An Assessment and Proposal on the State of the Arts and the Island

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

An Assessment and Proposal on the State of the Arts and the Island

On June 16, I authored a letter to the community, "An Assessment and Proposal on the State of the Arts and the Island". It was sent to around 700 people. I have received scores of responses which is tremendous, for which I am grateful and also humbled, realizing the vein of deep concern that so many people have similarly expressed. I re-post this in its entirety and further ask for your comments so a greater dialogue may be established. Thank you!

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June 16, 2007
To the many friends and supporters of Java Studios:
First, thank you greatly for the generous support shown over the past season(s) as Java Studios has endeavored to present ‘media that matters’ to the community, through films, dialogue, and calls to activism. I now write to ask a minute or so of your interest to let you know what's happening, and to ask for your comments regarding the future. The “winter season” came to a wrap as scheduled. Spring zips by and now Summer bears down, also as expected. Not as anticipated was the closing of the White St. Deli Café “Courtyard Cinema” on Monday, April 16. The Deli received from their landlord, through an attorney's letter, a demand to cease and desist the movie nights. The letter warned that continuing the presentations might jeopardize the landlord’s conditional use as a café. On Wednesday after, the city Code Enforcement even visited to check it out, and found no such “violations”, of course. Apparently, the other public courtyard event’s noise levels are not as disturbing to the originator of the complaint. As Vonnegut would say, so it goes. I give my deepest thanks to Jennifer Cornell for offering the courtyard, and especially to the audiences who braved the elements and enjoyed the screenings, each a Key West premiere. Thus, that chapter is written, and the next pages are being drafted. A recent edition (4/25) of Solares Hill carried a full page interview with me by Nadja Hansen for an extended conversation. We spoke about Java Studios primarily, and what the future may present. I emphasized that as a social entrepreneur (she omitted the “social” prefix), my efforts have been about creating social and cultural benefits toward community development. This is an important distinction, for “profit” is measured in social capital, not merely in dollars. I wondered what role or contribution Java Studios can make in Key West as many people regard the island as being in the throes of a significant civic and cultural transition. What follows is my further assessment and proposal for creating a new "cultural collaboration". It's in the attached file you should be able to readily open. It describes the opening of a SALON for Key West. Want to know more, please read further. Not interested? Just delete, and if you'd rather not receive updates, let me know, and your email will be removed. Again, thank you so very much.

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An Assessment and Proposal on the State of the Island and the Arts

Paradise is increasingly being marketed to the upscale. The island has transmogrified in the past 5+ years, accelerated by the drive-up in real estate values, and resulting flight of families and the working class, into a burgeoning second-home destination (reportedly 30% of all housing stock, with as much as 58% of all properties not filing a homestead exemption), whether for investor-class and/or as a retiree haven. Thousands of hotel rooms have been condo-ized. Existing work force housing (once referred to as "homes") is under continual threat

of diminishing stock. It feels that everything about living in the Florida Keys is in flux. The full measure of these impacts has yet to be realized.

The community seems near incapable of surmounting the formidable challenges needed to bridge the economic gaps that have resulted in the wake of the new Key West. Valiant and essential efforts by activists like Hometown PAC, FIRM, and others are tackling some of these real problems. Yet, we all know many people who have simply pulled up roots and headed out. Many more would, if only they could "cash out". Monroe County is only one of seven in the nation that actually lost population last year. The public school enrollment is down every year, from a peak of 10,000 in the public system to 7,800 this coming year. At FKCC, the smallest of the 28 community colleges in the state, enrollment also continues to dramatically decline The list goes on. What does this tell us and what can be done?

Any community revitalization or re-imagining begins with a fuller understanding of the cultural foundation we are set upon. The economic facts of life reflect the cultural underpinnings. But, the economic measurements are not, in fact, the real worth of our community. Our natural environment is the number one facet of this jewel: Cayo Hueso.

Everyone should agree on this. The natural island, this “paradise”, is what attracted us here, from its very inception, whether military, commercial, leisure or fantasy. We've all witnessed, even over each generation, how it has also been plundered, leaving us with rear-guard actions that are costly in every respect. We realize it is under tremendous stress.

No one can ignore, when we face the indisputable global climate change scenarios, that the Florida Keys are Ground Zero and impact every facet of our life. The coral reef, which protects and sustains us in more ways than we fully realize is in critical condition. Confabs are held, gnashing of teeth is heard, and daily reports confirm near-shore waters are under continual assault, habitat threats are increasing, quality of life is diminished for all life forms. "Development", seen all around us, appears destructive, not constructive.

