Alina Rubio is in constant communication with her future self. “I take my 45-year-old self out to coffee,” says the 29-year-old sculptor and owner of southeast Naples’ art studio and creative workspace, MasterPeace. “I talk to her about who she is, what she looks like, feels like, even what her house, furniture and art collection looks like—I hope she has a super cool art collection.” Treating her imagined future like a present reality helps Alina understand what she wants out of life and pursue her goals with intention.

The Miami native has often felt the pull of her older, wiser self at turning points in her journey. During her college years, Alina befriended a fellow artist and introduced herself as a sculptor. There was just one problem—she’d never sculpted before. But, the voice inside compelled her to try. That night, Alina went home and created her first sculpture—a silhouette of a woman carved into wood. Years later, after a stint as a gallerist and art adviser at Miami’s blue-chip Opera Gallery, she felt the pull again. This time, the now-bonafide sculptor was visiting Naples for an art fair and stumbled across the quirky, A-framed shopping complex off Tamiami Trail that became MasterPeace.

[caption id="attachment_71888" align="aligncenter" width="850"] Alina Rubio combines her passions for art, wellness, design, music and education at MasterPeace, a Naples-based studio workshop offering weekly classes, where people at any skill level can embrace creativity. Photography by Christina Bankson[/caption]

Alina set up shop in Naples in May of 2023 to create a safe space where anyone can reflect and explore their creativity through the arts. She is not an art therapist, but Alina’s classes mirror the practice’s principal ideas. “A lot of wellness comes from dedicating a little time to ourselves, whether by drinking more water, going for a walk, listening to music or writing in your journal. MasterPeace is just like an extension of that idea,” she says. In this stylishly serene, open-concept space, the sculptor blends her experience in the Miami fine arts world with her interests in the arts, wellness and education, offering art workshops weekly (and private events) suited for any skill level.

Each workshop is a bit different: One week may combine working with clay and doing yoga with Kim Quan from The Flow Body yoga studio, while the next might be painting and listening to live music from local musicians and Florida Gulf Coast University students. Each class is tailored to foster community and creative ‘flow.’ “For my dad, ‘flow’ has been an important word,” Alina says of the unbridled state of focus and inspiration often described by artists. “It’s like time is slow and fast at the same time and you are just connected.” Throughout her life, Alina watched her parents—her dad is a first-generation Cuban American; her mom emigrated from Venezuela after Alina was born—push through hardships and build successful businesses. Even in the midst of turmoil, her dad tended a lush garden. It kept him centered and present. Through years of reading psychology journals and plumbing anecdotal evidence shared by other creatives, Alina realized being present is the key to mastering creative flow—though that may be easier said than done. “Oftentimes, we get in our heads thinking about the future or the past,” she says. “I’m very guilty of doing that, and with the flow state, it really brings you into a moment of absolute presence in the now.”

[caption id="attachment_71889" align="aligncenter" width="683"] The MasterPeace owner and sculptor displays some of her heritage-inspired creations, such as Chair with Pearl Earring, in the studio. The minimalist, high-back chair is adorned with an oversized stud and hoop, representing the sentimental weight of family heirlooms. Photography by Christina Bankson[/caption]

Alina earned a degree in early childhood education and a minor in fine arts from Florida International University (FIU) in 2018. There, she studied under renowned Miami sculptor Robert Chambers and found refuge in the fifth-floor library. An avid reader, Alina is fascinated by the psychology behind creativity—how it impacts people, relationships and society. Combining this fascination with her studies of teaching methods like Reggio Emilia (a curiosity-driven approach to education out of Italy that is similar to the Montessori method), the MasterPeace maven aims to expose more people to the benefits of investing in the artistic side of their brain in a no-pressure environment, so her students can be more present and tapped in with their inner selves. “It’s a very constructivist teaching style, which means that it is really led by the student and not necessarily led by the teacher. So, I don’t tell you what to do. You tell me what you’re interested in, and we work from there,” Alina says.

While the sculptor looks to her future self for courage, she calls on her past for inspiration. The MasterPeace studio is lined with sculptures and works-in-progress deeply rooted in familial relationships and history. Alina refers to some of her pieces, like Chair with Pearl Earring, as ‘sculptural heirlooms.’ The sturdy wooden chair, seemingly pierced with an oversized pearl stud, signifies the act of passing down an object imbued with memories and sentimental meaning. Recently, she has started producing ‘sculptural poems,’ a series of life-sized shadow boxes that display hand-made sculptures symbolic of her unique connection with specific family members and loved ones.

[caption id="attachment_71890" align="aligncenter" width="683"] Alina follows a creativity- and curiosity-driven Reggio Emilia-inspired teaching method for her ever-evolving workshops. Themes like yoga and pottery set the stage for inspiration, and Alina offers guidance, but students create freely in a no-pressure environment. Photography by Christina Bankson[/caption]

MasterPeace itself is something of a living artwork, underscoring the significance of creativity in every aspect of our lives while weaving together all of Alina’s callings. “Growing up, it always felt like society was putting some kind of rock on my shoulders, telling me I had to pick just one,” Alina says. “ [MasterPeace] pulls together all the things that I have ever loved. This is the poetry. It’s the music. It’s the sculpture. It’s the art. It’s the wellness. It’s the therapy. This is everything.”

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The post Naples’ Best New Art Workshop appeared first on Gulfshore Life.

In April, photographer Harry De Zitter found himself standing in the middle of a road in his native South Africa. He was talking with a friend in the Karoo, an arid region covered with low scrub brushes. The open, umber-colored plains surrounding them reached into infinite stretches as another man approached. Harry’s focus drifted to the newcomer’s fraying boots and the dusty, shattered asphalt beneath. He couldn’t help but take a shot. The resulting black-and-white photograph is so sparse and candid that it becomes affectingly intimate.

Harry, who spends most of the year in Naples, has a decades-long career as an advertising photographer. He’s a titan in the industry, globetrotting to cover splashy campaigns for dozens of top-tier clients, ranging from Mercedes-Benz and Stella Artois to Wrangler and IBM. He’s photographed Paul McCartney and Bill Gates, run studios in New York City and London, and published work in Elle Italia and Conde Nast Traveler.

[caption id="attachment_70895" align="aligncenter" width="300"] For his personal work, the advertising photographer titan shoots in grayscale. “Black and white gets at the reality of the place,” he says.[/caption]

But, when it comes to his personal projects, Harry favors story-driven compositions in black and white. Images like the one he captured on that desert road this past spring, Worker with Well-Worn Boots, elevate the aloof or mundane into a haunting human treatise and distinguish the photographer as an artist. “My viewfinder is my window to the world,” he says.

