“The greater the disparity, the greater the despair.”#GreedKills #FlipThePyramid
9/1
THE PEACH: Comedy Workshop, Open Mic, Drawing & Acrylics Class
9/2
THE PEACH: Come Paint w Me ARTS GARAGE: Comedy Open Mic
9/3
GRAMPS: AV Club:16MM Screenings from the MDPLS archives
THE PEACH: Artist Talk & Critique, Play w Clay REVELRY: K!nky Karaoke
9/4
REVOLUTION LIVE: Bruce Dickinson, La Vela Puerca
THE PEACH: Art Talk @ Evey Fine Art
REVELRY: Live Music Bingo w Smerks & The Nightmares
9/5
RESPECTABLE STREET: MIDNIGHT MARKET ft Prison, Famous Last Words, THIRST, Nosebleedr, Toy Gun Club, Burlesque by Ruby Tesla, the Girls Next Door. Vendors, Tattoo, Tarot.
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: De La Rose
REVOLUTION LIVE: Our Last Night GRAMPS: Lemon City Trio, Yellow Shoots, Delusion Bay
GRAMPS GETAWAY: Medley
DOGHOUSE THEATER: Stand Up Comedy
PROPAGANDA: Domedy: A night of comedy where if the jokes don’t hit… you get the whip.
THE PEACH: GALLERY SHOW, Henna Tattoo
REVELRY: Our Lady Avery
ARTS GARAGE: The Art of Laughter w Ahren Belisle ft. Michael Glatzmaier
9/6
GASPER ARTS CENTER: LOOK WHAT I MADE Liv Cook x ShangriLa Collective MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Ile Aiye at Infinito
Brazilian Film Fest
THE PEACH: ART WALK
WAR MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: Ice Nine Kills, Dayseeker, Kim Dracula, The Funeral Portrait, MEST GRAMPS: School of Rock North Miami Showcase, Club XCX
PROPAGANDA: An event hosted by Spectrum
REVELRY: Honky Tonk Night w Dead Bronco
ARTS GARAGE: Selwyn Birchwood
9/7
GRAMPS: School of Rock North Miami Showcase
9/8
THE PEACH: Comedy Workshop, Open Mic,
Drawing & Acrylics Class
9/9
WAR MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: Jessie Murph, Nino Paid
THE PEACH: Come Paint w Me
ARTS GARAGE: All Arts Open Mic Night
9/10
PROPAGANDA: Dirty Bingo
THE PEACH: Artist Talk & Critique, Play w Clay
9/11
THE PEACH: Art Talk @ Evey Fine Art REVELRY: Vibrator Races
9/12
BAILEY CONTEMPORARY ARTS: LINEAGE
Closing Party, Pocket of Lollipops, The Grey Tones, Kelcie McQuaid x ShangriLa Collective
RESPECTABLE STREET: LoveCats, Cure Tribute
WAR MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: Lee Brice, Ashley Cooke, Lewis Brice
REVOLUTION LIVE: Superheaven, Cloud Nothings, END IT, Soul Blind
TACOS & TATTOOS: Medley & Kranz
PROPAGANDA: The Killbillies
THE PEACH: Henna Tattoo
REVELRY: Yacht Rock w Yacht Lava
ARTS GARAGE: Kemuel Roig
9/13
NATIONAL CROQUET CENTER: 3rd Annual Bartle BBQ Hang w Surfer Blood! Join us for a BBQ feast catered and donated by Sandy James Catering, activities, community comradery, a bounce house from Jupiter Bounce, music by Surfer Blood, croquet lessons, skate with World Skateboarding Champion Alessandro “Alex” Sorgentea, participate in a skateboard clinic and best tricks at your level with prizes facilitated by Skateboard Pro Mike Rogers. All proceeds from the event will benefit Hanley Foundation’s Cory Bartle Memorial Fund. PROPAGANDA: Dunies, Rude Television, The Creature Cage
RESPECTABLE STREET: Y2K Party
GRAMPS: Newly Opposed
REVELRY: Rockabilly w The Mighty Flea Circus ARTS GARAGE: The Betty Fox Band
9/14
RESPECTABLE STREET: Pink Turns Blue, Some Days Are Darker, Obsidian ARSHT CENTER: Killer Mike w the Mighty Midnight Revival ft Atl Studio Philharmonic REVELRY: Ink + Drink Sunday Social: Virgo Edition, James Whynot x ShangriLa Collective THE PEACH: YOGA
9/15
THE PEACH: Comedy Workshop, Open Mic, Drawing & Acrylics Class
9/16
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Stereolab, Memorials
