE FLY: GROVE STAND SEASON’S EATINGS
Above: Chef Lindsay Autry’s Palm Beach restaurant, The Regional Kitchen & Public House, has a Southern bent born of her North Carolina roots.
ninth season, and in the marketing materials, Greek restaurant for the first time, hating it her photo looks like someone else. They dolled and calling up her grandmother to ask why. her up in a dark chef’s jacket, with heavy “Because you’ve been eating a Southern trash makeup and a short angled haircut. In just version of Greek food all your life, Lindsay,” about every other picture of her, she looks like she said. she’s working the grill at a Charleston garden During school, Autry went to work party, her blond hair pulled back tight, wearing under Michelle Bernstein, the darling the kind of cool apron you seen of Miami, known for her on bartenders nowadays, a smile Cuban-Jewish-Caribbean that makes every corner of her face cuisine. Bernstein has a knack THE REGIONAL seem like it’s grinning. She hates for making fine dining seem KITCHEN & comforting—as if grandma PUBLIC HOUSE when that Bravo picture comes up. “My dad called after that came out fried up sweetbreads—and — LOCATION — 651 OKEECHOBEE BLVD. and said, ‘Who you think you are, Autry identified with it. Autry WEST PALM BEACH Lara Croft, Tomb Raider?’” worked for Bernstein in — HOURS — When she began The Regional’s Miami and at a pair of spots MON.–THURS. 11:30 A.M.–9 P.M. FRI.–SAT. 11:30 A.M.–10 P.M. build-out in 2015, it was daunting: in Mexico and then helped SUN. 11 A.M.–2:30 P.M. a cavernous 10,000-square-foot Bernstein open the Omphoy in AND 5 P.M.–9 P.M. space that she wanted to feel homey. Palm Beach. Then Autry took eatregional.com Autry got her sense of style from on her first starring role, in the mom. While all the other kids had kitchen at the Sundy House in lunchboxes, Autry took to school Delray Beach. little picnic baskets holding containers artfully The thing that gave Autry star power is wrapped in burlap. The designer Autry and her also something that now makes her cringe. business partner brought in to help with the The producers of Bravo’s Top Chef tried restaurant said at one point, “I don’t even know to paint Autry as “strong-willed” (as she why I’m here.” describes it) when she was a finalist on the
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Opened in 2016, the place makes you forget its size, feeling instead like you’ve walked into someone’s home. Over the window to the kitchen, glass cabinets hold items Autry collected from the estate auctions one of her grandfathers used to run. The chopping block table in the dining room came from her other grandfather, once a butcher. There’s undoubtedly a Southern bent to The Regional, its signature dish a tomato pie that’s a slice of North Carolina summer. But Autry’s history also spills out on her menus, pozole she learned in Mexico, ceviche picked up in Miami and Mediterranean from her grandmother. Autry’s appearances on the James Beard semifinalist lists have brought her attention these past couple years, the kind she doesn’t mind if the old dance team girls know about. Her dad called after the first one: “Jimmy Beard gonna be so proud of you.” Dad’s always been a meat-and-potatoes guy, and while playing restaurant growing up, it used to drive Autry crazy that he’d push her vegetables to the side. “Now, when he comes to the restaurant,” she says, “I give him ketchup with his steak.”
Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Local Honey, Figs and Toasted Pistachios S e rv e s 8 1 1/4 teaspoons unflavored, powdered gelatin, such as Knox 1 1/4 cups heavy cream 1/3 cup granulated sugar Zest of 1 orange 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 vanilla bean or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/4 cups buttermilk 1 cup Greek yogurt 8-12 fresh figs, quartered 2 oranges, segmented 3 tablespoons honey 1/4 cup toasted pistachios
PREPARATION: Sprinkle gelatin into small bowl with 1/4 cup cold water. Let stand until softened, about 10 minutes. Combine cream, sugar, orange zest and salt in a small pot. Scrape in vanilla bean seeds, then add pod, or add vanilla extract. Bring to a simmer. Add softened gelatin to pot and stir until dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Remove vanilla bean and orange zest and discard. Whisk in buttermilk, then Greek yogurt. Divide mixture among 8 6-ounce glasses, jars or ramekins. Chill until set, about 2 hours. Place figs and orange segments in a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons honey and gently toss to combine. Refrigerate fruit mixture until ready to serve. To serve, spoon orange and fig mixture on top of set panna cottas. Drizzle with a bit more honey and top with toasted pistachios.