[caption id="attachment_70894" align="alignleft" width="300"] Family Waiting at Bus Stop, Natal, South Africa (1988)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_70893" align="alignright" width="300"] Farm Landscape, Overberg, South Africa (2017)[/caption]

Harry estimates that 90 percent of his work as an advertising photographer has been in color; his black-and-white photographs are all his—a fascination that’s stayed with him since college. He recalls the campus’ dark room and watching his first black-and-white shot come into focus under dim red light. “I was smitten,” he says. “It was magic.”

As his career in advertising photography coalesced, Harry kept returning to his monochromatic passions. It has cojones (nerve), he says of the grayscale palette. “It has texture; it has soul,” he adds, leaning forward in a burst of animation. “It reminds me of hearing a record producer talk about digital recordings, that they’re sometimes too clean. You need grit and noise.”

The absence of color, combined with Harry’s uncanny observational acumen, has yielded hundreds of black-and-white photos documenting people, places and possessions across the planet. In monochrome, Harry’s work is less encumbered by visual distractions, making his images sharper, starker. “Black and white gets at the reality of the place,” he says.

[caption id="attachment_70892" align="alignleft" width="300"] Worker with Well-Worn Boots, Middelpos, Karoo, South Africa (2024)[/caption]

Look at his photographs like Chrysler Building and Empire State Building. The images capture New York City’s famed landmarks, not as chipper postcard scenes but almost ominously in their achromatic states—a reminder that there’s more grit than glamour in the city’s grind. The same pathos is palpable in his monochrome landscapes. In The Everglades, part of his Chasing Clouds series, the inky undersides of thunderheads swell forebodingly over the swamp’s horizon. “That image wouldn’t have the same power in color,” he says definitively.

Grayscale photography has a narrative quality, too, Harry says, particularly with human subjects. In the 2019 Grandmother Shopping with her Granddaughter at Thursday Market, Harry captures a tender moment amid the streets of Bassano del Grappa, a town in northern Italy. The double portrait narrows in on the pair’s interlocked arms and hands, cropping out their faces entirely. The generational gap is evident through their wardrobe—the granddaughter wears a baggy Adidas shirt; the grandmother, a tidy ensemble with a structured handbag—and the warmth is palpable with how they lean on each other. “I was moved by the granddaughter’s tenderness for her grandmother,” Harry says. “The act of her affectionately holding her grandmother’s arm, whereas most teenagers would be too embarrassed to be seen with their grandparent, [struck me].”

[caption id="attachment_70897" align="alignleft" width="300"] Grandmother Shopping with her Granddaughter at Thursday Market, Bassano del Grappa, Italy (2019)[/caption]

As they talked, the nonna told him that Lino Manfrotto, the founder of renowned photography and videography equipment company Manfrotto, had been her wedding photographer. She didn’t know Harry had been an ambassador and product tester for the brand for years, a partnership that continues to this day.

Born in Belgium, Harry and his family moved to South Africa’s Eastern Cape when he was 9 months old. At 18, he enrolled in the Port Elizabeth Art School (now part of Nelson Mandela University) and soon found work as an assistant in his professor’s son’s darkroom. “I’ve had to be very versatile,” Harry says. “In the United States and Europe, photographers specialize because there are so many people working in places like New York, London, Paris. But in South Africa, you had to do it all—cars, fashion, still life.”

Much of Harry’s South African photography serves as a documentation of his home as he knows it: interior shots of his brother’s workshop, portraits of longtime friends and prominent creatives, candid shots of locals in various parts of the country. 

[caption id="attachment_70896" align="alignleft" width="300"] Chrysler Building, New York City, New York (1995)[/caption]

Amid these familial and fraternal frames are photographs like Family Waiting at Bus Stop. The arresting image, shot for Manfrotto, captures an African family of nine deep in the Zulu nation (one of South Africa’s native populations). The subjects seem to scrutinize the man behind the lens—the younger family members stare back, unabashed but slightly defensive, except for two: an infant and a young boy in a dark V-neck sweater. The boy looks vulnerable and forlorn, having resigned himself to this stranger taking his photo. The feeling of surrender in his eyes betrays his siblings’ stoicism. Harry felt the tension when he snapped the shot, but rather than shy from discomfort, he leaned into the honesty of the moment.

After all, his goal is to capture the raw beauty and truth of life. “There’s something about the strength of black and white,” Harry says. “I’ve always had a little thing on my shoulder—I don’t want to call it an angel, because I’m not religious—telling me to shoot in black and white.”

[caption id="attachment_70900" align="aligncenter" width="200"] Harry De Zitter’s Schoolgirls Buying Train Tickets, Zushi, Japan (1986)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_70901" align="aligncenter" width="300"] WWII Liberty Ship in Fog, Embarcadero, San Francisco (1996)[/caption]

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Anna Forrest Fischler wades into the pristine waters of Cayo Costa State Park, an undeveloped island north of Captiva Island, accessible only by boat or kayak. It’s a warm summer day in 2023, and the Fort Myers native is painting ‘en plein air,’ or outside, to capture the views of a setting she knows well. The remote alcove was a favorite for family excursions as she was growing up.

Anna set up her easel on the nearby shore, but she has forgotten an essential tool: water—the substance that will turn her dry palette into a fluid alchemy of color. Fortunately, an aquatic expanse surrounds her. Out of necessity and curiosity, Anna dips a small porcelain bowl into the shallows and gets to work. The salty Gulf water works just fine to mix her gouache, a water-based paint with a richer pigmentation than watercolors. The resulting works exude a distinct sense of place, with Anna’s impressionist style and native lens accented by occasional speckles of sand from the shore.

[caption id="attachment_69998" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Anna spent last summer painting plein air scenes of familiar, wild locales across her native Southwest Florida.[/caption]

Now a senior illustration major at the Rhode Island School of Design, Anna spent last summer at home making lively, loose landscape paintings of Southwest Florida. In the familiar cradle of home, the artist was free to investigate. How does salt water compare to what’s dipped out of a creek? What will this painting look like if it is sliced to ribbons and reassembled? In several pieces of the Summer ‘23 Plein Airs series, Anna cut her paintings into geometric patterns and rearranged them like puzzle pieces. The illusory effect makes you feel as if you’re looking through a latticed window at the landscape beyond. The works—inspired by Anna’s textile coursework—take on a tile-like appearance similar to quilting patterns. “It’s nerve-wracking but healthy,” Anna says of taking a knife to her art. “You can’t be attached to your work, because if you’re satisfied, you stop.”

