''Art in Miami' with Brandi Reddick, Wednesday, February 17 (*please note date and lecturer change)'

''Art in Miami' with Brandi Reddick, Wednesday, February 17 (*please note date and lecturer change)'

Learn to live and let love

I complain a lot about business in Miami and it's lawlessness, particularly in the realm of Art . I have come to accept that about this city and have decided to move on, grasping tirelessly on the beauty that lies within.

Seeping through the cracks of a plastic exterior is a city that has a grand history and a beauty to be captured in the nature by many great artists. I came to Miami for that reason, as I have been given a challenge to find that beauty and exploit it for my own means. I will do it with love, respecting its nature and give it proper credence. I have been given some citrus, and I must squeeze out the juice...and drink it.

I will be focusing my sculpture on the journey of finding Miami's history and creating a love relationship with the land, and history of its people. (In regards to current people, I am only see them as temporary skin on the surface, interwoven weakly and all shredding away to reveal the underbelly, seeping through the holes.) The history here is so diverse and the land so altered that there needs to be a more humane contingency to represent it. So, exploit it, I will not. I will simply reveal it for what it is to me and maybe more people will share that beauty.

Our work is love.

The Miami Art Scene-Devoid of Humanity?

I have been in Miami long enough to see it's effects. Good natured people move here and become total a**holes within a year. (I am getting there.) Artists come here to what they think is a burgeoning scene to find it cruel and harsh and only for hardcore masochists that want to compete with commercialists like Britto and Peter Lik. After being told yesterday by a well known Miami Art Dealer, "Art Collectors do not come to Miami for sculpture or intelligent art, they just want simple art, something that looks good on their walls," I am starting to believe that this place is devoid of humanity... and as a sculptress who puts thought and love into her work, I do not belong here.

I come from a hard place called Detroit. Detroit may have a rough and dirty exterior and is cold, (literally) and rough to live in, but inside, it is charming, intelligent, and REAL, as are most cities. It's art scene is a crucial element of that REALness. Miami is the complete opposite; It is like that gorgeous woman you meet in a posh club, she is so appealing to the eye, but once you tap beneath the skin, there is a void. Miami is that hot woman, fake everything, void of intellect/charm/emotion and really quite cruel and difficult to get along with. It takes and doesn't give. It could care less if you are hurt by it and it voraciously eats up those who get too close to cracking its hardened, botox injected surface.

I have worked diligently to try to find a Miami that inspires me. I have explored the nature of this place and put that into my art; I have worked as a Paranormal Investigator to find it's history seeping through the plastered cracks; and I planted my seed here, to stay for a while. Now, however, I find my roots growing in infertile ground. I am like that drooping plant on my window sill that will not flower because it is not well fed. In a city full of air plants, I am an artist that needs the nutrients of soil to grow.

Despite my needs, I ask, how does a city (and it's art scene) really mature into a blooming flower if it does not have those essential 'vitamins' and 'minerals'? Miami has lost the nature of 'human nature.' It is a neglectful parent. How can an artist survive in an environment that doesn't care or nurture, is purely objective and has no rules? I cannot. Either I have to find a new job, a new city to live in -or better yet- Miami has to mature and start nurturing and supporting its artists, rather than exploit them on their window sill and leave them for dead.

(I am going to go feed my plant now. Thank you.)