THE PEACH: Come Paint w Me ARTS GARAGE: Spoken Word Open Mic
9/17
PROPAGANDA: Jazz Night w Jacob Perry Trio THE PEACH: Artist Talk & Critique, Play w Clay
9/18
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Bandalos Chinos GRAMPS: The Frights THE PEACH: Art Talk @ Evey Fine Art
REVELRY: Bring Your Own Vinyl Night: Wax On Wax Off
9/19
RESPECTABLE STREET: Ordinary Boys, Smiths Tribute
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: G Flip
PROPAGANDA: Dyke Night
GRAMPS GETAWAY: Medley
THE PEACH: Henna Tattoo
REVELRY: Time Bombed: Rancid Tribute
ARTS GARAGE: Barely Manilow Tribute
9/20
THRIVE ARTS DISTRICT: Everything is Beautiful ft Art by Laura Atria, Vinyl Release by tiny blips, Live Projection Mapping by Nautilus Project. An Immersive Art Experience.
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Desorden Publico –Los 40 de Desorden
SWAMPGRASS WILLY’S: Goat Rope, Orange Blackheart, Modern Mimes, A.M. Strings
REVELRY: 180x Summer Emo Night
ARTS GARAGE: Bachaco
9/21
REVOLUTION LIVE: K Camp
THE PEACH: YOGA
REVELRY: Coven Cabaret Burlesque Show
9/22
THE PEACH: Comedy Workshop, Open Mic, Drawing & Acrylics Class
9/23
THE PEACH: Come Paint w Me
9/24
THE PEACH: Artist Talk & Critique, Play w Clay
REVELRY: Spelling Buzz w Ryan Panucci
9/25
RESPECTABLE STREET: Emo Night
THE PEACH: Art Talk @ Evey Fine Art
REVELRY: Revelry-Diculous Stand Up Comedy Night
9/26
ARTSERVE: PLEASE TOUCH Cary Daly Solo Exhibition x ShangriLa Collective
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Los Amigos Invisibles
PROPAGANDA: Emily from Mad Mellow Birthday Bash w Blabscam, Bomb the Algorithm, TNT THE PEACH: Henna Tattoo
REVELRY: The Ricca Project
ARTS GARAGE: Eric Johanson
9/27
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Zapato 3 REVOLUTION LIVE: The Bouncing Souls, H2O, Smoking Popes, JER
THE ABBEY: Los Amigos Invisibles, DJ BMF
PROPAGANDA: Voodoo Monk
REVELRY: Rockabilly Night w/ Slip & The Spinouts
ARTS GARAGE: WOR – A Tribute to the Women Rock
9/28
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Dear Everything: Musical Uprising for the Earth
REVOLUTION LIVE: B.O.B
THE PEACH: YOGA
9/29
THE PEACH: Comedy Workshop, Open Mic, Drawing & Acrylics Class
9/30
GRAMPS: Novulent
THE PEACH: Come Paint w Me
JON GLASSMAN
by david rolland
For local writer and musician Jonathan L. Glassman, growing up in Boca Raton and the Florida Keys brought all kinds of inspiration. “I was lucky to have lived on the edge of a large forest and as a child I spent a ridiculous amount of time running those woods, building forts, digging huge trenches, and just exploring and getting lost,” Glassman tells PureHoney
For his new novel, A Thousand Full Moons, Glassman channels his youthful memories and imagination into the wooded environs of Oregon. The 281-page book out this October tells the story of Wolf Boy, a six-year-old victim of bullying and abandonment who tells everyone he meets that he befriended a giant and a wizard. “I wanted to tell a story of a child who almost didn’t survive as an infant,” Glassman says, “and his wild attachment to nature. I wanted to see that child mature and go through life as if he were living in a painting, a cartoon, or a music video and have it all come to life.”
The question of what is real and what is imagined looms large in the book that was written largely at the West Palm Beach library branch. “I would listen to music with headphones and close my eyes and daydream about the characters for awhile before I would write. The writing ended up coming easily and it was mostly written in less than a year.”