Though plein air painting abounds in subtropical Southwest Florida, Anna eschews the ubiquitous beachy scenes portrayed by hobbyist snowbirds. Instead, she prefers raw, untouched locales like Cayo Costa, settings rife with natural beauty and personal significance.

Unfazed by her hometown’s heat and humidity, Anna spent her days capturing landmarks like the Sanibel Lighthouse, desolate after Hurricane Ian and shrouded in a tangle of sea oats and cordgrass. The banyan tree that magisterially graces the grounds of the Edison and Ford Winter Estates stands proud amid a patchwork of triangular cuts that seem to radiate from the tree’s trunk, roots and branches. When Anna, a former cross-country runner, decided to capture her John Yarbrough Linear Park training grounds, she found previously overlooked charm in the green space situated between the train tracks and a drainage ditch. “There were a ton of lily pads I didn’t see when I was running,” she says. Rich royal blues, warm magentas and pops of yellow saturate the resulting painting, Linear Park, which hung among many of Anna’s works in a recent solo exhibition at the Arts for ACT Gallery in Downtown Fort Myers.

Anna uses a panoply of materials that dissolve in water: acrylics, fountain pen inks, gouache and water-soluble wax pastels, to name a few. The quick-drying materials serve a plein air environment well; they’re ideal for layering and refining detail while maintaining the soft, loose strokes that characterize Anna’s landscapes. Recently, she added watercolor pencils to her repertoire. “The pencils are from the 1960s,” Anna says happily of her thrift store find. On an excursion to Cullum’s Trail Park in Bonita Springs, the artist struggled to capture the finer details within the reflections on the water. The thin watercolor pencil lines, added later from home, allowed her to add depth to the creek’s rippling surface.

[caption id="attachment_69999" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Anna uses the natural water at her plein air sites to mix her paints. Salty seawater from Cayo Costa, fresh swamp water from Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve and water from a drainage ditch at Linear Park help the 21-year-old artist reinforce the connection between the paintings and their subjects.[/caption]

Since her trip to Cayo Costa, Anna hasn’t bothered bringing water to mix paints and clean brushes when she paints in the wild. What began as a pragmatic solution became an intentional practice—adding another layer of physical connection between the art and the subject. “Some of [my pieces] have bits of sand stuck in the paint, or [I used darker colors] to compensate for how bright the light was,” Anna says.

Each piece takes a couple of hours to complete. Last summer, she produced a substantial 20 works—about two paintings a week. Anna doesn’t usually scout her locations ahead of time, but she knows which hometown haunts hold compositional promise. “Conditions can be unknown,” she says. “I got chased out by horseflies at the Estero Bay Preserve."

To make it easier to relocate and trek to dreamy, remote locales, her setup is light and clever: She paints on watercolor paper taped to drawing boards rather than bulky canvases, uses a portable easel that she’s modified for quick setup and breakdown, and dons a bucket hat from Fort Myers staple Sun Harvest Citrus to protect from UV rays.

[caption id="attachment_70001" align="alignleft" width="437"] She paints on watercolor paper taped to drawing boards rather than bulky canvases, uses a portable easel that she’s modified for quick setup and breakdown, and dons a bucket hat from Fort Myers staple Sun Harvest Citrus to protect from UV rays.[/caption]

Anna layers on color quickly and decisively. Once the painting dries, she sketches angular patterns on the backs of the paper, cuts out the shapes with an X-Acto knife and rearranges the scene to her liking. The experimental artist then glues each piece of her fractured landscapes onto thick Bristol paper and piles heavy books and notepads on top to flatten the piece. Anna is fascinated by how the sharp cuts interact with the soft, round figures in her paintings, elegantly interrupting the flora and fauna’s subtle forms and adding a surreal edge to her landscape work.

Currently, Anna’s studying abroad in Rome, lugging her art supplies through the Eternal City’s ancient, labyrinthine streets. Her plein air paintings keep her connected to the places and memories of her hometown, thousands of miles away. She thinks back to the hours spent last summer, rediscovering Southwest Florida, paying close attention to the treasures and subtleties she previously drove or walked right by. “I [was] keeping my eyes open for compositional possibilities and the eccentricities of my town that I had gone blind to with time,” she says. “Painting en plein air forced me to slow down—to be observant and grateful.”

Photography by Christina Bankson

The post A SWFL Artist Redefines Plein Air Painting appeared first on Gulfshore Life.

“But, this is good.”

Mally Khorasantchi punctuates many sentences this way, speaking in her lilting German accent. Noshing on a dulce de leche-stuffed croissant from Bonita Springs’ Wolfmoon bakery, the artist frets playfully about her figure. “But, this is good.” The reflexive phrase signals her contentment and matter-of-fact wisdom. Overlooking the creek behind the Bonita Springs dream home she and her husband built together—the one completed just months after he suddenly passed away—Mally says the house can feel too big for one person. “But, this is good.”

Mally Khorasantchi is not one to dwell on what could be or what might have been. Her life occurs moment-to-moment, her mind fixed on the present, even when her heart wanders into the past. The last two years have been a shifting tide for the painter, but this period of upheaval—stemming from the loss of her husband and the move from Naples to a verdant tract in Bonita Springs—has settled into a contemplative quietude. Mally’s painting jeans tumble in the laundry more often now as she focuses on a new series: The Sun Also Rises, an apparent opus on life, love and a connection to nature influenced by the flora and fauna surrounding her.

“If you overthink things, you never do this. You know?” she says of immigrating to the United States from Germany some 32 years ago. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to move halfway around the world. The decision seemed rash to some, but at 43, she still felt young and adventurous. Her kids, by then grown, had moved to the United States. The house in Düsseldorf was too big and the weather too dreary. When Mally Khorasantchi and her husband visited their son for parents’ weekend at University of Pennsylvania, the pair allotted a week for a vacation to Southwest Florida. They quickly fell in love with the silky air and the smells and sounds of nature by the Gulf. “Why don’t we do this?” Mally remembers asking her husband. “Why do we live on the other side of the world with this ugly weather and the Germans, who are not so funny?” In a matter of three months, the two closed on a property in Naples’ Bay Colony community.

