Naples National Art Show II

Yvonne Hjelte-Rodrigues is a remarkable artist.  She constructs her works of paper college by carefully tearing pages from magazines and then gluing the small pieces onto canvas.

Xavier Nuez does amazing night photography with light.  He waves his lights during long exposures and adds light and color in his works.

 

Julia Gilmore is from a small New Hampshire town but now lives and paints in Montreal.  Her paintings are bold and colorful.  Her subjects are often commonplace, but the effects are captivating.

Longtime Long Island photographer Jim Levison shows large, colorful, varied images.  In this show he had lavender fields, whales and Greek villages.

Noah and Lucy-Dawn Kirk create wonderful pottery under the name of Bayhead Clay Company.  Noah makes the bodies and Lucy-Dawn does the piercings.

Naples National Art Show I

 Naples Art Institute sponsors a good juried outdoor art show.

Jeribai is from Nigeria.  He creates remarkable hyper-realistic drawings that look like photographs. 

Kimberly Willcox creates fascinating female figures, primarily as sculptures.

Allen Levy's studio is in Virginia.  His paintings are large squares painted with complexity but looking simple and spare from a distance.

The booths ran down 8th Street South, along the east side of Cambier Park and then into the park.

A Vespa dealer showed off some scooters in a booth along the park.  I think they are art.

Rosies

Roseate spoonbills seem to be everyone's favorite birds down here in Southwest Florida.

Here are some from last week.

Marx Mural

 

A colorful ceramic mural by Roberto Burle Marx anchors one edge of the Naples Botanical Garden.

The mural offers a focal point drawing visitors in as they enter the garden.

The Garden of Hope and Courage

 A small park is adjacent to Naples Community Hospital's Downtown Campus.  When a well was accidentally discovered in the 1980s during a construction project, a hospital trustee persuaded NCH not to fill it in, but instead keep it as a place of respite.

The Garden of Hope and Courage gives cancer patients, their families and other loved ones a quiet place to sit in a calm environment, rest and reflect.

At the Bank

 Everyone waiting for service passed the time by looking at their cell phones.  Me too.

George Washington

Happy birthday, George Washington.

Gilbert Stuart was considered America's foremost portrait painter.  He painted his famous "unfinished portrait" of General Washington during the President's lifetime beginning in 1796.  It was so popular Stuart painted it at least 75 more times.  This is the Allentown portrait of George Washington from around 1810, now hanging in Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum. 

Nick Penniman

A retired publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nick now lives in Naples.  He spends much of his time researching, writing and speaking about environmental issues.  He is on the board of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and is writing a history of the Conservancy in time for its 50th anniversary.

Nick's newest book is "On the Knife:  A History of Sugar in Florida."  His premise is that political influence supports the sugar industry so that in the U.S.A. we pay far more for sugar than other countries.

His Baby

Always sparkling.  If I were a car guy, this would be high on my list.

 

Christy

 

Christy and her partner just moved to Naples from Oregon.  She runs an international beauty business, has written four books, and is a podcaster and social media influencer.  A grandmother of two, Christy is deceptively young looking.

V-Dub Farm

 There must be an explanation.

Chocolates - Fudge - Ice Cream

Kilwins, at the Mercato, Naples, Florida.

Arthrex

 Had a hip, knee or shoulder replaced?  Odds are that the implant was designed and manufactured down here and your surgeon got his specialized training here.  Arthrex is the biggest non-governmental employer in Southwest Florida, with more than 3,000 employees in Collier County.

Its campus in Naples is manicured within an inch of its life.

When orthopedic surgeons come from around the globe for training, they stay in Arthrex's luxurious hotel.

I attended an informational session for the community and took a tour.  One wall is lined with many of the patents issued to Arthrex.

Asia Fest

 

An Asia Fest was held at the Mercato last Saturday.

Some dancers performed.

Korean Society of Southwest Florida had a booth.

The Blessing of the Dolphins

 

A monument store in Bonita Springs has some interesting statuary juxtapositions.

Uncle Julio's Mexican

This Mexican restaurant opened six months ago in an outbuilding in the Coastland Center shopping mall.

Linked to Monday Mural.

Abraham Lincoln

 Abraham Lincoln was immensely important to this country.  

I like to post something relating to Lincoln on his birthday.

Daniel Chester French's 1912 statue of a thoughtful President Lincoln at Gettysburg 

stands in Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.

Immokalee

 I drove around Immokalee, a farm community an hour east of Naples.

There was a staring contest on the road into town.

There is either a new sign welcoming visitors and new arrivals, or  a sign I didn't notice before.

A wonderful tile mural fills the front of the Rollason Center, which serves both as the headquarters of the Redlands Christian Migrant Association and the daycare, school and aftercare facility for the children of the many migrants who work the fields.

I had never before visited the simple Immokalee Pioneer Museum at Roberts Ranch.