Within such an environment of change and uncertainty, it's imperative that the Arts be a vital and central organizing principle in our lives - and not just for a feel-good entertainment escape. Our cultural roots have given us a diverse social and political trunk. The rewards that branch from this display not just the fancy fruit, or dollar value of our labors and cultivation. The Arts serve as creative food and fuel for our imaginations and our very being, sustaining our environment's vitality. We despoil it and we place into peril everything – culturally, socially and economically.

The “state of the arts” in Key West is likewise facing a possible and probable radical transition, if not transformation. Every non-profit arts organization faces significant challenges, from the graying of the audiences, to funding cuts, and are continually up against non-stop fund raising – and donor fatigue, to staff and leadership turnover or burnout, to even examining the basis for their continued operations, or re-tailoring their missions to reflect current or projected limits to their growth. Many of you receiving this are members of these organizations, which would not thrive otherwise.

The larger questions of sustainability and scale, accountability, transparency, governance and insuring and earning the public trust require more critical examination and are deserving of another forum for discussion. As concerns this message, public and private philanthropy, whether through the growing Community Foundation, the Cultural Umbrella of the Arts Council and TDC or private foundations has not sufficiently expanded funding or development for programs as requests regularly exceed available funds. Current funding formulas may well be inadequate and even ineffective to create the forms needed for any new generation or cycle we face.

A critical lynchpin in a vibrant culture that will bear future dividends is support for young artists, those who are emerging and/or for those who are mid-car

eer. While there are many individual artists deeply engaged with their projects, galleries with packed rooms at openings, and work spaces almost hidden in Key West and always interesting labs or ateliers on Stock Island, they all face persistent pressures to survive. While new galleries open and still others close, as "the market" dictates, this illustrates the fragile dynamic of patron and commercial support. From both spectrums, more needs to be done if there is to be a sustainable - and relevant - arts culture in the Florida Keys. (Ganesha Theatre dancers, photo, r.)

Encouraging signs include the emerging Studios of Key West

program and the many artists involved there portend an exciting future, an example of imagination at work and offer potential for real community development. The changes underway at FKCC may herald a revival in the academic sphere, and their Library has been particularly innovative. SALT, the indigenous journal, along with the several writers' groups who toil, the many artists and artisans, in every field, are all making vital contributions. Creative people are drawn to participate where it is fulfilling, and gives character room to grow. The history of Key West powerfully reflects this and given the international destination it has become, must step up to the changes thrust upon it and embraced.

The social network in Key West is astoundingly rich, in more than simple bank portfolios. Recently, the editor at Solares Hill, however, bemoaned the overwhelming plethora of activities, as in “It’s just All Too Much, Already!” Are we nostalgic for a simpler, less-hectic social life or has urban life we individually and collectively sought to leave behind caught up with our demand to be fed what may just be sugar water? An even more current SH issue raised the troubling question "is Key West where the avante garde go to die?" Maybe we need more nourishing, substantial fare, as the present diet leaves us wanting.

Rather, we must have authenticity, in a world that has come to slavishly prize the fake, faux, phony, pretend, the "reality shows" and the attendant almost surreal nature of media that has mastered inane images and fabricated environments that no longer speaks truth to us. The island and the natural world that spoke to us in ways we may have only grasped like the vapors of unseen floral scents, has become more elusive and we sense the fragility is our own feelings of loss.

These are the considerations facing Java Studios and many Island artists. What contribution can we make to foster the visual, performing and literary arts, to present “media that matters”? As an exhibitor, presenter, collaborator? All during the past season, I’ve had countless encouraging voices of support and it compels me to move forward, to build upon the lessons and experiences of this year. And a hell of a year it's been! While I have entered into discussions and negotiations with commercial property for a possible venue to craft the environment and cultivate these concerns, along with others, I'm also exploring alternative platforms for artists needing a forum, a canvas, a stage, to express their voice and show their vision.

Given these perspectives, the creation and opening of a SALON is now underway. Ideally suited and adapted for Key West, a SALON reflects the cultural style embedded here, and is an idea and practice that has been nurtured particularly as a fertile ground during periods of great transition and flux. This is not to replicate what's already been done but to refresh and renew. Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what is flawed; it resides in our willingness to restore, redress, reform, recreate, and reimagine.

