an open window

Life can be like an open window.

All kinds of crap can breeze in
and the best parts of your heart can fall out.

a drunken sailor at key west bight - VIDEO

Click on the arrow to play - Run Time 3:13

happy birthday girls

So, as it turns out, today (6/9) has been my birthday.
The reason I know that is my mom, daughter Melissa and a couple of my sisters called to wish me a happy happy.

For most of my adult life, my birthday by itself hasn't been a big deal for me.
But because of the pretty girls in this picture here,
it kind of is again.

They are my daughter's daughters.

The cutie on the left is Riley and the beauty on the right
is Areanna.
Areanna's birthday was yesterday(6/8), Riley's birthday
is tomorrow(6/10).

So once again, through no fault of my own, I am happily flanked by very pretty girls.

Life's been good.. . .
Happy birthday girls.

a word from our sponsor

drawing a crowd. . .

"Snake Shares His Apple" colored pencil on cotton rag, 11" x 14" 

 matted & framed

a drawing by: art winstanley

"Salvage Hand" colored pencil on cotton rag, 11" x 14" matted & framed

a drawing by: art winstanley 

memorial day

General Order 11 (Sec. 1) - Grand Army of the Republic
"The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form or ceremony is prescribed, but Posts and comrades will, in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit."

Formerly known as "Decoration Day", the day was originally set aside to honor fallen Union soldiers of the
American Civil War.

Shortly after the end of that war, freed slaves disinterred the remains of Union soldiers from a mass grave at the site of a Confederate prison camp in Charleston, South Carolina .
They properly re-buried the soldiers in individual graves, built a fence around them and declared the site an official Union Graveyard.
They returned to the site on May 30, 1868 together with surviving Union soldiers to decorate the graves with flowers and celebrate with patriotic singing and a picnic.
After WWI, Decoration Day was expanded to honor the fallen of all American wars.
Though the alternative name,"Memorial Day" was first floated in the late 1800s it didn't become common until after WWII and later, in 1967, it was made official by Federal Law.

Although there is no nationally prescribed ceremony to observe Memorial Day, as it states in the General Order above, ". . .Posts and comrades will, in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.", towns and cities across the country have developed their own ways of paying respect.

Here again is a bit of Key West's Memorial Day observance at the U.S.S Maine site in our historic cemetery.

the mango tango

Before I started writing this post, the only things I knew about mangoes were that they're juicy, tasty little things, you can't only eat just one and when you do eat them, you need a bowl of water beside you to rinse off your hands.
(they're very juicy fruits)

Mango trees grow all over Key West. On my street alone, there are six mango trees and right about now they're all starting to bear fruit.

So I took  a few pictures and looked the little buggers up. 

The mango is known as the "king of fruit".

Native to South Asia, where they have thrived for over 4,00 years the mango is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines where it plays something of a sacred role.

It is a symbol of love and some believe that the Mango tree can

grant wishes.

Legend has it that Buddha often found "tranquility and repose" while meditating in a mango grove.

 I don't have a clue how it happened, but in the 1830's, mangos found their way to Florida.
(and my taste-buds are so glad they did).

But, I don't pick mangoes, I wait for them to fall down to me.
Still there are a lot of dudes around town with very long poles that have a sort of retracting basket on the business end. They can reach way up and pull down as many mangoes as the want, any time they want them.

But here's my thing. . .
The dudes are reaching up, balancing those very very long poles, trying to get a grip on a mango. The pole sways right, the guy side-steps a little to the left. The pole sways left and the guy side-steps a little to the right; It's like a dance between man and his desire for fruit.

It's "the mango tango".

a raining day in paradise

It rained like holy hell for most of today.

It slowed me down a bit;

Gave me time to sort a few things out.

I enjoyed it.

god's quiet work

Last week my cactus plant, I call him Spike, flowered again.
I love it when he does that and even though he's really only done it once before, about 4 years ago, it's the rarity of the event that makes it that much more special.

The thing about these cactus flowers is, they weren't there yesterday but they're here today and they're gone tomorrow. So, if you're not paying attention, it's easy to miss them.

That I did notice it and took the time to take the picture is somehow reassuring to me.

In the face of all the noise and distraction that is the current clusterf@#k of a world we live in and even as jaded as I feel myself becoming, the larger part of myself is still paying attention to the real world around me and remaining grateful for the small things that are God's quiet work.

a work jerk update

I'm just about a month at the new art gallery gig and since I've gotten a few questions on how it's going, I thought I'd post
this update.