Mally paints botanicals—big ones—and abstract scenes interspersed with clippings from her favorite French fashion and architecture magazines. One day, while she flips through a publication, she’s inspired by the flourishing hemline of a pink, ruffled petticoat. Mally neatly slices the image from the page and places it into the woven basket she keeps at her side for just such moments—piecemeal parchment flutters in the container. 

The pink fabric’s movement and hue hold meaning, but she hasn’t deciphered it yet—that will take time. First, the artist must remove herself from the work. She’ll read a book, listen to music or sit by the creek and watch the manatees swimming in concert with the easy current. Then, some innocuous word, melody or blooming flower strikes a cord, and the swooping skirt reappears in her mind as a cluster of petals. Soon, this image bleeds into the magenta hues of her 2024 painting The Sun Also Rises VI. There is a narrative behind each of Mally’s paintings. Beneath the billowing petticoat, a bowl of fruit blends into blue, tendril-like leaves; a simple, white bed hides amid the texture of tree bark. In this way, life’s little monotonous moments are framed as part of a natural process—order and chaos in tandem. Everything is as it should be; everything flows along life’s current.

[caption id="attachment_68908" align="aligncenter" width="850"] Mally Khorasantchi’s larger-than-life artwork, which blends painted botanical imagery with collage elements, is a favorite for Gulfshore Life advisory board chair and trustee for Naples Children & Education Foundation Denise Cobb. “I love the colors and themes and especially love the fact that every piece is so unique, but you immediately know it is Mally,” she says. (Photo by by Christina Bankson)[/caption]

Steal Like an Artist, a book by Austin Kleon, further influenced Mally’s collage works. The author frames art as an iterative process and encourages readers to pluck inspiration from the imagery surrounding them; there is greater meaning in the context of individual experience. The Hidden Life of Trees, by German author Peter Wohlleben, forged Mally’s belief in the interconnectedness of life and nature.

The artist is an avid reader and collects fragments of ideas from books. Last year, Mally Khorasantchi and her lifelong best friend took a cruise to Key West and stopped by The Hemingway Home and Museum. She’d visited the site before, but this time, the artist purchased the author’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises. She hoped the book, where characters search for meaning after tragedy, would help her process the grief of losing her husband, Ali.

Reading the novel, Mally noted the telegrams Hemingway’s characters sent between New York and Europe—it made her think of the many messages Ali sent during business travels. Originally from Iran, Ali ran his family’s oriental rug company and would jet to foreign locales to visit manufacturers. He’d send telegrams back to his wife in Germany: “zur muttertag gratuliere iche liebe dich beste schone mutter der wel: dein mann” (‘Happy Mother’s Day, I love you, the most beautiful mother in the world: your husband.’). His messages were short—each word cost five Deutschmark (roughly $2.50 at the time), but with his voice now gone, each word carries more weight. “Today, we have all the words in the world and nobody cares. It’s overflowing. But this was so short,” Mally says. “I took the telegrams and put all the lines into my paintings. This is recycling my love,” Mally Khorasantchi says. These slices of affection reflect on the importance of our words and find their way into each piece from her current series.

Inside her artsy, eclectic home—which mixes Mally’s modern maximalist, antique and coastal sensibilities—stacks of works-in-progress line the hallway leading to her studio. Before construction ended, the artist worked out of the property’s only existing structure, a backyard shanty surrounded by the tangle of native plants and animals that first drew her to the green oasis near Old 41 Road in Downtown Bonita Springs. She would peer out the window, observing the way Spanish moss dripped from the overhead canopy or how seed pods went from fuzzy to rigid as they dried, and pull these small glories into her work. Mally’s massive canvases barely fit into the cottage, leaving little space to step back and adjust her perspective. To get a good look, the 76-year-old painter would drag her work out into the yard over and over again (no small feat after a spinal fusion in 2021) to check the light and refine each detail.

Once a work is complete, Mally releases it to galleries, museums or private buyers without reluctance. This piece of her was meant to be shared, not hidden away. “A painter is like a storyteller or a dancer,” Mally says. “We have to be naked there and present ourselves. And then, we have to wait for somebody to love us. You’re not really in charge after you make something. That’s the end of your story, but then, it takes its own little trip.”

Over the past decade, Mally Khorasantchi has refined and locked into her aesthetic. The vibrant hues of her modern-day work starkly contrast her paintings before moving to America. Dark-toned works have evolved into her current expressive and emotional style, inspired by Southwest Florida’s natural environment.

[caption id="attachment_68909" align="aligncenter" width="850"] Mally’s home reflects her artsy, eclectic style. Modern maximalist, coastal and antique elements blend seamlessly in the comfortable, open-concept living space. Various paintings from throughout the artist’s career adorn the walls, and stacks of works-in-progress line the hallway to her studio. (Photo by Amber Frederiksen)[/caption]

While her early work was more subdued, Mally’s personality never was. She was born shortly after the end of World War II in a culture that she says emphasized self-doubt over her natural boldness. Mally was certain she would be an artist, even when life challenged her dreams. At 9, she won an art contest at Düsseldorf’s annual lantern festival. At 12, she lost her father. Two years went by, and Mally began looking at art schools. Then, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. The artist reluctantly attended business school—the more stable option, impressed by her family—and married a man who was only good on paper. By 28, Mally was divorced and had two children. “Then I met my neighbor, later husband, Ali. He was short and Muslim and everything that my mother prayed against,” she says laughing. “But, we made it nearly 46 years, and it was very good fun. We had a wonderful relationship.” 

During her years with Ali, Mally Khorasantchi studied art and produced two popular exhibitions in Germany. The couple’s arrival in America, though a welcome change of scenery, once again impeded the artist’s work. She could not paint; she needed to work to get a green card, so for eight and a half years, Mally ran a nail salon, where she learned what it meant to be American. The women she worked with were fiercely independent, fearless and unapologetic—qualities that felt authentically ‘Mally’ in a way Germany never did. The couple became American. Then, they became citizens. Then, Mally returned to her canvas.

She opened a studio in the Naples Design District in 2001—the first studio on Shirley Street, now brimming with artists—and found representation locally with Harmon-Meek Gallery. Her work can be seen in the United States, Germany and Russia. The artist served as president of United Arts Collier between 2010 and 2011, planning events and raising money. She still attends events sometimes, but she’s learned to enjoy solitude and visits from friends. The backyard of her Bonita Springs home provides more than enough inspiration for her creative flow. Her little black cat, Mr. Tucker, stalks birds from behind a screened-in pool, and she drinks sparkling wine in the evenings. It is quiet and beautiful and lively and lonely. “But, this is good.”   