This positive proposal of a SALON has been simmering for awhile with me and others, and offers a stimulating environment, with diverse programming, eclectic and even mobile, engaging and with potential to impact nearly all facets of the arts community. I trust that through the word, and pen, song, stage, cinema, and the canvas, sculpture, movement in dance, all the works individual artists sweat and labor for, we fashion our future, not merely survival. I believe the community needs it. I know I do. I hope you do, too. A SALON celebrates this.

A SALON that invites solo and group exhibitions and projects. Encourages breakthroughs and innovative, experimental, or avant-garde programs. A preference for conceptually, politically, or thematically driven events. Definitely fun, from spontaneous to season-tailored, from interactive and participatory to classes or subscription. From fixed and mobile platforms, fluid and engaging. In 1998 I couldn't believe Key West didn't have an existing cinema. I set out to change that. Now, I find it equally incredible that the community does not yet have an alternative creative space with which to cultivate the arts. It's time to change this, too.

Should you also be similarly inspired and motivated to be part of the effort to make Key West what you would have it become, and bolster greater artistic expression, here's your chance as I ask for your support, participation and response to this declaration. That you have stayed to read through this (whew) lengthy message/essay - thank you! I am sending this upon my recent return from attending the extraordinary 50th Anniversary of the San Francisco International Film Festival. You can read about the dozens of events and films I have been watching and events participated in at the Java Studios web site, www.javastudios.org which also posts comment on the diverse media issues of the day. There are at present almost 150 postings. The gathering in San Francisco of the greatest international film community has been invigorating, and revelatory, having met some of the best filmmakers in the world, and film lovers from all walks of life. It has deepened my appreciation for cinema, certainly, and also provided me with renewed motivation and mission to create the “next” community stage.

You are invited to write back and tell me your interest in the SALON. Discussions have been taking place with several of you already, and more sessions are being scheduled in the days ahead to advance this initiative. Your joining is imperative and essential. Together, we'll continue to design and direct our future, our “cultural commons”. And, make this town, CALIENTE!
For the arts, Michael
http://www.blogger.com/

New Community Radio Station is Launched in Key West

A new radio station, KONK-AM on the dial, was launched on May 26,2009, in Key West. It has evolved to its current place on the dial, at 1500AM, broadcasting from studios at 1106 White Street in the island city and can be heard from Islamorada to Havana, Cuba.

It is Community Radio, broadcasting its AM signal from a tower on Stock Island, and is most easily heard, cystal clear, on the web site, http://www.konkam.com/

I host my own show, ARTWAVES, weekdays at 11am until noon.
We talk about the arts, it's value, impact, where we find it, create it, support it. My guests range the full gamut, from filmmakers, poets, writers, sculptors, painters, jugglers/buskers, dancers (from ballet to modern), musicians of all stripes, arts administrators, policy makers and shakers, and advocates, gallery owners and operators, photographers, even a longboard artisan who creates stunning pieces from woods found only in the Keys, theater actors and directors, operatic singers, divas from dive bars and lounges, treasure hunters and finders, too!

Join in weekdays. Each hour brings another show host, a new program on different topics and issues. All Talk Radio, with live music added in as well. Tune in! Catch a wave...

Blame it all on the 70's

Author Thomas Hine argues we're still suffering from that "slum of a decade" that brought us gas lines, pantsuits and shag rugs.

