Thank you Palm Beach County for a successful second year at ArtiGras!  Great to see returning customers, friends and family- thank you all for coming out in the chilly weather to support the arts

My “Profile in Paradise” !!  http://www.fla-keys.com/news/news.cfm?sid=8621

Fantastic show in Islamorada, thank you to everyone who came out to see me! What an awesome group of art patrons and marine lovers I met this weekend.

I was also the “artist liason” for the show- I spent all year recruiting artists for the Expo, then managed the application, jurying and artist set up process over the weekend.  I really loved getting to meet all the artists I’ve been corresponding with, and seeing their artwork in person as well.  What amazing talent!

I love this photo Andy Newman took of me at the Expo with my newly framed and newly for sale “Great Tarpon”.  I painted this while at University of Florida my senior year, and have been sentimentally attached to it for six years… But for now it’s up for grabs!

Here are some pictures of the staghorn coral I adopted back in August, and it’s progression as of today, thanks to the Coral Restoration Foundation.  The coral was planted in August 2012 in a nursery in the Atlantic off of Key Largo.  The foundation plants pieces of coral in a nursery, allows them to grow, and then they attach these adopted pieces to reefs to allow them to grow in a natural environment.

Thickets of reef building staghorn corals that used to cover acres of area in the Florida Keys have dwindled to occasional isolated colonies.  With multiple stressors including disease, climate change, water quality, episodic events, changes in community composition, and anthropogenic impacts, Florida’s imperiled reefs are shifting from coral dominated communities toward algae dominated hardbottom communities.  These shifts are creating increasingly difficult conditions for natural recovery of once healthy coral reef communities.

These acroporid corals are fast growing, framework building corals that play a key role in reef building throughout the Caribbean and Tropical Western Atlantic.  They provide shelter and structure for many species of reef inhabitants, and are visually stunning representatives of coral reef systems.

The Coral Restoration Foundation sent me a photo of my fragment this month and it has grown quite a bit since August!  What a cool organization.  You can check them out at http://www.coralrestoration.org/.

My past three shows this month in Estero, Boca Raton and Sarasota have been very enjoyable.  We’ve been blessed with great weather in all three cities on all three weekends!

There has obviously been a lot of driving in my life the past three weeks, but it’s totally worth it.  I truly love meeting so many friendly art lovers, and ocean lovers like myself.

My set of nine “Fish Faces” have been particularly rewarding to me at these shows as most people walk up to look at them with a big smile on their face- the biggest compliment I could ever expect:)

This past weekend I landed my first bonefish, right here in Islamorada.  I was fishing with my boyfriend, who was poling along a long flat, and we spotted this guy swimming along in about 12 inches of water.  I made my cast, jiggled my bait around, and prayed it would look tasty to this handsome fellow.  Sure enough, he took it and ZOOM, he sped off, spooked by the hook now set in his upper lip.  He fought a good fight- bonefish are known for being, pound for pound, the strongest and fastest moving fish, and I believe it!  The sound of my reel when he took off was one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard while fishing!  We think he was about 12 pounds, a good size for a bonefish.  FUN times!

It was a beautiful weekend in Miami!

Thank you for stopping by to see me and my artwork- it’s always great seeing so many old friends, teachers, high school peers and neighbors while in Miami.

Muchas gracias and I’ll see you again in the springtime, Miami!

Thanks for your support in Palm Beach Gardens at Downtown at the Gardens, and in Estero at Miromar Outlet Mall.  It was great meeting so many new people and seeing collectors of my art again!  I hope everyone enjoys their new artwork- if you bought new artwork, feel free to share a photo of it in it’s new home!  I love seeing my artwork in homes, as it brings to life the fact that it’s being enjoyed and hopefully bringing happiness to you!! -Michelle