A Colorful Palette, an Open Canvas, 40 Voices on Florida’s Future

--(Special 40th Anniversary Issue), Florida Trend, Tampa, Florida (state-wide circulation), September 1998.



As Florida turns from being a sleepy Southern state into a metropolis, and as immigration and the racism involved in that begins to evaporate through assimilation, the tension and the passion and the struggle and the angst create opportunities for artists to express themselves.

It’s Florida’s turn to become a cultural state. Florida is still a very young state and the money we have is very young money. People are still trying to figure out what to do with that money and artists are trying to figure out how to get their first show in New York City or Paris. But that’s changing. The new kid on the block, the new empire, is Miami. I look at Miami the way I look at Italy at the beginning of the Renaissance.