The post Revered SWFL Artist Mally Khorasantchi’s New Series Collages Life’s Cycles and Seasons appeared first on Gulfshore Life.

Marcus Jansen looks up in awe. Splashes of fireman yellow reflect in his eyes, pulling dominant hues from the assortment of Purvis Young paintings collaged into murals within the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida SouthWestern State College in Fort Myers. There is an undeniable kinship between Marcus, a respected painter from New York City’s Bronx borough, and Purvis, the lauded, Miami-bred, self-taught expressionist. Though the two men never met, their artistic agendas mirror one another, so much so that a 2020 exhibit in Fort Lauderdale, Divided We Fall, emphasized the parallels in their practices. Marcus Jansen is the perfect guy to show me around the Purvis Young: Honey in the Sky exhibit, running through July 13.

The exhibit showcases more than 75 original paintings spanning more than 40 years of Purvis’ career. Among the gritty, pastel-tinged works, you’ll see Purvis’ knack for gestural paintings splashed onto pieces of reclaimed wood, canvas, burlap, cardboard and paper, with elements from African folk art and European masters, such as Vincent van Gogh and El Greco. Symbols (wild horses for freedom, cages for oppression, angels for hope and boats for migration) recur throughout the canvases, documenting the cacophony of urban life and strife Purvis saw around him in Miami. Most of the paintings are unnamed, so the viewer is free to draw their own conclusions. “It’s a big part of what good art provides us—something that stimulates your intellectual capacity,” Marcus says. “It makes each individual feel or see something differently because you bring something [of yourself] to the table.”

Marcus discovered the late artist’s work around 2005 through a mutual friend and now owns five of Purvis’ pieces. The two come from different generations and places, but the artists’ work is innately similar. Both explore themes of class, race, humanity and spirituality with vivid colors. Growing up in the inner city informed the Afro-Caribbean artists’ perspectives. Where Marcus’ contemporary depictions of colonial soldiers explore the deeply rooted issues of capitalism, Purvis’ abstract expressionist paintings serve as a lifetime thesis on the Black American experience.

Swells of sorrow, awe, nostalgia and joy roll through Marcus as he traces the visual narrative, which includes images of black, red and yellow figures depicted behind bars; kids’ faces floating in the sky like angels; and Black and white figures dancing in harmony. “I think he had deep human concerns, which is the same in mine—the underlying tone in my work is human concern,” Marcus says. “You’re really looking at his soul when you look at his work.”

Marcus is drawn to a simple pink and yellow landscape framed by what looks to be a fractured piece of wood paneling. Purvis’ use of found materials reminds us of the gallery’s namesake, Robert Rauschenberg, who would also walk around looking for pieces of his environment to incorporate into collages. Inside the thick frame, Purvis connected three strips of canvas to paint a high-rise building with his signature squiggle figures lining the street and roof above—a testament to his raw, innocent style. While the figures may look childlike in technique, each curved body is meticulously painted with one brushstroke.

For inspiration, Purvis looked to issues within his community, as well as global matters past and present. “We were both critiquing and commenting on the system, on an oppressive system for the Black and Brown people in America, which is not overly shown in the visual arts.” 

Purvis lived in the mostly Black, underserved community of Overtown, just south of Miami’s Wynwood area, from his birth in 1943 until he died in 2010. “[Overtown] was a rough area, but he was able to produce something so pure in that environment,” Marcus says. Purvis taught himself to paint and often incorporated found materials, like wood and carpet as frames, fabric as canvas, and leftover paint gifted to him by local firefighters (the source of many of Purvis’ yellow-toned works).

Looking at his paintings, you feel the Miami heat and hear the traffic. It’s as if you’re with him on the street, documenting the strife, celebrating the people and dreaming of a better life. Purvis would use proceeds from his works—which sold for $20 in the ’70s—to help his neighbors. The love for his hometown comes through in every quivering, calligraphic stroke. “That purity is what people are paying attention to,” Marcus says.

While Purvis’ works are now shown in prestigious institutions, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the artist spent much of his life struggling to make ends meet. “[His work] was often labeled as primitive art, outsider art,” Marcus says. “I never saw anything like that; it was always very much insider, very much contemporary art. It’s just a matter of how you label things, right? I never liked these labels anyways.” Marcus revels in the expanded inclusivity that’s emerged since the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 helped shine a light on artists of color. Inclusion, Marcus explains, is not a matter of reinvention but rather recognition. “That’s exactly what’s been missing, the idea that he’s included [in the world of fine art]. That goes for many Black and Brown painters over the decades—we want to be included. It’s not so much about changing anything, but it’s a matter of saying, ‘Hey, this work has a value stamp on it,’” he says.

Like Purvis, Marcus started his career selling works on street corners in his city, stacking canvases against the buildings in hopes a buyer would bite. Marcus points to the arrangement of Purvis’ works within the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, cleverly cluttered onto the walls as Purvis would have done on the outside of abandoned buildings throughout Overtown. “This is really inspirational,” Marcus says, stepping closer to the expressive display. “You feel freedom when you’re standing here. He was completely free and direct.”  

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Few things awaken us to the need to protect our wild spaces like a stirring work of art. Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary—which recently launched an artist-in-residence program—is one of those Southwest Florida oases that provides endless inspiration to creatives and budding conservationists.

New York-based textile artist Tamara Kostianovsky found her muse on a morning jaunt through the preserve before her recent Botanical Revolution exhibit at Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum. The Argentinian-bred artist explores consumer culture, violence and environmentalism via stitched sculptures and panels of flora and fauna in various states of decay and rebirth. Working with recycled fabrics—her medium—softens and humanizes everything while speaking to the ecologically taxing fashion industry.

Recent works take the artist deeper into her ecological focus. In Botanical Revolution, birds perch on cushiony, dangling butchered animals (see: Carcass With Egret, inspired by her time in Naples); tree stumps (made from her late father’s wardrobe) depict fleshy tones and arterial ridges; and botanical tapestries brim with wildlife, reflecting the hope for the renewal of exploited regions. Gulfshore Life community advisory board member and Naples restaurateur Ingrid Aielli recalls the show as her favorite of the season. “You feel like you’re in nature even though you’re in the museum,” Ingrid says. She loved Tamara’s Southwest Florida-inspired Morning Walk at Corkscrew Swamp, which emerged from the artist’s visit.

