OUR NEW GROVE FARMERS MARKET

      Great bread,  you can finally buy it in Coconut Grove.   That, and many more delicious things, await you at the Grove's new farmers market. It is open on Thursdays (today), next to the playhouse on Main Highway, from 2 to 8 pm.   
       Car parking is free and bicyclists get their own valet.   While it is similar to the one we've had on Grand Avenue for years (on Saturdays), this one feels safer, has more reasonable prices -and- you don't have to stand in  dirt!
       
Fufi's hot leek and onion epanadas are to die for.  We ride our bikes there every Thursday now and run into many friends.

 The biggest pumelo I've eve seen

  We hope to see you at the market today.

COME TO THE STROLL!

      Join us at the sixteenth annual Gifford Lane Art Stroll in Coconut Grove on Sunday, March 2,  from noon to five p.m. 

   Each year the world’s smallest arts festival attracts more people than you can count. They come to purchase art and to imbibe an exotic cucumber punch.  This results in surprising amounts of dancing in the street.


 


  You’ll find the Gifford Lane Art Stroll along one normally sleepy , tree-lined  block of Gifford tucked in between Oak and Day Avenues (3200 block), across the street from the tennis courts.  That's two blocks north of Grand Avenue and one-block east of SW 32d Ave.  Parking is all over or if you can, ride a bike. (Above, the woman who paints rocks)

   There are 63 artists this year.  When you hear about Coconut Grove’s artist community, this is it.  Old-timers often comment that this little festival is the Grove the way the Grove once was. 
King Mango fighting his way out of a Jackson Pollack-Inspired Nightmare. 20x30. Framed, Acrylic on paper, $65
 The festival features the art work of dozens of accomplished artists (and me) set up along the quiet lane. 
King Mango at Van Gogh's Night Cafe. Oil on canvas, 20 x 24", framed $85

Detail from "King Mango at the Nighthawk Cafe". Oil on canvas, 20 x 30", framed, $85

 







Portraits, Acrylic on plywood, sizes vary, about 12" by 10 ".  $10 each




 





Hardwood benches












and last year's big hit, fish made from palm tree seed pods

       Francesca and I will be manning our Mango Republic booth on the southern end, across from the tennis courts.  We'll be selling paintings, benches, sculptures, and
those fashionable Mango Republic t-shirts.

It really is a 5-hour party and we hope you can join us this Sunday.


                                 

OCEAN MUSIC

   The annual Grassroots Festival is slowly growing.  Thousands of music lovers gathered on the shore of Key Biscayne to hear forty bands over four days. Most folks camped out in tents and the latest thing, tiny houses.

As usual for  February here, it was warm. I told one northerner, "You think this is hot?  Wait 'til July!"). Sunbrellas were a big seller.

We hung in the shade until it was time to begin our own little King Mango parade.

Eagle Boy and Monkey Girl joined in


as as did The Green Man.

King Mango hooked up with Eager Eagle 

while this young lady did her strutting on a tightrope.



After the parade I was cooling down with friends when I saw the strangest thing...

How often do you see someone shooting up from the water in Jet Boots?

It must be  the latest expensive way to have fun.









By then it was time to head home.


 
As King Mango bade me farewell I slipped into my own Jet Boots and shot back to Coconut Grove.

  We're already looking forward to  next year's festivities.

GROVE MUSIC

JAZZ IN THE GARDEN

    Coconut Grove's Plymouth Congregational Church will be hosting  "Jazz in the Garden" tomorrow (Sunday, February 23). The event raises money for the United Negro College Fund.

    This is the church's third annual effort to support the Fund and to honor Miami-Dade's chapter of the National Pan-Helenic Council.  The group supports our country's traditional black colleges and universities.

     The ""Jazz Brunch" begins at 11 a.m.  The Joe Donato Jazz Band will play with featured vocalist, Brenda Alford.   Both have enthralled South Florida audiences for years.

   The jazz brunch began in 2012.  In the first two years,  it has raised over $32,000 for the UNC Fund. The organization was created in 1944 to assist college-bound African American students. It funds scholarships for approximately 70,000 students attending 900 universities every year.

    The public is invited to enjoy the brunch and music from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.    Tickets will not be sold but donations will be greatly appreciated.