As I expected, it's been "interesting". . .
I learn something new every day. (like a designer/art director makes much better money than fine art salesmen)

It can be "frustrating". . .
With the help of my gallery director (a good man who could sell snow to an eskimo) I sold a $40,000.00 oil painting and started imagining how I'd squander the healthy commission on the sale but the next day the knucklehead buyer called and cheesed on the deal.
(god only knows how pissed I was)

The gallery gig can also be "exciting". . .
I'll spend some time with a potential buyer in a private showing room after I've noticed the one piece among many that has caught their eye.
I hang it in the intimate private showing room.
(now the piece is a solo act)
While I'm closing the sliding doors and bringing down the house lights, my potential buyers are sitting comfortably in the dark on a soft leather sofa, basically isolated from the rest of the world.

Then it's show time. . .

I formally introduce my captive audience to the piece. . .
It's title, the medium, the artist.
I'll help them really see the piece, directing their attention to it's "sweet-spot", the focal point where the eye finds comfort. (and subconsciously the reason they liked the piece in the first place)
Then slowly, so very slowly, I'll begin to dim the direct lighting on the piece.
The sweet-spot holds it's value as the lights grow dimmer and the background fades to black.
(now the potential buyers are sitting in a totally dark room, and usually impressed)

My intention at this point, as I so very slowly bring the direct lighting back up, is to encourage their love of the piece.
(I can't sell it if they don't love it)
The exciting part is watching their eyes widen and spark up with that, "I have to have it" look at the end of the light show.

So, while I've got their undivided attention, I start
running numbers. . .

Whole price, artist's consideration price, consultant's best price, financing price and terms.

Then the client asks for a business card, says they want to take a walk, have a beer and think about it.
They leave the gallery and head up Duval Street,
never to be seen again.

I have to admit, as an art creator, I'm one of the best.
But as an art salesman? Not so much.

mrs. betty pearl roberts

Epitaphs are phrases or statements chiseled as an inscription on a tombstone in memory of a person who has died,
to perpetuate a lasting impression.
Many epitaphs are respectful and solemn but some are
pretty humorous.

I learned of one such humorous epitaph in Key West's historic cemetery and decided that I wanted to see it for myself.
I knew I could ask the sexton where it was but finding it on my own would be a game I would play for the better part of my twelve years in Key West.
No, it's not like I spent a lot of time hunting it down; it was more like every few months I'd ride my bike or walk through the cemetery on my way to work or to Fausto's and just kind of keep a casual eye out.

Then one day, quite by accident about six months ago,
I found it.

Before she died of a heart attack, Betty Pearl Roberts (better known as Pearl) told her husband what epitaph she wanted engraved on her tombstone.

Even though she'd had at least 18 operations, mostly on her stomach, she had a lot of trouble convincing friends and family that she was really ill.
She had complained about pains in her stomach and back but no one, not even her doctors, took her seriously.
Her husband Nathan said that part of the problem was, she never lost her sunny disposition nor her sense of humor.
Friends and family would say things like, "how could you be sick, you're always smiling"; and they were saying that until the day she died.

Still, Pearl knew she wasn't long for this world and picked out her favorite pink dress then told her husband, "no jewelry".

And the epitaph she wanted. . .

Pearl died at age 50 at the Florida Keys Memorial Hospital and was laid to rest in the family plot at the city cemetery.
She was survived by her husband Nathan, her son Harry, her daughter Nellie Anderson, four sisters, one brother
and two grandchildren.

the blue hole

There's not a whole lot to say about "The Blue Hole" up on
Big Pine Key, some 30 miles northeast of Key West.


It was, by all accounts, a limestone quarry that was used for Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad and the original roads on Big Pine. After all that, it was abandoned.


Today it's a tourist attraction and part of the National Key Deer Refuge. A lake that is mostly fresh water, it has no inlet or outlet to replenish it so, "The Blue Hole" depends on rain water and whatever salt water might flow through the leftover limestone underground.


It's a place alive with life. While tourists and knucklehead photographers, like me, might visit "The Blue Hole" for a few hours on a lazy Sunday afternoon, there are all kinds of other life forms that call it home all year 'round.

There are Key Deer, Green Iguanas, snakes, bugs, birds
and alligators.
. . .Yep, alligators.
I was only there for a few hours so I didn't see one but
the sign says. . .

DO NOT FEED OR MOLEST THE ALLIGATORS! IT IS DANGEROUS!

(. . .You think??)
Anyway, "The Blue Hole" is yet another quiet sweet-spot in the Keys and, like I said, not much of a story but a target rich environment for pictures of God's green,
 (or in this case, blue) earth.