Tamara was about to leave Corkscrew defeated, not having seen any wildlife, when she spotted the alabaster egrets that inspired the piece. “I was mesmerized by the sculptural nature of those beaks—so pointy and twisty,” she says. The brilliant blue comes from the artist’s first day in Naples, sitting outside Kunjani coffee shop. “I looked up, and [the sky] was the most incredible shade of blue—it almost belonged in a Disney movie,” she says.

Part of Tamara’s Fowl Decorations series—which recreates historic French wallpapers that flaunted non-native peacocks and other exotic birds to market in the New World—the piece aims to right historical fallacies. “It’s trying to repopulate French ornamental floral design with native birds in the Americas,” she says.

The triptych diverges slightly from Tamara’s focus on using flesh wounds to talk about cultural norms around violence and excessive consumerism. “It takes more of a zoomed-out look … at colonization as a violent act ecologically speaking—it’s a wound to the land—and how to repair the record,” she says.

Now part of The Baker’s permanent collection, Morning Walk at Corkscrew Swamp is a fitting tribute to the preserve’s 70th anniversary this year. “When you go out on that boardwalk, you get an opportunity to explore this cypress forest, spend time with the wildlife and experience what Florida was once like,” Corkscrew director Keith Laakkonen says. You may even find a little creative inspiration of your own. 

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Throughout my years as an arts journalist, my stories about community theater have rarely strayed from the narrative of underfunding: We could do so much more with more support.

In Southwest Florida, I’ve seen, perhaps for the first time, what a community theater can achieve with proper support. Over a two-week span, executive artistic director and CEO Bryce Alexander granted me unfettered access to his offices and staff to see how The Naples Players (TNP) is furthering its mission to foster community and provide radical, inclusive access to theater for people across the region.

Peals of laughter spill into the hallway of the preschool building at Naples United Church of Christ, where TNP’s costume department has set up shop while their home base, Sugden Community Theatre, undergoes a $21 million renovation. I walk in and see tables lined with boxes of buttons, pins, fabric and shoes; closets swell with donated furs and jewelry; and mannequins display past costumes. The shop’s matriarch, Dot Auchmoody, flips through a 1950s design book looking for cat-eye glasses for Mrs. Peacock for an upcoming production of Clue.

Her team makes about half of the troupe’s costumes in-house (an eight-week process); the other half comes from thrift shops, other theaters, donations and New York nonprofit Theatre Development Fund. During her 22 years with TNP, Dot has built the largest costume repository in Southwest Florida. “[The Laboratory Theater of Florida] up in Fort Myers lost everything in the hurricane,” she says. “So we said, ‘Hey, come shop.’”

A few days later, resident scenic designer Michael Santos is on the set of Laugh, Cry, Pee, Repeat!—a production exploring the experiences, wisdom and humor of older women. Written by three local ladies, the story doesn’t offer much precedent for the stage design. Michael’s Greco-Roman park is layered with symbolic meaning. Three mock-stone arches reveal curls of ivy and three painted wooden reliefs depicting a bouquet vase, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. “Venus de Milo is about inner beauty and how you feel as a person. The Winged Victory is your struggle, your fight. The center vase is the encapsulation of family,” he says.

Developing the costumes and sets is part of a collaborative process that begins with a script read and a concept meeting with the director. “Bryce will ask probing questions like, ‘How do you want this to feel?’ and ‘What colors do you see?’ Those answers from the director tell us how best to work with them,” says props director Amy Hughes, a lifelong theater kid who quit her day job last year to work full-time with The Naples Players.

At the group’s offices on Fifth Avenue South, Nick Dalton, Craig Price and Summer Pliskow trickle into a sunny conference room to discuss plans for expanding off-site programming. These three make up the arts access department—developing, organizing and leading several weekly classes (in multiple languages) geared toward students of all ages and ability levels. 

Each team member holds an impressive roster of certifications and degrees add in fields related to theater and clinical care, but the bulk of the basis for their programming comes from conversations with partner organizations, students and local families. Craig, the most TNP-tenured among the group, has worked with the organization for 17 years. He  joined the team full-time seven years ago, when he and Bryce decided to build on their desire to provide programming for people with disabilities. The ethos is now embedded into the fabric of The Naples Players and reflected in the Sugden renovation. In addition to training front-of-house staff with ASL instruction for future shows, The Naples Players is also building a sensory-friendly viewing booth with a private entrance for guests sensitive to crowds or sensory stimuli.

The Naples Players has long offered creative programming, such as improv classes, to aid members of partner groups like STARability and Collier County Public Schools in developing social and communication skills. Two years ago, the group welcomed Summer, the education programs coordinator, who expanded the program to offer singing, acting and dance classes. Today, she’s been writing a script for The Greatest Showman for her STARability students. Over about nine months, her students pick a musical and practice their skills with Summer every week.

Down the hall, advancement director Elizabeth (Liz) Rountree shows me her office wardrobe—a stack of neat blouses, dresses and pants hanging on the back of her door. In an organization brimming with creatives, Liz is attuned to numbers and relationships, ensuring The Naples Players has the financial support it needs to grow and sustain Bryce’s vision. “In order to do that, we need to bring in new people who have the capacity to help—people who probably don’t know anything about us,” Liz says.

This includes co-writing personalized letters from Bryce, setting up lunches or cocktail parties, and developing new programs, such as the Director’s Donors Circle, where substantial gifts ($10,000 or more) are celebrated with insider perks. Prior to joining The Naples Players in 2023, Liz worked in similar capacities at The Shelter for Abused Women & Children, Gulfshore Playhouse and Artis—Naples. A year ago, the 65-year-old thought she was nearing retirement. Now, she’s not so sure. “This is the most fun organization I’ve ever worked for,” she says. “I think I could do this a lot longer.”

The next morning, Bryce navigates a full-staff meeting, covering everything from a boom in ticket sales to expanding accessibility to the ongoing construction. Toward the end of the meeting, it’s time for Whales, Whoopsies, Woohoos and WTFs. Members from every department recognize exceptional work from their peers (whales), their own mistakes (whoopsies), moments of pride (woohoos) and things that made them wonder, ‘What the heck is my coworker thinking?’ Bryce is unanimously (and hilariously) named WTF winner for forgetting his socks at a recent commercial shoot with Porsche. Dot and her team simply cannot let that go.