   
PIANO EVENING AT ST. HUGH (Save the Date)

 

      The St Hugh-Steinway Concert series continues to bring great talent to the Grove. The next one is on Friday, March 14 at 8PM.  Pianist Roberto Berrocal will be playing masterpieces by Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, and Gershwin (see below).  Berrocal is an amazing pianist, expect this to be a great evening. 

 

A wine and cheese reception follows at which you can meet Roberto yourself. You can purchase tickets online at www.sthughconcerts.org.

 

 

 

 

_{DOGS ON GIFFORD}

    _{The Grove's own Solar Dogs will perform at March 2's Gifford Land Art Stroll.  Their annual "Howl in the Wood" barn dance will take place in the Shell Lumberyard on April 5.} 

_{BOBBY AND FRIENDS}

      _{Reminder:  Grove legend Bobby Ingram,} and many others, will take over the Titanic Bar on March 28th & 29th.  Two nights of shows will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the music at The Flick Coffeehouse, which once flourished at that location.

_{THIS WEEKEND'S NEAR THE GROVE MUSIC FESTIVAL} 

    _{Francesca and I will be enjoying the Grassroots Music Festival on Virginia Key this weekend,}

_{forty groups playing over four days in our own backyard.   Tomorrow, we'll even be part of the entertainment with our mini-King Mango parade.} 

   

   _{Music makes the world better.  Go out and enjoy it live!} 

 

 

NEW BRUNO MARS PAINTING UNVEILED

     The Grove Guy is churning out the art for next week's show (Gifford Lane, Sunday, March 2, noon to 5).  

Yesterday I sold, "Attack of the 50-Meter Mango" to a local art connoisseur.   



Today I completed my Bruno Mars piece.

      Save the date (March 2).  The Center Grove's Gifford Lane Art Stroll is always fun.

MY CHUBBY VALENTINES

     Our country produces the fattest kids in the world.  Childhood obesity will keep our doctors busy for years and it is easy to see why on Valentines Day.
      As usual, kids are loaded up with sweets, cupcakes and pop at my K-8 school.  It's an easy way to please them, like giving candy to a baby. Yesterday was a dentist's dream, almost as bad as Halloween.

      Things were different when students on sugar highs came to my art room.  Before the lesson I required them to discard their Blo-Pops, close the candy bags, and listen to a speech.  
       At the end of my two-minute health talk ("Don't do to your teeth what I did to mine...")
I tried something new, offering them fresh, red, heart-shaped radishes.  
      Few were interested (they look better than they taste) but a nine-year-old offered to try one.  In one second's time he bit into it then spit it out.  Small white chunks flew past me hitting the girl standing to my left.  Fortunately she thought it was funny.
       They're not quite heart-shaped but next year I think I will offer apples.

ART WYNWOOD

       There's another giant tent filled with art in Wynwood this weekend.  Here is some of what we saw,  

 Cardboard squares covered this 8-foot critter

 Three monkeys

Some works were still in progres.

Inside the tent

and the luis frame.

boat on the sidewalk




  We can hear the Coconut Grove Art Festival revving up this morning.   It'll run through Presidents Day. 
 On Monday, the Perez Museum is free if you can prove you took public transportation to get there (info at www.pamm.com).
Some say with so much going on its a great time to leave.  We'll head into the Everglades manana.

The Grove guy wishes you a happy weekend.

BAHIA HONDA

   We escaped to an island last weekend, one linked to Miami by the Overseas Highway that leads to Key West.   At Bahia Honda State Park you can have your own piece of beach for a few days, an unparalleled view of the mighty Atlantic. 
   



There's much to do,
an old bridge to climb,







sunsets to see and kayaks to rent. 

  Sunday morning's sunrise was framed by huge mounds of seaweed.

 
It lined up on the shore

in chocolate piles

and patterns.

There can be a downside to camping.  Using sharp instruments to cut apples and chop wood, we both managed to draw blood.

On the drive home we stopped to picnic at Anne's Beach in Islamorada.  

       At first we were thrilled to see the sea turtle off shore.  Minutes later we realized it was dead.

                                       Woman photographing dead turtle
    

We put his swollen eyes behind us, ate the last of the hummus, and headed home.

O