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[ ON THE FLY: DESIGN DISTRICT By Nila Do Simon
STARR POWER
Architect and interior designer Julia Starr Sanford creates a new standard in residential design, born of the harsh realities and wild beauty of the Sunshine State
W
hen Julia Starr Sanford was tapped to create the first-ever residence in Alys Beach, around 2004, she was met with an overwhelming challenge: design a coastal home that could not only withstand Category 5 hurricanes but also convey an everlasting beauty for generations to come. For the architect and interior designer, it was a challenge she was glad to accept, one that has helped define her career and a new Florida vernacular. As the principal of her eponymous Jacksonville-based firm, Sanford has trotted the globe designing luxury residences and boutique hotels that create meaning not only in her clients’ lives but also
This page: Sanford
infuses a feminine touch with design elements like curved walls and staircases
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in the environment around them. Sanford says she’s always had an appreciation for the well-crafted. She was raised in Atlanta by an artsy mother who dabbled in designing interior spaces and a builder father who created large-scale commercial highway projects. The designer, who speaks in a soft, measured voice, has carried the notion of good building with her as she’s created spaces throughout Florida’s coastline, in the Bahamas and in Central America. Sanford’s impressive career has included early forays as art director of NBC’s Today show and the broadcast of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Now, in a field where women make up just
BRIE WILLIAMS, NATE EBERT
her work in Alys Beach, the small, planned Panhandle community developed in line with the tenets of New Urbanism, favoring walkability over sprawl. Selected alongside nearly a dozen international designers to create the luxury town’s first homes, Sanford was tasked with creating designs with equal parts beauty and brawn, appealing to the discerning, affluent travelers and residents that Alys Beach developers hoped to attract.
The result was a series of memorable structures with stark-white exteriors reminiscent of Santorini and organic interiors expertly appointed with luxury furnishings, fabrics and accents echoing the area’s coastal terrain. They’ve weathered some serious storms, and the community is the first in the United States to require constructions to meet the Institute of Business and Home Safety’s Fortified
20 percent of licensed architects, she serves as a global leader in conscious building. Coupled with her strong foundation in industry, Sanford’s deft feminine intuition, which includes an innate understanding of how wellcrafted homes enhance people’s lives, appears in her work. “There is perhaps a more feminine sensitivity to space and light in the richness of natural materials throughout our interior spaces, native cypress and coral stone, with an occasional curved stairwell or curved wall in the courtyard that has a feminine flair,” she says. “As women in this industry, we have a unique understanding of home and family. That’s probably why I gravitate toward more residential spaces. That even applies to the From top: The back of this Jacksonville boutique hotels that home is designed for living along the we’ve done, hotels that river, steel and glass I’ve always considered doors blending home away from home.” interior to exterior; Julia Sanford’s A common design philosophy is conscious denominator among creation Sanford’s designs is that Right: Minimalism they appeal to clients in marries movement in the custom search of lasting value. Sublime Original marble dining table Take, for example,
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ON THE FLY: DESIGN DISTRICT something we were proud of.” In addition to her design firm and furniture line, which together employ nearly a dozen individuals, Sanford is also a co-founder of the nonprofit Sky Institute Foundation for the Future, which serves as an incubator for concepts that enhance building standards. Comprising architects, urban planners, environmental engineers, environmental defense attorneys, scientists, food producers, scholars and more, Sky Institute aspires to build better structures throughout the globe. At the heart of all her projects, Sanford hopes to show just how beautiful nature can be in everyday life, whether that’s through Sublime Original’s earthy materials, spaces with ample natural light or the incorporation of natural fauna into a home. “I’m naturally drawn to beauty,” she says. “Beauty can enrich someone’s life. Everything natural is beautiful, and to have this effect is wonderful.”