The day proceeds at a breakneck pace. Bryce and Liz meet Rocco and Joan Di Lillo for lunch on the balmy veranda at Campiello to espouse the upcoming advancements to the theater and discuss how to best celebrate the Di Lillo’s recent $1.5 million donation. From there, at any moment, Bryce could run across the street to review progress with the construction team, take a call from the mayor, train staff on using TNP’s database, direct a performance, hold auditions, lead a class and rub shoulders with patrons. We hit at least 80 percent by 7:45 p.m., then scurry over to the evening’s production of Laugh, Cry, Pee, Repeat!.

Bryce ping-pongs around the room like a dinner party host. “I usually look for people who look grouchy first,” he tells me, identifying his first group to greet. In an instant, groups of ladies anxious for the show to start are laughing at Bryce’s banter. Then, in a flash, he sweeps backstage to wish the cast good luck, thank volunteers and check on the crew before taking the stage to introduce the show.

Later, we sit on the front steps of the church, both sweaty and exhausted, and Bryce reflects on what his job must look like through my eyes. “I feel lucky that we get to be part of a community of people who care about the culture of the county and how we serve our patrons the best,” he says. “It is a lot of work and a lot of hours. But it’s also the best job in the world.”  

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Classical melodies echo through my childhood memories of ballet class. I’ve always appreciated the genre, recalling how it sparked emotion and informed my movements. But now, with my slippers stashed as keepsakes, symphonic music isn’t regularly part of my playlists.

Increasing engagement is a crucial focus for orchestras today. How do they get the next generation tuned in? How do they draw audiences who dismiss the genre as elitist, people who hear the term ‘classical’ and picture debonair audiences, stoic musicians and grand concert halls? It takes the right hook to get new people in the door. For me and my friends, a night of classical takes on Taylor Swift’s discography was more than enough incentive.

This season, Gulf Coast Symphony partnered with international entertainment group Fever to host Candlelight Concerts—a traveling series with classical music and symphonic versions of contemporary hits. The chamber concerts have small ensembles of elite regional musicians descending on atmospheric locales to perform amid the glow of nearly 4,000 flameless candles. Each night has a theme; one performance may highlight the tear-jerking tunes of British pop sensation Adele, while another takes on the sweeping sounds of late Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi. (You can catch selections from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons concerto on May 18.) Originally intended as a few shows at Gulf Coast Symphony’s Music & Arts Community Center, the concerts proved so popular the group has now hosted dozens, with more expected next season.

Walking into the 270-seat venue, I was struck by the diversity of the audience. Families with young children, older couples and several fellow 20-something Swifties poured into the small auditorium, chattering with equal excitement. Thousands of candles formed a river of light that flowed through pews and pooled around the podium. Four musicians emerged from the wings, their black suits and dresses framed by rich black curtains billowing from the center’s high ceilings. As a hush fell over the once-boisterous crowd, the members of the Miami-based quartet introduced themselves and their instruments. Then, the violinist raised his bow, and the first notes of Taylor Swift’s “Lavender Haze” echoed through the chamber. It was as if I was hearing the song for the first time.

Throughout the show, the musicians spoke to the audience, introducing pieces and sharing personal stories about what connected them to the music. Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” the violinist shared warmly, is his and his wife’s ‘song.’ The format created an infectious sense of comfort in the space—when the quartet performed “Blank Space,” the little girl seated in front of me hugged her mom tightly, whispering the lyrics into her ear as the instrumental played. Near the end of the performance, the artists welcomed the audience to stand and use their phones to record the final number—a departure from symphony etiquette that bans electronics. It was a pleasant surprise and a beautiful example of how breaking with tradition can give a classic art form new life.

Launched in 2019, the Candlelight series embraces the challenge of bringing classical music to a wider audience with contemporary setlists and smaller, more relaxed venues. “People in Southwest Florida are often looking for a night out that may not just be going to a bar,” Sarah Anstett, of Gulf Coast Symphony, says. And, the sell-out Candlelight Concerts provide a dazzling option while introducing classical music into the hearts of Southwest Floridians of all stripes. 

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It all started with a bet. Years ago, amid the nightlife of Odesa, Ukraine, international opera sensation Leonid Shoshyn sat drinking and laughing with friends. He was a young lawyer then, but he had no passion for the field. Soon, the friends struck up a game and quickly noticed a poster advertising dramatic theater auditions on the wall. The stakes were set: whoever lost the game had to audition. Leonid lost the bet, but he got the role. When he felt the way his heart pounded on stage, the aspiring singer knew he’d found his calling. Now, the dramatic tenor, who’s enchanted audiences from Odesa to Berlin, makes his American debut as the charming Prince Calàf in Gulfshore Opera’s penultimate production of the season: Turandot. The bloody drama follows Calàf’s misguided, spellbound love for the bewitching Princess Turandot, (Shannon Jennings), who forces all suitors to answer three riddles or lose their heads. 

Young, handsome and full of life, Leonid fills his princely role in voice and appearance. His casting was the product of a rigorous international search. When Gulfshore Opera’s founder and general director, Steffanie Pearce, came across the resident lead dramatic tenor at the Odesa National Opera, she was determined to position him in the season-ending performance’s leading role. The process was rife with uncertainty and potential embassy shutdowns.

Ukraine is not the country it was when Leonid lost that fateful bet. It has been 792 days since the tenor’s homeland has known peace and far longer since it has known peace of mind. Prior to the Russian invasion in February of 2022, the light-hearted tenor never looked at the news. He was performing in Germany at the time; a castmate shared the news that Ukraine was under attack. “I’m stressing a lot. I'm not sleeping. I wake up every few hours. I'm exhausted. A part of me is suffering a lot, but I don't know what to do,” Leonid says.

As we speak of his newfound love of America and rooming with castmate Kenneth Stavert, Leonid tells me his mother is hiding out in Poland after an airstrike the previous day took five lives—two of her coworkers and a few children. He has already lost many friends and family members to the war. It is agonizing and strange, yet he laughs fully when talking about Calàf folly and performing with his rock band back home. “Drones are exploding, rockets are launching, but people are going out and drinking coffee. You cannot stop living,” Leonid says.

When the war began in earnest (many place the beginning of the conflict in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea), Leonid served in combat for eight months. His actions, though heroic, were not the best way he saw to serve his country. Instead, he performs in Odesa’s grand theater and abroad, sharing and preserving the beauty of his culture. Sometimes, air raid sirens go off mid performance, and they huddle in the basement. Sometimes they lose power and sing by candlelight. Sometimes, distant strikes shatter the theater windows with violent waves of wind and debris. Still, the theater stands, and they perform. “People don't want to stop living. That's why the opera house doesn't stop. Art must continue,” Leonid says.

