Hot Night - Cool Event

The Florida Keys Council of the Arts held a splashy membership party on August 16, 2002, at Little Switzerland in Key West honoring artists and winners of the South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Fellowship.

As a result of the event, arts council memberships are up, and so are sales at the upscale jewelry and gift shop at 402 Duval Street.

Catered by Mangoes Restaurant, the party brought together a wide cross section of the Keys' cultural community: visual artists, musicians, gallery owners, theater managers, arts administrators, elected officials, arts patrons, and guests took the evening off to celebrate the diversity of the arts throughout Monroe County.

Earlier that day, at the Gato Building in Key West, Rem Cabrera, chief of cultural development for the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, presented a well-attended workshop on how to apply for the annual SFCC fellowship.  The SFCC offers $7,500 and $15,000 cash awards to visual and media artists from Broward, Dade, Martin, Monroe, and Palm Beach Counties.  The application is available from the arts council, and the annual deadline is October 1.

Photos by Al Sachs

Click on each image to enlarge it

Arts council board member Roger Westerlund and Key West mayor Jimmy Weekley	Little Switzerland's Marcia Dyer and Florida Representative Ken Sorensen	Judy Shaw, arts council board member Bill Shaw, Monroe County commissioner Dixie Spehar, arts council board member Diane Gauthier	Little Switzerland's Diana Lanier, arts council president and CEO Monica Haskell, U.S. Navy Commander Larry Cotton, arts patron Leslie Clark	Past fellowship winner Debra Yates, artist and gallery owner Helen Harrison, Key West Art & Historical Society executive director Claudia Pennington
Artists Heather Clark and Kate Peachey with Bob Sandifer, husband of arts council advisory board member Cris Sandifer	Little Switzerland's Steven Rohner, Paradise Big Band trumpeter Steve Pratt, arts council board member Anne Sunkel, arts activist Mary Ann Westerlund	Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center Founders Society executive director Vicki Grant, Jim Grant, Roger Westerlund	Claudia Pennington, Leslie Clark, Key West Music Festival presenter Jane Stansfield	Anne Sunkel and Debra Yates with architect Bert Bender
Anne Sunkel and Monica Haskell with Judge Mark Jones