If the left and right agree on almost nothing else, we agree at least on this: America's in terrible shape. Such shocking shape that -- how did we come to this? -- it might not actually survive.
And there our dialogue dissolves. The things about America you diagnose as lethal are the very things your megachurch-belonging cousin with the rifle rack in his truck prays might save its life. And vice-versa. Gay rights. Abortion rights. Prayer in the schools. Environmentalism. Corporations. Porn. There the shouting, and possibly shooting, begins.
How did we come to this? It's the '70s' fault, writes Thomas Hine in The Great Funk: Falling Apart and Coming Together (on a Shag Rug) in the Seventies (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007), a richly if incriminatingly illustrated book about a traumatic "slum of a decade" in which "the country was running out of promise."
Well, the '60s were a hard act to follow.
"Only a decade before," Hine muses, "as the nation anticipated the conquest of space, the defeat of poverty, an end to racism and a society where people moved faster and felt better than they ever had before, it seemed that there was nothing America couldn't do." Flash-forward through Watergate, gas crises, helicopters escaping Saigon -- and "to live in the seventies was to live in a fallen world, one of promises broken and trust betrayed." Hine ticks off that decade's insults to heart, mind and eye: "The politicians were awful. The economy was awful. The insipid harvest gold and avocado kitchens were awful." Ditto gas lines, AMC Pacers, and pantsuits.
Nearly everyone who lived through those years would nod, flinching.
An eternal question about any era during which one was young is: Was the whole world embarrassing, or was it just me? As regards the '70s: It wasn't just you. A longtime design critic -- thus more sensitive than most to beanbag chairs and Bicentennial-patterned carpeting -- Hine painstakingly skewers pyramid power and Virginia Slims in chapters whose pop-culture-referencing titles evoke the chronic inferiority complex of those disappointed times: "Running on Empty," for instance, and "It's Too Late," and "Not Ready for Prime Time?"
Yet his skewering has an obligatory quality, a must-mock-Midler delliberateness. It's a setup. Because this book's real point is to burrow deep into the shag rugs and chest hair and extract wisdom. Yes, your dad lost his job. And disco sucked. But from an era that is all too easy to dismiss as silly, trivial and grim sprang most of the essential issues inflaming our discourse today. Grounds for celebration or destruction or for civil war, depending on whom you ask, were cultivated in that decade, in a petrie dish that smelled of Diet Pepsi, amyl nitrate, apple-spice air freshener and, well, funk.
Ecology. Diversity. Ethnic and sexual identity. Individuality. Alternative sources of energy. Feminism. Fundamentalist spirituality. Retrace our steps (in Earth shoes and a crocheted vest and Dacron flares, of course) through Jimmy Swaggart and solar-heated geodesic domes and blaxploitation films and the Village People and you will find it there, albeit all innocent and earnest and embryonic. And not just the topics themselves but the ways in which we face them now: our wary citizen-journalist vigilance, questioning authority, scoping out conspiracies, pursuing truthiness. The '60s tend to get all the credit -- for rebellion, for consciousness-raising, for everything. And those who were young in the '70s faced a deafening chorus roaring: You missed the boat and are, indeed, too late.
The era they'd missed had been imbued with a wild easy-rider-come-together optimism. "Even the protestors of the sixties," notes Hine, who is old enough to have been one of them, "objected that America was using its immense wealth and power to do the wrong things, not that it did things wrong. Yet during the seventies it seemed that the United States couldn't do anything right." And it was precisely that shattering of optimism, the serial humiliations of Nixon and Vietnam and ugly urban sprawl and the wracking poverty spawned by inflation and massive layoffs, that spawned a strange new kind of solidarity. A desperate bottom-of-the-barrel creativity. The sneaky kind of freedom that breaks chains and opens doors when -- to paraphrase Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" -- you've got nothing to lose. And that, of course, was the last song Janis Joplin recorded before she died in 1970. Among baby boomers, Hine writes, "the song's refrain ... was heard as a kind of epitaph." Her death was itself a loss, thus one less thing to lose. As was Jimi's, one month before, and Jim Morrison's, one year hence. As was the Beatles' slow-motion collapse: mere markings on a timeline now and, to most, funny ancient history: Yoko smiling and smug, Linda singing off-key into a switched-off mic, flashing past in the neat anodyne black-and-white of documentaries. But to a generation raised to be the center of attention, the first wave to worship rock-'n'-roll, these losses wrought a shocking loss of innocence. The long and winding road was cracked.
But hey. "When the center cannot hold, well, that's good for those out on the edge," Hine reasons. "When the forces of order are revealed to be a malign conspiracy, it's a good time for a party."
And in that spreading uncertainty, "when the system weakened, the oddballs and malcontents found an opening. It became possible to try out identities and find solidarity with other rare birds like yourself." Failures, deaths and disasters had proven space-age optimism and patriotism illusory. Yet as darkness fell without, light swelled within: "Awareness of a world with limits allowed people to impose fewer limits on themselves and to explore frontiers within themselves." Struggling up out of the ruins of shared midcentury assumptions, Americans dusted themselves off and decided that their ripped jeans required patches -- but which to choose? Smiley faces, pot leaves, praying hands? In that scramble, Americans discovered a new icon:
Me.
Not me, who sits here writing this, but "me" as an idea. An ideology. A literature, a style. An endless source of fascination. "Finding your identity was extremely important," Hine writes of an era when "each family member dressed to express" -- with enormous clashing checks and plaids, with star-studded lace-up boots and "fun fur" skirts and factory-embroidered faux batiks, sudsing with a shampoo only the '70s could spawn: It was called Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific. It was an era when, tellingly, Life magazine folded and People began.
Yes, this arguably turned us into narcissists. But Hine strives to show how all that mirror-gazing also brought self-awareness, direction and long-overdue self-acceptance to countless Americans, even if some of the gazing occurred over the tops of cocaine straws. And sometimes me morphed into an empowering we.
"The history of the seventies is dominated by the rise of like-minded but hitherto marginal individuals asserting the validity of their ways of seeing and doing things. Not all these ways of thinking were ultimately liberating. Nevertheless, finding that there were others who thought and felt as you did was liberating itself." The resounding popularity of the 1977 miniseries Roots, for example, "reached far beyond the African-American community" and, "as its title suggested ... spoke to a wider desire by all sorts of people to know about the circumstances and experiences of their forebears and to connect with their traditions. Roots, by telling such a rich story about slaves, for which the historical and genealogical record was presumed to be sparse, encouraged others whose ancestors didn't arrive on the Mayflower to look for evidence of these humbler lives."
Other corporate products, however cynically motivated, served as touchstones for what are today's identity politics. The 1973 film Jesus Christ Superstar, along with Jimmy Carter's born-againism and Hal Lindsey's 1970 megabestseller The Late Great Planet Earth -- which prophesied the end of the world and the Second Coming and sold 28 million copies -- alternately seduced and scared legions of Americans into "a Christian consciousness," Hine writes, "that was very different from the liberal Christianity that had become the consensus during the post-World War II era."
Disco sowed the seeds of technomusic. Funk sowed the seeds of hip-hop. Compact cars -- despite the Pinto's tendency to explode when rear-ended -- sowed the seeds for Priuses. Shattered ideals sowed the seeds of dissent.
The scrutiny was nonstop. "One of the fundamental approaches" of the groundbreaking 1973 women's-health manual Our Bodies, Our Selves "was self-examination," Hine reminds us, "and some passages were written to be read while holding a mirror, so that readers could discover previously unexplored parts of their own bodies. It was easier, however, to learn by looking at someone else's body. Many women recall consciousness-raising sessions at which, speculum in hand, they examined the vaginas of their fellow participants in order to understand what was inside themselves." During those same years, he points out, Hustler magazine revolutionized over-the-counter porn by printing "pink shots" -- interior photos, as it were. Ironically, if for different reasons, "feminists were engaged in much the same exploration."
Apocalyptic and disco fantasies mixed giddily in those years with a yen for authenticity -- by which yogurt and animal-rights activism and vibrators became mainstream, and by which manufacturers got rich churning out decor in feculent "earth tones." And this is what marks the '70s: this urgency, this dazed, tender, ever-so-public awakening on the cusp between Strawberry Fields and multinationals. It was the decade when a hundred pride movements bloomed. So much pride, so little embarrassment.
And that's what makes the '70s, arguably more than any other decade, so embarrassing.
But hey. They wore that Dacron so you wouldn't have to.