This page: The Jacksonville home is classically proportioned in keeping with the historic neighborhood,
with a steel and glass front door opening to a river view; Primitive Modern BB chair by Sublime Original
standard of resilient building design. release cushions and pillows crafted out of “The quality of these fortified homes hides, as well as a line of hide bags, in the fall. and the ideal of this all-white place in “We started this furniture line because we Alys Beach reset the meter of quality wanted to express a sensual sustainability for throughout Florida,” Sanford says. the future. We were tired of buying veneer After conceiving the idea nearly five wood furniture that was mass-produced years ago, Sanford launched a furniture and in China, so this was our chance to make art line, Sublime Original, in October 2018, a move that sets her apart in an already distinguished class of designers. The line is an extension of Sanford and her design firm’s philosophy of conscious creation, including its use of sustainably sourced woods and materials known for their longevity against harsh outdoor elements, like Florida’s SANFORD pecky cypress and heavy timber. DESIGN With clean, straight lines and — LOCATION — surprising angles, the pieces 370 4TH AVE. S. JACKSONVILLE BEACH complement a modern coastal starrsanford.com home. The furniture line won a best in show award at the spring 2019 High Point Market, the home furnishing industry’s largest trade show. “The recognition was very exciting because it was a validation of a more recent effort,” says Sanford, who has plans to
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BRIE WILLIAMS, NATE EBERT
Opposite›: Sanford designed some of the first homes in Alys Beach, the small, planned Panhandle community developed in accordance with the tenets of New Urbanism, favoring walkability over sprawl; furnishings by Sublime Original
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ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE B y C h ri st i n a C u sh
Personal Estate-ments Arches, beams, columns, rich wood and Italian stone—the details incorporated by architects to create homes of lasting distinction
Jacksonville
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NEAL SMITH OF EAST COAST VIRTUAL TOURS
A
Tudor-style riverfront manor has countless exquisite details, including a water-lily feature reminiscent of Giverny, France and the gardens that inspired Claude Monet. Wake up in the master suite, overlooking the St. Johns River, then stroll downstairs, adoring the scrolling wrought-iron railing. Enter the bountiful kitchen, where top-of-the-line appliances, thick stone countertops and rich, curved cabinetry set the backdrop for morning coffee. Built in 2006, this grand 10,000-square-foot home has a ballroom and a wine cellar with its own kitchen and sitting area, as well as a separate guest house with garden views. Quality craftmanship is evident in this five-bedroom stunner with five full baths and six half-baths, from the patterned hallway floors to the colorful hand-painted walls and ceilings to the arched doors throughout the property. 3904 Alhambra Drive W., Jacksonville $6,900,000
ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE
TAMPA
T
