Melissa Blazier

Melissa Blazier is Collier County's Supervisor of Elections.   She oversees elections for the City of Naples and for the county.

She and her office do more than 250 voter registration drives and outreach events every year.  They reach 5,000 students annually through high school registration programs.  I attended a recent talk.

This is an overwhelmingly Republican and white county.  It also skews heavily older, with a shocking 43 percent of registered voters being 66 years old or older!

Florida is tightening its already tight election policies to tilt the state even more strongly in favor of Republican candidates.  (My words, not hers.)  For example, voters must submit new vote-by-mail requests every year.  Ms. Blazier is a registered Republican but administers the office in a nonpartisan manner.    

Ridgways

 Ridgways Bar & Grill is a very popular restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining options at the intersection of Third Street South and Thirteenth Avenue South.

Golf

 

Two young men teed off from the longest tees on the first hole.

A foursome took turns putting on the tenth hole.

A woman hit a drive very well on the fourth hole.

Whenever I have water in front of me, I tighten up.  This golfer got it over, but his aim wasn't good.

Tree-Lined Streets

 I like coming across tree-lined streets in Naples.

A Hovering Osprey

 

A male osprey hovered over the bay, studying the water, before swooping down in a failed attempt to grab a fish.

Dama III

 

Dama III is a 2003 bronze by the Spanish sculptor Manolo Valdes.  It sits at the entrance to Artis-Naples.

Artis-Naples

 Standing at the entrance doors of Artis-Naples and looking back toward the street, we look past a circular driveway and columns toward a polished stainless steel sculpture.

The sculpture by Arik Levy is called RockGrowth370.  If you wonder why a bunch of jutting steel columns are called RockGrowth370, I understand your confusion.  I watched the artist's video explaining it twice and still don't understand.

Bluestone

 I can't remember how many times I have photographed and then deleted this stacked bluestone sculpture in front of Artis-Naples.  It is Meshaliemet & Menashshe, a 1994 work by the late Israeli-American artist, Boaz Vaaadia.

Cross

In the garden of Trinity by the Cove Episcopal Church in Naples, Florida.

 

Pastels

 There is explosive development near Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers.

Many big new buildings serve transportation-related businesses.  A common feature of all these new buildings is that they are painted in quiet, pastel colors.

Hertz Arena

Hertz Arena hosts the Florida Everblades, the Florida Gulf Coast University men's and women's basketball teams and a variety of entertainers.  

 

Hertz, the car rental company, relocated nearby about a decade ago.  They bought the naming rights to the arena.  The arena's yellow, white and gray colors reflect the car rental company's colors.

Dream Big

A big, gleaming hockey player stands in front of the arena where the minor league Florida Everblades team plays hockey.

A plaque in front of the statue reads, "This sculpture is dedicated to the young Hockey Players of Southwest Florida who dare to Dream Big and follow their passion to play the sport of Hockey to the very best of their ability." 

Ponce de Leon and Osceola

 First Citizens Bank on the Tamiami Trail in Naples has a large statue of Ponce de Leon in the front.  Juan Ponce de León was a Spanish explorer and conquistador known for leading the first official European expedition to Florida in 1513.  He is usually associated with a search for the Fountain of Youth.

  Ponce de León returned to Southwest Florida in 1521 with the first large-scale attempt to establish a Spanish colony. However, the native Calusa people fiercely resisted the incursion, and Ponce de Léon was seriously wounded in a skirmish. The colonization attempt was abandoned, and he died from his wounds.

Osceola was a prominent leader of the Seminoles in the first third of the 19th century.  His statue hides out in the parking lot behind the bank.  I am surprised that I haven't read anything about native Americans protesting the rather offensive placement of the statue. 

Animal Tracks

 Animal tracks in the snow behind my Ridgefield house.

Deer tracks are the ones I usually see back there.  These look different, but perhaps that is because the snow is much deeper than in past winters.

Back to Florida tomorrow.