NUTCRACKER KEY WEST 2007

The Nutcracker Key West production, just ended at the Tennessee Williams Theatre, has been dazzling, spectacular and simply phenomenal. Joyce Stahl's amazing reimagined staging of the classical ballet with Key West imagery set records as well as setting audiences ablaze with a rapture usually reserved for high cathedrals or the New York stage.
Eleven performances, over 4500 attended, with the last 6 shows sold out. The Paradise Ballet Theatre brought in the many talents of 18 professional dancers from esteemed ballet companies in the US, with Alun Jones reprising his role as choreographer. You can see the amazing photos at http://www.nutcrackerkeywest.com/ and more will be posted here. Plans are already underway to produce a 2008 version, as Joyce is a whirlwind of motion, not stopping or slowing down for a second. The success of this year has obviously encouraged the consideration of mounting the next show, and will advance establishing the Nutcraker Key West as a real tradition in the community.

MidSummer's Night Update

Celebrate the Most Magical Night of the Summer this Monday, August 13

We’re assembling a wonder-full Midsummer’s Night Dream and Perseid Meteor Showers “Salon Spectacle” - a night of feasting, dancing, and theatrical antics celebrating the art and artists of Key West.

Presenting on Monday, August 13, by Michael Shields and Java Studios as a joint production with Marky Pierson, Christa Hunt, and Quincy Perkins, the Salon Spectacle is being hosted by Joyce Stahl at her 727 Eaton Street home, from 7 to 11 PM. The free event has attracted over 50 artist participants including musicians, singers, dancers, painters, fire jugglers, actors, poets, storytellers, and more, with filmmakers capturing and projecting the evening’s action. George Murphy is M.C. for the festivities, with actors from The Studios of Key West “One Night Stand” presenting their 10 minute plays, on the two outdoor stages, with a band and a DJ keeping the beats, urging people to roam the property and delight in the night. Many surprises are in store!

