The Norton Museum of Art

The museum's permanent collection is just shy of wanting but the building renovation and current commitment to exhibiting contemporary artists of color more than makes up for any deficiency.  Claes Oldenberg's Typewriter Eraser, situated within a reflecting pool, graces the entrance.

Glass poured and mirrored by Rob Wynne decorates the staircase.  It used to be spiral in the old Art Deco building. I used to be 50 years old, too, going to the White Party in Miami at Vizcaya.

Purity greeted me on the 3rd floor.  "Do you know they did this?" an incredulous woman standing next to me asked.  "Nope," I replied, pretty sure that her pronoun didn't reflect transgender sensitivity.

Here's one of the rarest items in the permanent collection, attributed to Nosadello.  Does dubbing it "Madonna With Jazz Hands" seem disrespectful?

St. Stephen by the Circle of Francisco de Colonia.  The Met Breuer did a great exhibit of painted sculpture not long ago.

Ralph Hubbard Norton, a snowbird from Chicago who made his fortune in steel, had a thing for the Ming Dynasty.

Camera-less photography in "Out of the Box".

Props to the Norton's community relations staff for exhibiting the work of local high schoolers.  If "Should've Been Bernie" by Maalik Shannon, grade 12, is any indication, Agent Orange isn't a donor.

Joshua Haye, also a senior, created this searing indictment.

An abstract sculpture faces an exterior garden.  My camera batteries died before I could photograph the peaceful grounds.

Nina Chanel Abney's "Neon" vividly fills a large gallery with cartoony takes on American injustice.  Here's "Vanilla Position."  She used acrylic and spray paint to create the huge work this year in time for the museum's reopening.  That's an art world variation of "I'm spraying as fast as I can!"

I liked Nick Cave's Soundsuits better.

Damien Hirst had to kill a lot of butterflies to make this.

Finding the entrance to the interior garden is tricky.

You Are What You Drive

Tom rented a Camaro for his Folly debut.

Uncomfortable, hardly intuitive (we had to call Thrifty for convertible assistance) but hella cool, nevertheless.

He looks like a real Floridian with those tats.

We drove to Ybor City for Losonczy family business (don't ask).  He felt right at home on 7th Avenue, the main drag.

Imagine getting a sleeve in this chair!

Cigars are even bigger business than body art.  Jim graciously gave us a guided tour of Tabanero at 10 a.m. on a Monday even though we told him we had no intention of inhaling.

Handrolling doesn't just happen in Cuba.

Women do all the grunt work, naturally.

I was more into the Ricky Ricardo fashion across the street

. . . . and local history.  Black and white enhances the feeling you've stepped back in time.

Jose Marti raised funds for Cuban independence in Ybor City.

I 💗 seahorses!

If Tom had his druthers, we'd have eaten here instead of a Hilton hotel restaurant in Clearwater Beach (again, don't ask).  Next time.

Jewish names adorned the tops of many buildings in the old business district.

Columbia nodded to the culture, too.

These tiles reminded me of a Don Quixote course I took in college when nobody paid much attention to the predations of Columbia professors like Karl Ludwig-Selig.  It was what it was.  For some an easy A.

Is this the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria?  

The altacockers hopped on the free trolley back to the Camaro.

I hate GPS.  I thought the Sunshine Skyway would take us from Tampa to St. Petersburg.  In fact, it reversed our route.

Post Malone couldn't give a shit.

"Tweed, Not Tweet"

Lake Worth remembered Karl Lagerfeld (1933 - 2019) at the annual street painting festival.

More Street Painting:

Blizzard vs. Street Painting (2026)

Duck Lip Grannies (2025)

Lake Worth's Big Weekend (2024)

Artists @ Work (2023)

Artistic Tanning (2022)

Sweet Invasion (2020)

Homesteading (2018)

Temple Of Time

Christine and I took a drive to the Temple of Time in Coral Springs not far from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High.  It offers an interactive opportunity to memorialize the 17 people who lost their lives to senseless gun violence on Valentine's Day last year.

We'd seen another of David Best's "grief" temples at a Burning Man exhibit at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC last fall.  He's standing on the right.

One man's artistic genius with a saw.

Best encourages visitors to leave messages and memorabilia behind.

Gun control would help, too.

The temple will be burned in May.

In It To Win It

Tommy & Victor stopped by the Florida Folly before and after a week-long Atlantis cruise of the Caribbean with 5,000 other gay men.  These were among the outfits they bought at Ball Beachwear in Ft. Lauderdale.

Tommy modeled some Palm Beach wear, too, when they treated me to a delicious dinner at Buccan.

We never got around to drinking the champagne they brought, or the facials from their recent trip to New Zealand where they're thinking of buying a home.

Next time!