he historic Morrison House, originally built in 1885 and lovingly restored to maintain the harmonious balance of old-school charm and modern-day function, is a creamy four-bedroom, five-bathroom brick house on half an acre. The 6,300-square-foot home’s beguiling exterior includes white trim, elongated windows, and a graphic, bold red brick pathway that complements the red tile roof. On the inside, sunshine pours in, and the spaces feel current and bright thanks to pastel-painted walls, gorgeous white crown moldings, coffered ceilings, and white marble floors and countertops. One of the most fun features is the dark wood built-in library bookcase with a sliding ladder, creating a perfect reading room. Another winning space is the master bathroom, with mahogany vanities, a clawfoot soaker tub and painted tin ceiling panels. The kitchen also features vintage ceiling tiles, installed above a beautifully renovated entertaining space. The sleek pool and gorgeous patio provide a private oasis and outdoor dining area. 850 S. Newport Ave., Tampa $3,900,000
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ON THE FLY:THE ROOST RE AL ESTATE DOLLARS & SENSE
MIami
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JONAH GOUIN & ALEX TAR AJANO
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reathe in the brilliant Biscayne Bay views from the indigotiled infinity-edge pool of this 8,600-square-foot paradise with a bay house. Built in a modern Palladian style, this tropical delight has four bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a cozy theater for cinema buffs, an exercise room for fitness junkies and a gourmet kitchen for creative cooks. Although the open ground floor offers fluid indoor-outdoor living and entertaining, there’s a distinct warmth to the house, established by creamy floor tiles and luxurious dark woods. Wood trim runs throughout the home, wrapping windows and doors and adding dimension to ceilings. The master suite is impeccable with trimmed, vaulted ceilings, a textured accent wall and triple French doors that open up to a private balcony with expansive bay views. Even the dock of this well-appointed home is sturdy yet chic, a perfect perch from which to simply enjoy the scenery or take off by boat to explore the water. 1910 S. Bayshore Lane, Miami $10,500,000
Starting here improves beginnings there. Bolles provides a wide breadth of learning opportunities, global context, academic resources and accomplished faculty to prepare students for real-world success in college, career and life. Explore what Bolles has to offer by visiting www.Bolles.org or calling us at (904) 256-5030. Hannah Mendelson
#ThisIsBolles
Bolles Class of 2018 NC State Sophomore Major: Mechanical Engineering
The Bolles School is a college preparatory day and boarding school for students in Pre-K through Grade 12. Four Unique Campuses
Ponte Vedra Beach Pre-K–5 Whitehurst Pre-K–5
Bartram 6–8 San Jose 9–12
A D I F F E R E N T K I N D O F R E A L E S TAT E T E A M
youngandvolen.com $400M+ IN CAREER SALES
OCEAN BREEZE
6 2 2 Ocean Front, Neptune Beach Dreamy oceanfront property in desirable Neptune Beach. Make every day a vacation with the ocean as your backdrop, sip coffee on the porch watching the sun rise and cocktails watching the moon rise. Prime location with a 3-minute easy walk to Neptune Beach restaurants, shopping, and entertainment. There are loads of possibilities with this property. OFFERED AT $2,275,000
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CHECK INTO HIGH-END EXCITEMENT THE DAYTONA HOTEL PUTS YOU AT THE CENTER OF ONE DAYTONA - THE DAYTONA BEACH AREA’S NEWEST OUTDOOR RETAIL, DINING AND ENTERTAINMENT DESTINATION. LOCATED DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE LEGENDARY DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEEDWAY, THE DAYTONA EMBODIES THE EXHILARATION OF RACING IN ITS PUREST FORM. THE DAYTONA IS FULL-SERVICE AND PURE EXCITEMENT, JUST MINUTES FROM THE ICONIC SANDS OF DAYTONA BEACH.
