Belle Haven Home
The recent column in SRQ Magazine, “stadium of culture” , addresses the North Trail. It’s beauty and it’s blight. Where two cultures inter-mingle and the result… well, it’s fine as long as you’re just passing by. The author goes on to suggest that now is the time for the county to up the ante for the arts, that more be done to prove and promote Sarasota as a cultural Mecca. Florida Trend didn’t even mention Sarasota in their article “Arts and culture in the Sunshine State”. It’s a shame really. We got all the right stuff.
My credentials, I have none. I am not embedded into the community art scene. I don’t belong to any association, organization or group. I’m an outsider. A lowly photographer trying to sell a few prints. From this worm’s eye view, I see a commission who still thinks 13 spring training games are worth a 30 year bond, an art committee that can’t agree on their own mission and a community full of people interested in their own agenda. What if more money is allocated for the arts, who get’s to say where and how it is spent?
Which brings me to my point.
If I were king for a day, I would ban the aquisition of more sculpture and work on revitalizing some of our historic architecture and run down neighborhoods. I would promote these as artists havens, co-op’s studios, and galleries.
Every time I pass this place my heart aches. Wouldn’t it be nice to snatch this out of the hands of whoever owns it and breath new life into it.
The Belle Haven Home
When I was going through my photos, my first thought was to Photoshop all the debris away. Then it occurred to me that hiding all the trash would certainly make for a pleasing photograph, it wouldn’t be a true representation of this situation.
Belle Haven sits in the shadows of a Hyatt Regency and it’s neighbor is an empty lot., surrounded by the same cold galvanized steel fencing. An amazing structure quietly deteriorates as thousands of people pass by it every day. Do they see her I wonder?
This is Sarasota
We cry out that we need more money at the same time we are raising big $$$ for a sculpture that (imo) serves no real purpose. Does a sculpture really improve our quality of life and do we really need another one?
We call attention to the blight that surrounds us, but this is how our historic buildings are being treated.
Ah, if I were king for a day. Instead of having to use my 300mm zoom lens to capture the beauty and artistry, I’d be gazing out from the balcony.
It’s still free to dream.
Dreams can unlock the gates that conventional thinking keep under lock and key
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