Catch Leonid’s final performance as Prince Calàf, closing out Gulfshore Opera’s 10th season, on April 27 at 7 p.m. in Hayes Hall at Artis—Naples.

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Years had passed since she used these muscles, but it felt natural. The piece was just a simple sketch of a plant cell for her son’s homework, but Martha Maria Cantu was instantly lost in the process. Once finished, the young mother looked up to see a pair of saucer-sized eyes staring at the page. “He called over his siblings and said, ‘Look, look what Mom did! She’s like a professional artist,’ and I was like, ‘What do you mean? I am a professional artist,’” Martha says, chuckling at the memory.

The kids watched in awe as Martha pulled drawings and paintings that hadn’t seen light in years. Some sported blue ribbons or newspaper clippings. Questions came pouring from every direction. Did she miss it? Yes, desperately. Why didn’t she draw anymore? She didn’t know.

That was about eight years ago. When you drive into Immokalee today, you’ll see a welcome sign Martha Maria Cantu painted that pays tribute to her community, with calloused hands enveloping a young seedling against a background of farmland, football fields, encroaching tides and a pulsing sunset. Her most prominent mural, three panels depicting Everglades wildlife, migrant farmworkers and early Florida cattle drivers, stretches along the side wall of Main Street’s 7-11 in a graphic riff on expressionist style. Through the public art commissions and exhibits across Southwest Florida, Martha has become one of the breakout artists of Immokalee’s quietly growing arts scene. And portraits are the artist’s calling card.

It all begins with the eyes. Light-bleached vacancies shatter irises that burst with fuchsia, amber and goldenrod, adding dimension to darker hues. Shadows and reflections creep out from black, cavernous pupils. The subtle curvature of each eyelid signals uncanny emotion. “Once I get [the eyes] down, I know I’ve got this,” she says. “Everything else is a blur.”

Despite commonalities, the population in Martha’s hometown is no monolith—artistic, agricultural, medical, culinary and educational aspirations abound alongside rigid traditionalism, even when opportunity feels scarce. Complexity and nuance characterize the people of Immokalee and, in turn, Martha’s portraiture.

Crafted in her makeshift bedside studio with colored pencils, pastels, acrylic paint or oils, her arresting portraits depict people she sees every day and people she admires. The artist sees a person’s story reflected in their eyes and the lines etched into their skin—two of the most prominent and detailed aspects of her representational work. She is drawn to subjects whose faces are marked with years of toil and struggle but whose eyes portray kindness and strength. Living in Immokalee, where economic strain and limited resources are met with limitless resolve, subjects like these are often close at hand.

When Martha heard the story of an older man known as Don Andres, she saw all those magnetic qualities in his eyes. For decades, Don Andres has worked odd jobs picking up cans or laboring in neighbors’ yards and sent what money he made back home to Mexico to support a wife he has not seen in nearly 40 years. Martha Maria Cantu does not glamorize her subjects. In his portrait, Don Andres’ skin is sun-worn and cracked, and his wardrobe, a tattered baseball cap and sun-bleached T-shirt, sags with daily use. Beneath the oasis of mottled shade cast by his favorite tree in Immokalee, the man’s gaze is burdened but steady.

Martha was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States when she was 4. She moved here with her mother, a woman whose cruel and exacting nature would sculpt her daughter’s artistic journey. Martha’s stepfather came into her life around this time, too. He didn’t speak much Spanish, and as a child, Martha spoke little English. In the evenings, while her mother was at work, Martha would sit silently nearby—not so close that she’d get in the way but near enough to not feel alone—as he watched wrestling on TV. Today, she remembers the gruff and kind-hearted man as “Dad,” but at 7, she didn’t know if he could be trusted. Few people in her life had proven worthy of her faith.

In an effort to connect, Martha showed her father a drawing of the Jesus painting that hung on their wall in pious observation. In his best pidgin, her dad told her not to interrupt his wrestling again until her drawing looked just like the picture. Without instruction or books or anything but an ingrained attention to detail, the child set to work. “I don’t remember how long it took—hours, days, weeks—but I got it to look just like what was on the wall. I showed my dad, and he was astonished,” she says. “He didn’t need to say anything—that was it, and I was hooked.”

Finding approval at home never came easy, but at school, the young artist’s skills were celebrated—and nurtured. She remembers the art teachers who pushed her to enter competitions and got her an interview with Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. “Winning awards, being on the news and in magazines—that was great, but it was just never enough for Mother,” she says.

With only a third-grade education, Martha’s mother did not care for her straight-As and art competition victories. She could be both verbally and physically abusive, and when these methods of discipline failed to faze her daughter, she sprinted to Martha’s room and destroyed every piece of artwork she could find.

The opportunity to attend Ringling felt like the beginning of a new chapter, one where she could silence internal and external voices of doubt. After weeks of courting the young artist over the phone and through email, the dean of students met Martha Maria Cantu face-to-face. As a woman of color from a home that rarely had air conditioning, much less pricey art supplies, Martha was not their typical demographic. Her acceptance was rescinded. Martha would be better suited for community college, the director said. “He looked down on me, not because of what I’ve done or what I could do, but just because of who I was and what I looked like,” she says.

After the rejection, Martha married, had children and gained stepchildren—mothering 10 altogether. The dormant artist focused on creating a different home from the one that raised her. As her children grew, they reciprocated her love and support, pushing their reserved mother to rebuke the fear of rejection and embrace her talents. The artists who inspire Martha are not Renaissance greats or vanguards of modernism; they are her children, who will not allow her to quit again. Among her kids—from elementary to post-graduate age—several aspire to artistry, like their mother.

Martha hangs their clay figurines and Japanese manga panels alongside her own artwork; their creations fill her studio with levity and joy. “I really want to inspire the younger kids. I didn’t have that inspiration or that outlet [growing up], and I want to give that to them—not only with my artwork but also my home,” she says.

Recently, her son asked for a spare sketchbook for a friend who couldn’t afford materials. She happily sent it over as a birthday gift. When Martha came to pick the kids up from school soon after, the boy ran over to her, nervous and excited to flip through the sketchbook and show her his latest work. One of the sketches had won him a $2,000 prize. “If they don’t have that person pushing them, I’m here, I’ll listen,” she says. “I have the time. I have a bunch of kids, but I have room. I love to cook. I do the cleaning like it’s nothing. I’ll be your mom. I’ll be that.”  

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