Music always loomed large for Glassman, the former front man of rock band Luna Rex. In tandem with the book publication he’ll release two indie folk EP’s under the band name Pulukee The Whale, Bookends vol. 1 and Bookends vol. 2, that serve as a sort of soundtrack for the novel. “The characters and environments made it into several songs,” Glassman says. Glassman is hopeful A Thousand Full Moons can bring readers a sense of childlike wonder and the sense that anything is possible. “Ultimately, I want it to feel like a present day fairy tale with just a touch of fantasy. Enough to make you think something so ‘out there’ could maybe actually happen.”
A Thousand Full Moons is available on October 11. Bookends vol. 1 and vol. 2 are available on October 4 and 18, respectively. jonathanleeglassman.com and pulukeethewhale. bandcamp.com
MEMORIALS
by erik kvarnberg
MEMORIALS don’t mind being referred to as “Stereolab’s evil twin,” but that influential band — who MEMORIALS happen to be opening for at Miami Beach Bandshell on September 16 — is far from their only touchstone. MEMORIALS are an elegant mix of their tour mate’s artful pop, Autolux’s drum momentum and Sweet Trip’s glitchiness, with a touch of Being Dead’s playfulness and Yo La Tengo’s contemplation. So, yes, it’s a concert match made in record shop heaven.
Before they released their debut album, 2024’s Memorial Waterslides, the U.K. duo of Verity Susman from Electrelane and Matthew Simms from It Hugs Back and Wire composed two film soundtracks and, last year, a Paris art museum commission. For Memorial Waterslides, they’ve adapted their scoring sensibilities to songcraft; the result is a magical summit of jazz, electronic and psychedelic rock.
The album opens with “Acceptable Experience” channeling the airy vocals and vintage organ vibes that Stereolab perfected with ‘60s time machine classics such as Percolator The danceable dreamy pop of “Lamplighter” evokes krautrock and MGMT while the audio collage of “Memorial Waterslide II” is one The Avalanches would envy. (In concert, Susman and Simms perform without extra backing musicians, alternating as needed between keyboards, mics, drums, guitars, handbells and a reel-to-reel tape machine.)
The back half of the album is moodier, less danceable, but absorbing. The nine-minute penultimate track, “I Have Been Alive,” is a tense reflection of everything MEMORIALS can sound like, each element falling into the mix like Alice tumbling into Wonderland. Susman and Simms send you off with “The Politics of Whatever,” a heavenly melancholic duet, somehow combining shades of The Beatles’ “Here, There, and Everywhere” with a fairy’s electrified ballroom dance.
The album’s never-ending riffs, drones, sound effects, and hypnotic melodies all cohere under a larger rhythmic sense, everything remaining consistently fresh and unpredictable within a wide-angled cinematic style of songwriting. Memorial Waterslides is all that, and a delightful showcase of confected noise and grooves for people whose favorite instruments are dial-up internet and corroded analog synthesizers. MEMORIALS open for Stereolab 7pm Tuesday, September 16 at Miami Beach Bandshell.
HOLLY WHITAKER
STEREOLAB
by erik kvarnberg
At one juncture the French-English band Stereolab were mingling the Velvet Underground’s drones with ’60s pop; at another diving into dance, hip-hop and minimalism; at still another becoming entranced with jazz and bossa nova, a sound embodied by one of their best known albums, 1997’s Dots and Loops.
On Stereolab’s first LP of new material in 15 years, Instant Holograms on Metal Film, the expansive, far-reaching infatuation with grooves remains strong as the band prepares to play Miami Beach Bandshell on its first South Florida tour stop in decades.
The new album is a warm French blanket of meditative melodies and vocal counterpoint, complemented perfectly by filtered drums and synth sounds from a digital dungeon. The album’s crown jewel is “Melodie Is A Wound,” a layered ecosystem of guitar, electric piano, myriad percussion and compressed, crunchy bass with an anti-war lyric. In live performances posted online, “Melodie” turns into a whirlwind of noise, in classic Stereolab fashion, instruments playing off one another under flourishing lights.