THEDAYTONA.COM | ONEDAYTONA.COM | 1870 VICTORY CIRCLE | DAYTONA BEACH, FL 32114 | 386-323-9777
ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (NORTH) SING OUT LOUD FESTIVAL
ST. AUGUSTINE
Sept. 6–29
Music sensations Kacey Musgraves and St. Paul & The Broken Bones headline this month-long free music festival held at various locations. singoutloudfestival.com
DESTIN SEAFOOD FESTIVAL DESTIN
Oct. 4–6 Kick off Destin’s Fishing Rodeo with dishes from local restaurants, offerings from over 100 craft vendors or live music on one of the three main stages. destinseafoodfestival.com
HARVEST FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL WAT E R C O L O R
Oct. 24–26
A wine-lover’s dream with over 250 award-winning wines, starlit dinners, celebrity winemakers and one of the largest beverage auctions in the country. dcwaf.org
FOO FOO FEST P E N S A C O LA
Oct. 31–Nov. 11
COURTESY JUANAS PAGODAS, NAVARRE BEACH
The 12-day event includes art, music, dance and theater, with some of the South’s best talents like jazz band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and art installation Fire and Rain, a sea of billowing holographic strands suspended above historic Intendencia Street. foofoofest.com
FLORIDA VS. GEORGIA GAME
JUANA GOOD TIME REGATTA N AVA R R E B E A C H
Sept. 6–8
Each fall, hundreds of sailors gather on the beach at Juana’s Pagodas thatched-roof bar to compete on the water and party on the shore. Mariners from across the region and of all experience levels test their speed and skills captaining a variety of vessels including catamarans, trimarans, cruisers and sailequipped canoes. The weekend kicks off with the Smooth Sailing party at Juana’s Pagodas, a popular beach volleyball bar near Pensacola Beach. The weekend’s lineup includes long-distance races, Hobie Wave races, buoy races and more. In addition to bragging rights, winners receive handmade trophies from Holley Hill Pottery and fresh flowers. After the last sail is lowered—as the event’s name suggests— good times await back on shore at both Juana’s Pagodas and Sailors’ Grill, where BBQ will be smoking and rum will be flowing. Live performances by Stevie Hall, Hippy Jim and the Jay Williams Band won’t disappoint. juanaspagodas.com
SEEING RED WINE FESTIVAL SEASIDE
JACKSONVILLE
Nov. 7–10
Rally behind the Gators or the Dawgs (or simply revel in the spectacle of the day) at one of college football’s biggest matchups, held at the TIAA Bank Field. flgajax.com
Sip and savor fine wine, cheese and other goodies at this annual event. In between tastings, shop local merchants such as the Seaside style and Ophelia Swimwear. seeingredwinefestival.com
Nov. 2
35TH ANNUAL FRANK BROWN INTERNATIONAL SONGWRITERS’ FESTIVAL GULF COAST OF FLORIDA A N D A LA B A M A
Nov. 7–17
This gathering of songwriters and musicians showcases the talents of artists like Sean Gasaway and Leslie Ellis. frankbrownsongwriters.com
WOLFSON CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL ARTS & ANTIQUES SHOW JACKSONVILLE
Dec. 6–8
The Paris-themed antiques showcase includes a fashion show with patients and benefits the neonatal intensive care unit. womensboardwolfson childrenshospital.com
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ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (C E N T RA L ) AUTUMN ART FESTIVAL W I N T E R PA R K
Oct. 12–13
Take a stroll down Winter Park’s charming Park Avenue and celebrate the harvest with more than 100 stalls featuring some of Florida’s best creators. winterpark.org
JOHN’S PASS SEAFOOD & MUSIC FESTIVAL ST. PETERSBURG
Oct. 18–20
Bring your appetite to the East Coast’s second-largest seafood festival, with live music and a plethora of food stalls. johnspassseafoodfest.com
SARASOTAMOD S A R A S O TA
Nov. 8–10
ST. PETERSBURG
Oct. 18–26
