Key West: sculpture in forts, book talk over cocktails

“Mile Zero” is a place to enjoy as well as create the arts

By Lucy Komisar

Strange creatures inhabit the beaches and woods where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Gulf of Mexico at the southernmost point of the Key West. A huge rooster (the local symbol) stands regally, dramatically on the beach, curious horned animals loom amidst the trees, and a hawk perches on a cliff that overlooks the sea.

They are part of Sculpture Key West (locale of the “Giant Key West Chicken” by Derek Arnold), an astonishing three-month event, from mid-January to mid-April, that presents contemporary sculpture at three Civil War-era forts.

Key West decades ago became a place where artists went to create. Now it is fast on the way to becoming a performance and exhibition center for the painters and sculptors, novelists and poets, composers and performers who live there and visit. Here’s what I discovered on the last of what is becoming a yearly trip to “Mile Zero,” and what you’ll find if you visit, for many of these events have become annual or exist all year ‘round.

In the first three months of the year, sculptures inhabit the grounds and beach around Fort Zachary Taylor as well as Fort East Martello and West Martello Tower. Some of the works have political and historical meaning, some are whimsical or satirical. Here’s “Swooping II” by Doug Makemson and then “Infiltration” by Anja Marais.

Sculptors from all over the country compete, and more than 60 are chosen. The jury is headed by Glen Gentele, director of the Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Mo. The winners are well-known and emerging artists, traditional and experimental.

The outdoor sites are especially dazzling. The indoor museums feature smaller sculptures and those that require electricity, including light sculptures, videos and interactive pieces with sound.

Many of the works are site specific, connecting to the woods or seascape they inhabit. Director Carol Schreck says, “The spirit of the art is based on the framework and the inspiration. The spirit of the show is about place. It’s something around every corner, under every tree.”

Artists lead tours of the exhibits, and programs with maps are available for self-guided visits. There are opening cocktails and parties for donors.

Year ‘round, there’s more art to view at the studios of the artists. Key West’s Duvall Street is lined with galleries, but I think it’s more fun to visit studios and talk to the artists. Studios of Key West is home to more than 20 low-cost artist's and writer's studios at the Armory Building on White Street and Old City Hall on Greene Street. There’s a weekly open house (complimentary wine). See the local paper for times. On my visit I saw charming decorative pieces by Deborah Goldman.

With prices in Key West going through the roof, some artists have moved out to next-door Stock Island, and if you are an art-lover or serious patron, you might follow them there. For example, you can visit Deborah Goldman’s Stock Island studio and also that of Perry Arnold, Derek’s dad, who does unusually fine work with wood.

Now to the writing art. Its public face is represented by the annual Key West Literary Seminar. Jaded Manhattanite that I am, with plenty of opportunity to hear fellow writers spout off, and not altogether thrilled to hear what often appears to be extemporaneous chatter, I must say that the audience of this seminar, like the several I’ve attended in the past, is routinely blown away by the experience.

These are literary fans from around the country, with a healthy sprinkling of teachers and librarians. They have undoubtedly read a lot more modern fiction than I have. And they (and I) find it a delight to socialize with the writers at the cocktails, dinners and galas that are high points of the seminar. The event is sold out every year months before it begins in early January -- a very good time to be in Key West, if you haven’t figured that out.

The 2007 theme was “Wondrous strange: mystery, intrigue and psychological drama,” featuring such novelists, poets, playwrights as Margaret Atwood, Amy Tan, Paul Auster, Michael Cunningham, Ian McEwan and Joyce Carol Oates, who is all three. Everyone hung out at the post-talk parties. Oates arrived with her husband. Tan was there with husband and dog.

The keynote by writer and critic Michael Wood was stunning. His topic was “The Liberation of Macondo,” from the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. He started out talking about this bizarre “happy village, where no one was older than thirty and where no one had died” and which by the end of the novel is “a place where three thousand people have died in a single day, in a brutal massacre of striking workers, and nobody remembers who these dead people are, or that the event ever happened.”

He moved into comparisons with Kafka, Hersey and Faulkner, among others. You can find the rest of his talk on the Literary Seminar website. Afterwards, the audience, intellectually thrilled, was feted at a Champagne Reception at the Audubon House and Tropical Gardens, where seminar director Miles Friedan chatted with guests.

The parties are the place where people can talk about what they’ve just heard both among themselves and also with the writers who’ve said those words. A favorite event is the Saturday night Champagne Reception at the Key West Museum of Art and History at the Custom House, with cocktails, nibbles and lavish deserts. It was a feast for the eyes as well, with an exhibit of with an exhibit of Seward Johnson bronzes based on famous paintings.

Then there’s music. I love it when it’s outdoors. The Key West Symphony sponsors traditional concert hall vocal and instrumental performances, but it was fun to go to a jazz extravaganza featuring Cuban trumpet player Arturo Sandoval and held on the grounds of Fort Zachary Taylor. It seemed as if everyone in Key West was there, ranged on folding chairs or sitting on picnic blankets with home-brought refreshments. The stage was shimmering, the sound was explosive, and the casual atmosphere made for lots of schmoozing.

Maybe that’s a good way to describe Key West in all its aspects. The art is high quality, but the mood is low key, casual, and friendly. It’s part of what draws so many people back.

If you go:

Sculpture Key West: http://www.sculpturekeywest.com.

Fort Zachary Taylor State Park: http://www.FortZacharyTaylor.com ; (305) 295-0037.

The Studios of Key West: http://www.tskw.org.

Key West Literary Seminar: http://www.keywestliteraryseminar.org . The seminar is such a sell-out that next year, with a theme of New Voices, featuring new and emerging writers for an exploration of the expanding boundaries of contemporary literature, there are two sessions:  January 10–13 and January 17–20, 2008. Among the well-known literary figures will be speakers and panelists are novelists Ann Beattie and Annie Dillard, biographer Robert D. Richardson, and critic Edmund White.

Key West Museum of Art & History, http://www.kwahs.com.

Key West Symphony: www.keywestsymphony.com.

Deborah Goldman: dkayg (at) bellsouth (dot) net; Stock Island, (305) 619-0384.

Perry Arnold: accessdoc (at) yahoo (dot) com; Stock Island, (410) 458-6294.

by Lucy Komisar