Midsummer’s Night has been observed worldwide by many cultures and seen as a time when the veil between this world and the next was thin, and when powerful forces were abroad. On Midsummer’s, legend held that you could gain the powers of a bard – or on the downside, end up utterly mad, dead, or whisked away by spirit faeries. Romances flourish, affairs are begun, mystery and mischief abound.

While traditionally celebrated on the Summer Solstice, in Key West, Midsummer’s Night is indeed the midpoint of the summer, between the Solstice and the Equinox. It is also the occasion of the annual Perseid Meteor showers, a true celestial event, displaying the most spectacular shooting stars of the year.

Midsummer’s Night “Salon Spectacle” is being created to celebrate why we live here, and to give artists a voice and a platform to share the power of their dreams. The launch of the Salon on this cosmic night of community is intended to stimulate the arts, foster greater awareness and spawn further Salon style projects. All are invited to join the creation of the Midsummer’s Night. Costumes are caliente! Dancing is delightful! Food and beverage provided.

It all begins with a dream. What is yours? Show your star!

Questions?
Call Michael Shields at 305-394-3804, or email michael@javastudios.org

Mid Summer’s Night Dream & the Perseid Meteor Showers SALON SPECTACLE

Come Celebrate the Most Magical Key West Night of Summer and Share Your Dream ! AUGUST 13th.
The evening historically is a fire festival called Midsummer's Day or St. Johns Eve, representing the middle of summer. Traced back many thousands of years, observed throughout Europe by many cultures, and later called St. John's Eve, which was seen as a time when the veil between this world and the next was thin, and when powerful forces were abroad.
Vigils were often held during the night. It was said that if you spent a night at a sacred site during Midsummer Eve, you would gain the powers of a bard, on the down side you could also end up utterly mad, dead, or be spirited away by the spirit faeries. Indeed, St. Johns Eve was a time when faeries were thought to be abroad and at their most powerful (hence Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream). Herbs gathered and foods eaten then are thought to be imbued with the power of the sun. Add to this the influence of the later sister summer festival of Lughnasa and the circle of fire is further made brilliant, promising abundance and peace in the coming harvest (and, an invigorated arts scene in Key West!)

The community gathers on this special night for the Midsummer's SALON. It is a night of feasting, dancing, theatrical antics and celebrating Mother Nature's summer bounty. While traditionally celebrated on the Summer Solstice, in Key West, Midsummer’s Night is indeed the middle of the summer, midway between the Solstice and the Equinox, or also seen as mid-point of the April-November axis when Summer weather prevails.

It is also the occasion of the annual Perseid Meteor showers, a true celestial event, displaying the most spectacular shooting stars of the year, August 12-13, 2007.

The most gifted musicians play their instruments, filling the night with their magical music. Performers from all avenues join to make the evening memorable and marvelous. Dancers swirl, painters create stories, wordsmiths paint pictures, and above all, dreams are woven in the night air and the shooting stars are witness.
PLUS, we’ll have prepared and festive summer food and beverage - the Keys’ most delectable and tasty – And FUN!
You are Invited ! Read ahead…

Key West is a haven for artists and now’s the time to step forward to further deepen our appreciation for the arts on this truly celestial evening.
Mid Summer’s Night is ideal to celebrate that we live here, to give voice and a platform to experience what gives meaning and pleasure to everyone. You can be heavy or you can be light, sweet or savory, it’s all tasty.
On this Night, we launch The SALON - the channel to make it all happen and set the stage for future SALON development.
Hosted at the home of Joyce Stahl, 727 Eaton Street and 328 William Street, presented by Java Studios and Michael Shields.

And YOU are the Creator of Mid-Summer’s Night!

What is YOUR Dream? Tell Everyone !
Say it in words, song, dance, film, and…?
The Night invites you to show your Star
From pre-sunset to midnight, every fifteen minutes, your turn to shine will be scheduled as you spotlight your talent, your idea, your song, your poem, whatever makes you shine!
We are seeking YOU - Artists, Actors, Singers & Songwriters, Dancers, Poets, Writers, to make the Mid-Summer’s Night a Carnivale, a Celebration of Celestial Light.
RSVP... by August 3…to be part of the SALON & Stage
RSVP… by August 10…to come to the NIGHT and see and hear the dreams being displayed and woven…
Stars In The Making!
394-3804…RSVP…

…Be creative!
and Circle The Date!

JAVA STUDIOS - Media That Matters and Community Development

Wednesday, July 11, 2007