dready art ‘giorgos’ dream’ – 39×16 – original commission on canvas

when were in college south beach was still all retirees and biker bars, Fisher Island hadn’t been redeveloped, there was little or nothing south of Joe’s Stone crab and it was all a little seedy …

we used to go down the bottom end of the beach to south pointe; it was a very quiet bit of beach, all the residential stuff was a couple blocks further north, the old dog track where south pointe park now is had long since closed and so nobody was down there and it was a not very legally nude and topless beach …

even the lifeguard stand was empty …

you can still see a bit of the old vibe of the beach in the movie ‘scarface’ (1983) … and then with Miami Vice heating up TV screens by the end of the 80’s the strip was turning into something very very cool … european style coffee and a copy of the international herald tribune at the news cafe, man … the Marlin hotel in the early 90’s when Chris Blackwell owned it, yes baby …

the vibe began to change, of course, as more and more people discovered it, still cool mind you; Madonna roller blading by and saying hi as you parked the car … ‘man, that was madonna just said hi to you’ ‘never was’ ‘yeah’ ‘wow … where’d she go?’

but it was getting crowded and so, it was back to the quiet cool of coconut grove, which we’d never really left, for us … even Madonna retreated to her home in coconut grove.

so when a family asked me to do a dready of their young son with a miami vibe, and his mini mini! all these things came to mind and I could just imagine giorgos imagining himself rolling down south beach, top down in his cooper s …

cool-ness …