The whole album is garage rock and noise and funk and jazz all in one, combined in unexpected ways. One track, “Vermona F Transistor,” sounds like Daft Punk wandering around a field of flowers. Co-founding band member Lætitia Sadier has also spoken of the album as a continuation of Stereolab’s interest in the work of minimalist composers such as Steve Reich. Yet Instant Holograms on Metal Film is very much an approachable entry point into the Stereolab catalogue, each song reminiscent of previous work while still fresh and experimental.
The recording hiatus that followed 2010’s Not Music was not a fallow period for Sadler or Stereolab co-founder Tim Gane. Sadier has released five solo albums as well as an album and an EP with her Modern Cosmology partners, the Brazilian band Mombojó. She’s also notched a noteworthy list of collaborations including the track “PartyIsntOver/Campfire/ Bimmer” by Tyler, the Creator. Gane, meanwhile, has issued several albums and singles, and one movie score, all under the name Cavern of Anti-Matter. Who knows how long they’ll reconvene Stereolab. This feels like a good moment to see them. Stereolab w MEMORIALS 7pm Tuesday, September 16 at Miami Beach Bandshell. stereolab.co.uk
KILLER MIKE
by tim moffatt
One half of the stellar rap duo Run the Jewels, the MC Killer Mike seems almost indivisible from his longtime RTJ partner El-P, the two having put out an amazing body of ground- and genre-breaking work since their 2013 debut.
But Killer Mike (born Michael Render) has long had a presence outside of that epic collaboration: seven solo albums including last year’s Songs for Sinners and Saints, released as Michael & the Mighty Midnight Revival. This outing features the Mighty Midnight Revival gospel group founded by Mike, a green room full of guests (including Offset, Blxst, Anthony Hamilton, and Project Pat), and variations on some of the songs from the prolific rapper’s 2023 solo album, Michael
He and the Revival, joined by the Atlanta Studio Philharmonic, will bring those albums to symphonic life on September 14 at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center. It’s another of Killer Mike’s recent forays into posh halls with orchestra pits. Last year at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., some National Symphony Orchestra musicians reportedly took offense at his blunt lyrics. But they set aside their misgivings to play accompaniment to Mike’s street-life tales, nimble flow and Sunday service raptures.
He’s a social activist, political campaigner (for Bernie Sanders in 2016), and commentator in op-eds and on the college lecture circuit. In an episode of his 2019 Netflix docu-series, “Trigger Warning With Killer Mike,” Atlanta-based Mike helps local Crips and Bloods gang members produce and market their own soda to challenge the local monopoly enjoyed by the white-owned hometown colossus, the Coca-Cola Company.
Getting led out of last year’s Grammys ceremony in handcuffs, right after winning three trophies, only burnished Killer Mike’s iconic stature. But the arrest by L.A. cops following a backstage scuffle with security left its mark. Mike raps about it defiantly on the Sinners and Saints track “Humble Me”: “Behind me Satan, I walk out the door with my head up in handcuffs with pride/’Cause all of my heroes wore handcuffs, the FBI shot some of them and they died.”
Killer Mike & the Mighty Midnight Revival, featuring the Atlanta Studio Philharmonic, play 7pm Sunday, September 14 at the Arsht Center’s Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami.
PINK TURNS BLUE
by abel folgar
There’s something poetic about a band that made its name in the monochrome dusk of post-punk still casting long, colored shadows across modern music. Pink Turns Blue, Germany’s brooding, melodic darkwave emissaries, continue to defy time, fashion, and cultural upheaval, holding tight to the ache and urgency that made their early catalog cult canon.
“With the release of If Two Worlds Kiss in ’87 we were part of the post-punk scene,” vocalist and guitarist Mic Jogwer tells PureHoney. “But we were looking for more, searching for meaning, searching for purpose, searching for your place in this world. Our new songs relate to today’s themes and topics but emotionally, they all bear the same attitude.”
Born out of Germany’s Cold War unease and named after the 1984 Hüsker Dü song, Pink Turns Blue emerged in the mid-’80s with a sound somehow both clinical and tender, echoing Joy Division’s despair while flirting with pop accessibility. What separates them from contemporaries is a clarity of emotion. “One of our most popular songs is called ‘Walking on Both Sides,’” Jogwer says. “For many, an anthem that describes their personal situation — emotionally, politically, sexually, you name it.”