Hacienda Don Manuel

 

For the younger granddaughter's ninth birthday, we had dinner at Hacienda Don Manuel, which has some wonderful murals, including this one.

The dinner concluded with a mariachi band putting a sombrero on her head and singing Happy Birthday to her.  Very special.

Linked to Monday Murals.

White

 The March theme for City Daily Photo is "white."  So hard!  Not because I can't think of any, but because I can think of so many.

I visited China two years ago.  It seemed right to convert some of the images to black-and-white.  

This young woman in traditional dress and her non-traditional iPhone worked beautifully that way.

This is Sequoia, one of Susie's weimaraners.  Sequoia was a wonderful dog that passed over the rainbow bridge three years ago.  Her longtime companion Lola is 14 and still with us.

White ibises are as plentiful in Southwest Florida as squirrels in New England.

Here are other photographers' choices.

Snow White

 I have been in Ridgefield over the weekend for a granddaughter's birthday.  I haven't seen so much snow since the Blizzard of 1978!  White buildings on Main Street really stood out against the high snowbanks.

Lounsbury House was built in 1896 by a former Connecticut governor.  These days it is an event space.  I have shown it from the front several times.  This is the right side.

The Christian Science church has a small structure near the sidewalk to distribute literature.  It is designed to match the church building.

Keeler Tavern dates back to pre-Revolutionary days.  

This is a very nice Italianate residence across from Keeler's Tavern.  Today it is the home of Ridgefield's first selectman (equivalent to mayor in Connecticut cities with a different government structure).

Art Deco

The Edison Theater in Fort Myers no longer shows movies.  It now houses a couple of law firms.

Naples Pier Again

 A month ago I posted about the start of the work to demolish the Naples Pier in preparation for replacing it with a substantially bigger, stronger and more resilient pier.

I visited again a week ago.  The pilings and supports are still there, but most of the decking is now gone.

More from Naples National

 When I am at outdoor art shows in Southwest Florida, I sometimes photograph works and scenes that appeal to me, without speaking with the artists or even learning who the artists are.

I was walking down a different aisle when I turned and saw this brilliantly colored group of paintings.  (The one in the middle looks like the older granddaughter at the starting line of a swimming meet.)

Asian artists somehow have the secret for painting hyper-realistic botanical still lives.

I probably should have taken more time, but I noticed this triptych of lavender rows as I was leaving.

A Naples photographer had some large images of African animals.

This was by far the busiest tent.  I couldn't get close enough to see what drew them in.

I have seen this artist's work at many art shows.  This time I liked the opening that showed him sitting on a high chair under a blue umbrella.

Naples National Art Show

One of the best outdoor art shows in Southwest Florida was held last weekend in Cambier Park. 

Christine Adele Moore painted a wonderful, attention-getting self portrait along with a full range of large, colorful and imaginative works.  She is originally from New Jersey and now lives in Bonita Springs.  Christine works in acrylics and often imbeds things like metal leaf in her paintings.

I have visited with (and photographed) Glory Spinuzzi at art shows countless times over the years.  Originally she specialized in superb tidal scenes, inspired in part by her birth on the island nation of Sri Lanka.  In the past couple of years Glory has begun expanding her ouvre, by adding more environments and wildlife.  This is Glory's favorite work at the show, which she did not have space yet to hang. 

Sondra Wompler is from Santa Fe.  I was taken by her colorful realistic scenes that incorporated imaginary elements like flamingos and elephants. 

In case you didn't notice, Arizona-based artist Jonah Ballard obsesses about the color pink.

Clyde Butcher

 So long as I was out near the midpoint between Naples and Miami on the Tamiami Trail, I drove a bit further toward Miami to visit Clyde Butcher's Big Cypress Gallery.

Clyde Butcher is in his mid-80s.  For decades he has made beautiful large format black-and-white photographs, with a big emphasis on photographing the Everglades.

The image on the left is one of the ones I looked at and admired for a long time.