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Off to Miami! When I have gone to Art Basel Miami in the past, I have stayed with our wonderful friends Arnoldo and Mirta in South Miami. Ellen went to college with Arnoldo and they have a fabulous place with a guest house and they put me up for the week. I was living large.
One of my issues so far is that I haven't found a whole lot of residency or exhibition programs based in private homes and I was looking for more models close to Cassilhaus. I hit paydirt with the Fountainhead Residency. A wonderful couple, Dan and Kathryn Mikesell, collected contemporary art, started inviting artists to their home, fell in love with living and working with artists of all stripes, established a residency program in a house beside theirs, and they have established life-long bonds with their artists and it is the richest experience they have ever had. Sound familiar???
I interviewed Kathryn for several hours and just couldn't believe how much our stories overlapped. They have many more artists than we do (3 at a time and 30-40/year) and I was astonished to find that they have no staff and do everything themselves! I thought I was overextended. So many wonderful stories and so many great ideas gleaned. This is by far the closest analog I've found to what we are doing at Cassilhaus and I now have an amazing sounding board for ideas and issues going forward. The most significant thing that will come out of this sabbatical research is a singular network of residency and community arts program professionals that I can tap in the future.
I only got a glimpse of their wonderful collection.
Their newest artist, Kari Cholnoky, had just moved into the garage studio and was already amazingly far along on her project.
Not as similar to Cassilhaus but no less interesting was my visit to the de la Cruz Collection, the private museum of Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz that houses their collection-one of the largest collections of Cuban art in the world-in a stunning space in downtown Miami.
I was fortunate to connect with Ibett Yanez (at left), the director of the de la Cruz museum, during my visit and she introduced me to Carlos and Rosa (center) and we had a wonderful meeting and I learned about their extraordinary educational and travel outreach programs which they support and fund entirely themselves. Ibett was very generous in connecting me with other interesting programs for my research as well.
It always helps to have friends with connections! I had visited the spectacular Margulies Collection in Miami years ago and was blown away by their singular collection, particulary in photography. It turns out that my friend Arnoldo is good friends with the husband of legendary curator of the collection Katherine Hinds and he was able to organize a private tour and interview on a day that the museum was closed. Katherine has been the curator of the collection since 1982 and is working on a comprehensive book about the collection. She was delightful and gave me full access to the collection.
For the past five years the collection has been acquiring an extensive collection of work by Anselm Keifer
I loved this piece by George Segal too.
Katherine also introduced me to "one of her favorite artists in Miami", Antonia Wright, a performance, video, and installation artist and Antonia was kind enough to meet me and give me a studio tour on very short notice. I have rarely had the opportunity to talk with a performance based artist and It was enlightening to learn of the years of study in meditation and tai chi she did to perform this piece with bees. (Click on the icon to go full screen)
Miami was a spectacular stop. Thanks to everyone for their kindness, generosity, and hospitality.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee, And revery.
The revery alone will do, If bees are few.
--Emily Dickinson
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