Decades later, Pink Turns Blue’s newest albums mark a mindset that refuses to fall back on old times. TAINTED, from 2021, addressed a fractured, pandemic-addled world with precision. Their latest, 2025’s Black Swan, marries their signature minor-key romanticism with a thematic edge, navigating ecological despair, political apathy, and personal reckoning. “If you are over 40 and still a person with a mission, not willing to become cynical and bored, you have to review your priorities,” Jogwer says. “Are we becoming just entertainers that serve nostalgia, or are we still part of a community fighting to make this world a better place?”“Today we all feel powerless and still have the urgency to do something,” Jogwer says. “Our songs try to invite our soulmates, likeminded, to not give up. Try, try, try. Never give up.”
Pink Turns Blue, Some Days are Darker and Obsidian perform 7pm Sunday, September 14 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. pinkturnsblue.com
DANIELA
VORNDRAN
SOULFUZZY
by kelli bodle
When not creating and posting whimsical illustrations under the Instagram handle soulfuzzy, our artist of the month Stephen Dewsnap plays guitar and sings in the Floridian collective The Dreambows. Music fans know Dewsnap as a Dreambows compatriot of Surfer Blood members John Paul Pitts and Tyler Schwarz. They’ve played Bumblefest, Respectable Street, and the Music Heals 420 Fest, and have released numerous singles, EPs and albums of wistful indie pop and rock going back to the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But art is more than a sideline for Dewsnap, who tells PureHoney that he “draws all of the time, everywhere, on everything.” And it’s not so neatly separated from his music. As Dewsnap discusses his creative life, the line between making pictures and writing songs becomes intriguingly blurry.
The Cocoa Beach native describes a kind of artistic awakening that happened for him at age 12, when his mother introduced him to LPs and, by extension, the world of album art. “Holding the physical covers in my hand and looking at art while drifting off into this new world of music was wonderful,” he says. “My style grew from the music, skateboarding community, and the artwork of the mid-late ‘90s.”
The candy-colored figures that populate his Instagram — be they melting, vibrating, picnicking or traveling to outer space — often come with beguiling captions such as, “Insecurity and FOMO, leading to the formation of cliques, poison a local art community, Dream Dream Dream …,” or, more succinctly, “Simulation Break.”
What moves him to muse over these topics in his art? “I think the idea of being in a simulation is interesting,” Dewsnap says. “Technological advancements and the hands-free way of life can make people feel like they don’t have much control. We naturally want more of everything that either benefits us or entertains us. The people who make money off those things will feed that fire as long as they can. Eventually, there’s going to be a hard turn in the opposite direction.”
Asked how his artwork and music correlate, Dewsnap says, “Music is always involved in what I draw. I draw the feeling I have or the world I see. Most times it’s less about the actual drawing and more about the colors. It’s cool to think about a drawing being a vessel for color. Writing music and lyrics to me is the same thing as creating a visual. The visuals I create are bubblegum wrapper versions of songs.”
He views The Dreambows as “more of an evolving art project than a music project: I’m not drawing as much, but I am while writing the music.” He could be talking about both when he says: “How do I paint a picture of our insecurities in physical form and in a purple furry room but with a happy undertone that makes you want to let loose?”
For visitors to his Instagram, he hopes to only draw a smile. If there’s a therapeutic aim for himself in his art, it’s to find playful ways to distract from negativity.
“One of my recent pieces was of the characters I draw having a picnic — all the while, look what’s actually going on around us,” Dewsnap says. “I was basically saying: We just want to feel wanted by other humans, to be nourished and be both physically and mentally comfortable. We tend to make a mess of everything and over-complicate when forgetting our basic needs.”
Dewsnap’s playlist for drawing is eclectic: “I love listening to long drawn-out songs with a rhythm that never changes but the layers build and peel off intermittently. They’re perfect for letting your mind wander. Fela Kuti is really great to draw to, or some adventurous ’60s garage stuff. Currently, I got into this band called Berliner Doom dry cl. I’ve also been in love with Dry Cleaning, The Wytches, Omni, and Being Dead over the last few years.”
His secret to staying fresh creatively is to keep it moving. He says, “I spent most of my 20’s in Los Angeles and my early 30’s in Massachusetts, Colorado, and some places sprinkled in-between. I moved back postCOVID to Florida to be closer to family. I love uprooting and experiencing new places outside of my comfort zone. It forces you to have to live differently, adapt, learn, and feel new things.”