From the growing collection of murals, like the Face of Twiggy painted by local artist Chad Mize, to the rainbow-painted intersection of Central Avenue and Fifth Street by Cecilia Lueza, St. Petersburg’s vibrant public art is fueling the city’s cultural explosion. This year’s internationally acclaimed event, hosted by the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance, will present 16 new public murals created by five international artists, four national artists and seven local artists. In addition to creative collaborations, SHINE has also partnered with several organizations such as NOAA, PangeaSeed Foundation, the LGBTQ Welcome Center and the local chapter of the Boys and Girls Club. The Arts Alliance hopes to promote a sense of unity and shared love of the arts by bringing to life vibrant large-scale images from the local community. Events include walking tours, art classes and educational talks aimed at celebrating street art and the beauty of diversity. shinemuralfest.com
ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE @ DR. PHILLIPS CENTER O R LA N D O
Nov. 12–17 Put on your white sport coat and nibble on some sponge cake with Jimmy Buffett’s hit Broadway musical, set to the soundtrack of his most popular tunes. drphillipscenter.org
CITY: FASHION+ARTS +CULTURE
MOUNT DORA BICYCLE FESTIVAL
FLORIDA BIRDING & NATURE FESTIVAL
RENNINGER’S ANTIQUE EXTRAVAGANZA
Sept. 14
Oct. 3–6
Oct. 17–20
Nov. 15–17
TA M PA
See the Tampa Museum of Art turned into a fashion runway. This year’s exhibition showcases the iconic designer Angel Sanchez and his timeless architectural dresses. tampamuseum.org
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MOUNT DORA
Bike across Central Florida at this premier cycling weekend event. Choose from one of 16 routes of varying difficulty, spanning three counties, and enjoy the scenery. mountdorabicyclefestival.com
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BRANDON
Bring your binoculars and walking shoes. This festival offers scenic boat tours, keynotes, seminars from top field experts and several expeditions. floridabirdingandnature festival.org
MOUNT DORA
This three-time-a-year event is back with almost 800 vendors from across the country. Find everything from assemblage artwork to comic books, rare furniture and handcrafted goods. renningers.net
JIMMY FASHNER
SHINE MURAL FESTIVAL
Spend the weekend touring midcentury modern homes, attending talks and wandering galleries at the Sarasota Architectural Foundation– sponsored event. sarasotamod.com
Find your canvas in West Volusia County.
Navigate Here AMELIA ISLAND’S HISTORIC HARBOR FRONT
BE FRONT & CENTER — in
the —
HISTORIC DISTRICT
This Fall, spread your wings in West Volusia County. Discover your unique style at one of our many outdoor festivals, eclectic boutiques or antique shops, then explore even more as you stroll down “America’s Main Street”.
Conveniently located between Daytona Beach and Orlando. Download a visitors guide at VisitWestVolusia.com
Take a sunrise stroll on the beach or a breathtaking sunset cruise on the river. Relax with a quaint carriage ride through the historic district. Walk to 50-plus restaurants and shops.
Enjoy our specialty suites, spacious rooms, fireplaces and balconies. Take in the spectacular views of the Fernandina Harbor Marina and Amelia River from our 2nd floor pool deck. Historic Fernandina Beach | 19 South 2nd Street | (904) 491-4911
AMELIAISLANDHARBORFRONTSUITES.HAMPTONINN.COM
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ON THE FLY:THE TIDE ROAD TR IP–WORTHY EVENTS (SOUTH) KEY WEST RUNNING FESTIVAL / SOUTHERNMOST MARATHON KEY WEST
Oct. 12
Competitors choose between full marathon, half-marathon or 5K routes going from Key West to Stock Island and back again. And yes, there’s an after-party. somomarathon.com
SEED FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL MIAMI
Nov. 7–10 Plant-based chefs like Marco Borges, Jules Aron and Colleen Holland host panels and cooking demos during this vegan weekend. seedfoodandwine.com
SIESTA KEY CRYSTAL CLASSIC
ART BASEL: MIAMI BEACH
S I E S TA K E Y
Nov. 15–18
Dec. 5–8
Art Basel originated over forty years ago in the Swiss town of Basel as an art fair with more than 16,000 visitors and the aim of fostering artists’ careers. The Art Basel Miami that people know and love today launched in 2002 as an expansion of the Art Basel brand and has become one of the most important fairs in the world. Modern and contemporary artists representing more than 200 galleries gather at the Miami Beach Convention Center to exhibit paintings, digital art, sculptures, photography and more. But it’s not just the groundbreaking artwork that draws huge crowds. Elaborate parties unfold inside luxury hotels and upscale venues across the city, while celebrities from sports stars to Hollywood A-listers peruse the works and contribute to the festive atmosphere. Beyond the convention center, in artsy enclaves like Wynwood Art District and the Design District, a multitude of spinoff fairs, parties and experiences make up Miami Art Week. artbasel.com
