Wake up dreaming and happily stumble into another gorgeous day. Shock white sand set against shimmering multihued blue water and a true blue dream of a sky. Can we fly?
Highway 98 runs from the Redneck Riviera of Panama City Beach through the notably fancier Destin and then beyond to Pensacola, along the Florida Panhandle. Just off 98 in the area between P.C. and Destin, Scenic Highway 30-A transcends the rest of the Sunshine State in Southern serenity.
Here, Santa Rosa boasts the Artists at Gulf Place: eight local artists in one fabulous location, each with a mini-gallery of their own. Grayton Beach has a post-hippie, beachcomber vibe that has been up-marketed while remaining artsy and mostly mellow. Blue Mountain Beach, Seagrove Beach and Seacrest Beach are all home to local artists clearly influenced by the vibrant tropical color and historically laidback lifestyle of the Gulf of Mexico.
The largest spectacle along 30-A, Seaside is where the Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show was filmed as emblem of prefab bubble life. The galleries there often cater to that immaculate perfection conception. While viewing the sunset from a rooftop bar is the biggest show of contrasting color in town, tourists do buy fine art in Seaside.
Founded in 1995 and to the farthest east on 30-A, Rosemary Beach is the vision of aesthete city planners and acclaimed architects-as-artists. Amidst Rosemary’s densely packed urban pan-Caribbean housing, several smart art spaces thrive.
Sarah Elizabeth’s solo show at Amavida, entitled “Subliminal,” uses mixed media and vivid color to suggest a blessed state of being and the power of our thoughts to create beauty. In a gallery of her name across the square, Allison Wickey uses Venetian plaster on wood to display layers of lightly colored vision. My favorite piece of hers was a blue bird of free flight. The Hidden Lantern Gallery is attached to, yet separated from The Hidden Gallery Bookstore – both brand new cultural favorites in Rosemary. A pointillism show dotted the eyes of my wife and I, after I had discussed travel writing, transcendental meditation and the merits of classic literature with the friendly bookstore proprietor. Life is an art in Rosemary Beach.
Travel to 30-A refreshes, and we vow to return annually to this lost highway found, where a valid oceanic art community cloisters next to the finely sun-baked seashore.