Stephen Dewsnap is on Instagram at @soufuzzy and at thedreambows.bandcamp.com.
THE DUNIES
by olivia feldman
Full of the ne’er-do-well spirit of The Spits and the fuzzy, lingering guitar shine of OSees, the newest EP from Space Coast punks Dunies signals their transition from strictly DIY recording to high-level sonic creation. “We’re locking in, got our sights set and are actually starting to make real music,” lead vocalist and guitarist Carter Lankes tells PureHoney
Released in July, Take Off And Die showcases the group’s specific brand of Brevard punk and love of local surf culture. Listening to
“Don’t Wanna Go,” with Lankes’ coolly rebellious voice bouncing off the full-band racket, you get the feeling that Dunies don’t need much to have a good time; just a few Busch Lights, a cool breeze and some tasty waves.
Lankes, bassist Brenden Clark, guitarist Zac Drazich and drummer Joey Noble all hail from Cocoa Beach, where hometown surf legend Kelly Slater has a statue downtown. Since bonding in 2016 over garage rock and metal, Dunies have grown a dedicated fan base of fellow Sunshine State embeds.
The EP is launching them on a very Florida mini-tour of Jacksonville Beach, Cocoa Beach and Lake Worth — cities and towns that, no matter how different, can appreciate Dunies’ surfer punk vision of the Circle Jerks riding a barrel. “Florida is just such a melting pot,” Lankes says. “Even from Cocoa Beach down to West Palm up to Orlando, it’s like three different worlds.” But for all of them, he adds, “There’s an underlying ‘swamp angst.’”
“That’s what we were trying to go for with this album: a hot, crusty Florida,” Lankes says. To get there, they tweaked Lankes’ home studio, Banana River Sound, with better mics and soundproofing. Band members wrote and recorded parts individually and sent tracks off for mixing and mastering to Jonathan Nuñez at Miami’s Sound Artillery Studio
The EP’s title comes from an ’80s-era surfing term used by Drazich’s dad. “You’re kind of just sending it on a big wave,” Drazich says. “You know you’re gonna eat s***, but you’re going for it anyway. I thought it captured the energy of the new songs well.” Dunies, Rude Television and Creature Cage perform 7pm Saturday, Sept. 13 at Propaganda in Lake Worth. duniesband.com
LIV COOK
by amanda moore
Childhood memories often fade at the edges, their colors dimmed by time, yet the creative spark we’re born with endures. In Look What I Made, the debut solo exhibition of South Florida portrait artist Liv Cook, that spark flares back to life to remind us that creativity is as innate as breath.
Opening September 6 at Gasper Arts Center in Dania Beach, Cook’s exhibition transforms baby photos of herself and several fellow artists into bold, mixed-media collaborations — a tender, electric fusion of each subject’s earliest, original self and the layered identity shaped by the world. Cook painted the faces based on the photos, then handed the works off to each artist to complete the background in their own vibrant style. The result is a visual conversation — innocence meeting experience, individuality blending with shared creative DNA.
“Children have the ability to express unfiltered creativity that has yet to be tainted by the external world,” Cook tells PureHoney. “Look What I Made offers artists the opportunity to be appreciated for just being artists, and recognizes that their physical work is just a translation of their internal raw expressions.”
Cook’s eleven collaborators include CHNK Fondue, a fixture in Miami’s street art scene; South Florida artist and curator Kelcie McQuaid; and multimedia artist Sarah E. Huang Cook entrusted her own baby-faced self-portrait to her aunt, artist Cary Daly, to complete. Each returns to their beginnings with Cook as catalyst, underscoring the artistic passion that manifests in infancy even as the journey to nurture it is deeply individual.
Known for portraiture that challenges conventional beauty standards, Cook blends influences from historical painting to contemporary street art, often stepping into her own work through photography and makeup. Backed by a Broward County Artist Support Grant, Look What I Made extends that ethos: Viewers might see themselves reflected in the tension between origin and evolution. Cook says the exhibition is also about “planting a seed” — encouraging creative intersections among artists (often solitary figures) and gesturing toward what can grow next.
