MOLI VIEW™

As some readers may have surmised by now, the MOLI editorial staff rallied on the company's home turf last weekend for some business, some pleasure, and plenty of frolicking in nearby Miami.

The wonders of the sunny metropolis were many. And, in the company of my primary keeper, Worthy Causes editor (and all around awesome babe) Celeste Fraser Delgado, I got to experience Nicaraguan fast food (fritanga), a guided tour of downtown's modern architecture, and routine live demonstrations of my hostess's considerable language skills (as well as spontaneous outbursts of her inspired dancing).

But of all the interesting things I witnessed under her generous care, perhaps the most impressive was a late-night, in-studio exhibit of new work by Miami painter and sculptor Sara Stites.

To call Stites' work "odd" or "interesting" would be appropriate enough, but those words are incapable of illuminating the dazzling and visceral nature of these large-format watercolor-enhanced drawings. Body parts, both human and otherwise, both internal and external (some recognizable, many interpreted or invented to suit the artist's purpose), mingle to produce images both seductive and disturbing. The fine, black, pubic-looking hair that adorns the majority of her work adds an extra sense of voyeuristic tension — as though you are viewing something up close that was never intended to be seen unclothed.

Stashed in the city's Wynwood Art District, Stites' clean, bright studio was the perfect setting to take in this collection — much of which seemed to borrow from the childhood game of folding a paper and passing it around in order to create a composite drawing (with each participant adding eyes, nose, mouth, torso, etc.). The artist was present, armed with her camera phone, eagerly taking pictures of visitors' faces so she could perform her meticulous vivisection on them later.

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