TERESITA FERNÁNDEZ: ELEMENTAL
NAPLES STONE CRAB FESTIVAL
Oct. 18–Feb. 9
Oct. 25–27
MIAMI
This exhibition at the Pérez Art Museum features Teresita Fernández’s sculpture Drawn Waters, a waterfall fashioned from a floor-to-ceiling sheet of steel covered in graphite, as well as other works. pamm.org
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N AP L E S
Celebrate the opening of stone crab season at this festival on the Naples historic waterfront. Hop on a water taxi from the Old Waterfront to Tin City and witness the official cracking of the first stone crab. paradisecoast.com
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FORT LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL BOAT SHOW F O R T LA U D E R D A L E
Oct. 30–Nov. 3
Wander among 1,500 vessels from sportfishing boats to skiffs to yachts and superyachts at the 60th annual show, where the industry’s best boatbuilders will be on hand. flibs.com
The beach transforms into an outdoor art gallery as dozens of sand sculptures take shape. Competitors build masterpieces like giant elephants and castles. siestakeycrystalclassic.com
CHRIS EVERT PROCELEBRITY TENNIS CLASSIC D E L R AY B E A C H / B O C A R AT O N
Nov. 22–24
The six-time U.S. Open title winner hosts this pro-celebrity event to raise money for her ongoing campaign against drug abuse and child neglect. chrisevert.org
PARADISE COAST WINE & FOOD EXPERIENCE N AP L E S
Nov. 23 Festivalgoers attend cooking demos, seminars and celebrity chef meet and greets, while enjoying great food and wine and event headliner Martha Stewart. paradisecoast.com
ART BASEL
MIAMI BEACH
The WORLD’S PREMIER MUST-SEA EVENT OCT 30 – NOV 3 FLIBS.COM
FLORIDIANA ALL THINGS VINTAGE B y E ri c B a rt o n P h o t o g ra p h y b y Ja m i e C l i f f o rd
A Shoeless Folktale
In those days, delivering the mail across South Florida was a treacherous journey.
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treacherous route, a six-day, 136-mile round trip, between 1885 and 1892, when a road suitable for mail coaches finally arrived. Along the way, the mailmen would tie their shoes by the laces and hang them around their necks as they hiked barefoot through the sand. They logged 7,000 miles yearly. They picked up a folklore-like name: the Barefoot Mailmen. It’s unclear what happened to Hamilton as he attempted to cross the Hillsboro Inlet. Some reckon a shark or wayward gator pulled him under. The tide can turn coming-and-going waters into clapping whitecaps, so perhaps he slipped into that world below the waves. The Barefoot Mailmen would be remembered in Theodore Pratt’s bestselling 1943 book and a campy movie in 1951. Today, three statues honoring the mailmen stand near
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Above from top: The Barefoot Mailman
bronze statue overlooking the Hillsboro Inlet; the Legend of James Edward Hamilton, Barefoot Mailman, watercolor on paperboard, circa 1940, by Stevan Dohanos
the spot where Hamilton disappeared. A dive company installed one offshore on Angel’s Reef, about 45 feet down from the surface, an effigy that strolls eerily along the ocean bottom.
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
E
ven today, the churned-up water of Broward County’s Hillsboro Inlet hides an entire city of sea life. Fish in spots and stripes dart together in their own choreographed dance. Tarpon jump in feeding frenzies. Reef sharks divebomb the schools. So imagine what might have been waiting for James “Ed” Hamilton on Oct. 11, 1887, when he dipped below the waves. Hamilton delivered the mail, serving as a lifeline between the outside world and the outposts of civilization on the southern end of Florida. Every week or so, he’d set off with a bag of letters bound for new settlements between Palm Beach and what’s now Miami. He was the second of about a dozen mailmen who walked and boated along the
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