Liv Cook’s Look What I Made opens Saturday, September 6 with a free public reception, 6-8pm, and runs through October 4 at Gasper Arts Center in Dania Beach. @livcooked
EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL
by tim moffatt
Voyeurism could be considered a bug in the human condition since we’re all taught to mind our own business. Yet there is something poignant about the everyday doings of people who don’t know they’re being watched. It’s tempting to look and listen, and to wonder who are we when we aren’t trying to be anything other than ourselves?
Artist Laura Atria is gazing at voyeurism as part of “Everything Is Beautiful,” a free art and music event encompassing Atria’s paintings, a mixtape release party and live performance by South Florida musician tiny.blips, and real-time visual projection mapping by Gulf Coast artist The Nautilus Project. Broward County-based Atria tells PureHoney that her component of the September 20 event in Fort Lauderdale’s Thrive Art District began with an Instagram callout earlier this year: “I invited Broward County residents and visitors to take photos of their own life and voyeuristic encounters around town while hashtagging #LifeLately.”
Atria then painted her own renderings of some of the shutterbugs’ submissions to “capture the day-to-day beauty of life through their eyes,” she says. Her #LifeLately series of canvases will remain on display at Uncommon Path Brewing into January. “These paintings allow the viewer to engage actively in these secret relationships, but remain the watcher,” Atria says. “Displaying vulnerability through disconnection … I find myself close to the subjects, even sometimes closer than the people they are directly interacting with, creating background stories in my mind of how the person came to be where they are now.”
Atria and tiny.blips both had separate events in the works with supporting grants from Community Foundation of Broward. But the two decided throw in together, pairing her #LifeLately exhibition opening at Uncommon Path and his release party for juicy curveballs: beat tape at neighboring Connect Record Shop, and recruiting The Nautilus Project to connect the venues with live projections — all to create “a more engaging, immersive, festival feel” for their adjoining events, Atria says.
Everything is Beautiful takes place 7-11pm Saturday, September 20th at Thrive Art District in Fort Lauderdale. @laura_atria_art and tinyblips.bandcamp.
CARY DALY
by joy heller
“I’ve spent my entire adult life raising kids,” artist Cary Daly says. “Now my youngest just graduated, and I’m standing here like … okay, so who the hell am I now?”
That question is at the heart of PLEASE TOUCH, Daly’s debut solo exhibition, opening September 26 at ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale. Presented by ShangriLa Collective and curated by artist and ShangriLa founder Kelcie McQuaid, the show invites audiences to experience art that is funny, raw, and very much meant to be felt. “I’m not aiming for perfection,” Daly tells PureHoney. “I’m aiming for honesty. Relatable, slightly unhinged honesty.”
There are stitched paintings, tactile soft sculpture, an interactive quilt, and a beaded, embroidered piece that Daly playfully refers to as “Post-Fertility Goddess.” “She’s soft and a little over the top … kind of like me,” she says. “She should be too much, but somehow, she’s just right.” Complex woven textiles, beads, and sequins create highly detailed and nuanced textures that tell the story of Daly’s life. “I’ve spent years teaching art to people with disabilities,” she says. “So it’s always been important to me to create something inclusive, something sensory. I want people to touch the art. That’s kind of the whole point.”
Shortly after receiving a Broward County Artist Support Grant for the exhibit, Daly received a cancer diagnosis. She says working on PLEASE TOUCH helped her cope: “It sounds nuts, but stitching these pieces has kept me sane. I needed something to pour myself into. Something fun, even while life was throwing some serious curveballs.” Daly says her method isn’t to sketch things out or stick to plans. “I start with a loose idea, and then it’s all process. I layer colors, textures, whatever I need to work through whatever my brain is yelling about.” The result is a warm, weird, and very human exhibition about aging, visibility, softness, grit and the sensation of touch. “PLEASE TOUCH is kind of a love letter to middle-aged women who feel invisible,” Daly says. “We’re still here. We’re still complex. And dammit, we’re still worthy of love and attention.”
Cary Daly’s PLEASE TOUCH opens Friday, September 26 with a free public reception, 6-9pm, at ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale. instagram.com/daly.cary artserve.org
STEREOLAB
Stereolab, pioneers of dreamy indie blending ’60s pop, Krautrock, and jazz, return after a decade-long break for a rare South Florida show. Catch their hypnotic sound live at the Bandshell, presented by Rhythm Foundation and Poplife.
