Art & Artists

After living and working in cities here and abroad, artist Enrique Maza has found the setting and inspiration he has been looking for in a house in Palm Bay that he bought the first day a “for sale” sign was posted. Even though that was six months ago, many of his personal belongings remain packed in boxes since painting in his sun-splashed studio is Maza’s top priority.

The Museum Art School at the Vero Beach Museum of Art is one of the largest, museum-based, continuing education programs in the state. Serving some 1,800 students each year, the program invites a growing number of residents to discover the depth and breadth of its curriculum and have fun doing it.

Greg Hills, Australian-born photographer and now a resident of our area, visited the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea this past winter – something he’s wanted to do for years.

When you enter the galleries of the Vero Beach Museum of Art, you are just as likely to encounter a youngster sitting on a beanbag chair making art on an iPad as to see an equally absorbed adult studying a priceless painting. And you are just as likely to see a docent leading a tour of young mothers with tots in strollers as you are to see that docent conducting a tour for residents of a retirement community. While the docent may talk to the latter group about the exhibition in one way, she will engage the mothers in another way, emphasizing to them how to talk to their children about art.

Charlotte Terry remembers feeling some trepidation at the Laura (Riding) Jackson (LRJ) Foundation’s first Poetry & Barbeque in April 2010. “I worried nobody would come. So I was truly surprised when over 100 people arrived wanting to hear poetry,” says Terry, who still marvels at the full house – or tent in this case.

Shortly before dawn with darkness still blanketing the beach, Dale Sorensen, Jr. has already positioned his tripod and camera waiting for the sun’s early rays to cast a glow over sky and sea. The realtor with a passion for photography has done his homework

Paul Pickel, who runs the studio, is a second-generation stained-glass craftsman, but the techniques he uses date back more than a thousand years.

Let’s face it. Artists have a bad rap as being notoriously inept at business. “What?” you say, with touching innocence in your voice. “But it’s true. Just try to picture Van Gogh creating a business plan, cajoling a customer or reading a balance sheet!”

A silver anniversary is cause for celebration and that’s just what has been happening at the Vero Beach Museum of Art since the beginning of the year.

As one of the country’s best small “art towns,” Vero Beach is brimming with smart, creative and energetic people. Artsy types have been flocking here since the turn of the 20th century, though some didn’t fully blossom until after their arrival. Spending time in our quaint seaside municipality seems to feed the imagination as much as bigger and better known cultural meccas like New York City and Santa Fe

It’s a good thing Leslie McGuirk refused to believe it when people kept telling her she didn’t have a creative bone in her body. Something inside told her that one day she would prove them wrong. She did, and in a big way.

Vero Beach is home to many talented residents, and never is it more evident than at this time of year when the results are announced for the Indian River Photo Club’s annual juried competition.

“For me a strong work of art is the result of a powerful experience. I am attracted to everyday sensations and find myself responsive towards the subtle beauty of things, the hours when there is tranquility of light, the rhythms of nature,” says painter Luke Steadman.

In a brilliant blend of circles, dots and lines – straight, curved or quirky – Beatriz Milhazes’ favorite colors leap to life, forming the spirited patterns that captivate her viewers.

Throughout the world there still exist people who will hide their face from a camera, believing that when you take a photograph you capture a piece of the soul.

Few writers have had such an impact on the way knowledgeable Floridians view their state as Carl Hiaasen, whose wickedly funny takes on Florida’s foibles and follies have been the basis of eight best-selling novels, including Lucky You, Sick Puppy, Stormy Weather and Striptease.

It is hard to pin down what sparks that creative charge inside our brain.

AE “Bean” Backus, best-known for his Florida landscape paintings, was an exceptional artist who lived an unusually liberal lifestyle.

On a sunny afternoon, with rays of light shining through the windows, Virginia Knapp leans back on a sofa, crosses her long legs and smiles.

The Sporades Islands, which include the islands of Alonissos and Skopelo, lie east of the Greek mainland.