If you are not in awe of the talent evident in murals around Miami, it’s time to check for a pulse.  Take this Miami Heat mural, for example, by Serge Toussaint, one of the thousands left for us to devour around town.  Lucky enough to be captured by WALLYG.  And the theme is one we happen to love – GO HEAT!

….another Miamism !!

Make sure to check out the other murals wallyg photographed in the Wynwood/Midtown area.

** Share your MIAMISMS and we will feature them!! send them to us via email (info@miamism.com), Facebook, Twitter (@ines), or post them on Flickr in the Miamism Group **

Related Articles:

Miamism Fridays – Miami Heat Mural originally appeared on Miamism on January 20, 2012.

Related Articles:

Miami Heat Intro Video – bring it! originally appeared on Miamism on December 28, 2011.

Art Basel is upon us once again! Can you believe this will be the 10th year Miami “hosts” this event?  I don’t know if it gets bigger each year or if I just get more and more overwhelmed.  Where’s the best party? the craziest exhibit? what do I see, where do I go?? Official dates are from December 1st to the 4th, but the party has already begun.

What I love the most is all the controversy about Art Basel bringing culture to Miami – talk about a nice way to light a fire under some local art curators.  Some things to watch out for:

• Art Video will be presented in SoundScape Park on the large-scale outdoor projection wall of the New World Center

• Collins Park artwork exhibits and performances by renowned artists as well as emerging talents (collaboration of Art Basel with Bass Museum of Art)

• Art Basel Apps

Remember that there will be all kinds of events throughout Miami that are not officially part of Art Basel, but that offer quality exhibits as well.  Areas like Miami’s Design District, Midtown Miami and Wynwood are some to keep an eye on.  We welcome feedback, photos and videos of your experiences.  Get ready for Miami Art at its best!  Just take a deep breath and absorb as much as you can.

Related Articles:

Art Basel Miami Beach 2011 originally appeared on Miamism on November 29, 2011.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers, loyal followers and even those competitors that have an eye on us!!   We thought it would be appropriate to re-publish this article with the story about how we started to blog.  Blogging has become a crucial part of our business and the time and effort we dedicate is a direct reflection of our business practice.  The truth is that I can’t even imagine where we would be without our blog.

I want to share an amazing article by Joshua Brown, “The Reformed Broker”, from Backstage Wallstreet, entitled “How Do You Have So Much Time to Blog” … if you blog, this will make you smile.  If you don’t, you will begin to understand.  (Thanks @tcar for sharing it).

And lastly, thanks to Realtor.com for their recognition today, Realtors We Are Thankful For And What They Are Thankful For | REALTOR.com® Blog.

How we got into blogging

Lately, I have been asked how I got into blogging and I thought this was an answer that deserved a post.

It was Roy Llera, our family photographer that first mentioned blogging to me in April of 2006.  Roy has been doing our family portraits for years and also does our business shots.  He is local, he is good and it doesn’t hurt that he’s a great guy.

We had done some family shots at the beach and Roy suggested doing some photographs of “Rick & Ines” just in case we decided to use them, heck we were there already, might as well.  When I got the proofs I thought they looked a bit too romantic and not professional enough and asked Roy to do studio pictures as well.  Roy rolled his eyes and made the appointment.

When picking up those stiff studio pix Roy asked (probably not in these exact words but bear with me)

“In your marketing, don’t you want to portray yourselves in those pictures?  Don’t you want people to know what you are about?  Why would it bother you if the picture portrayed you as being happy and in love?”

That was like a big rock had dropped on our heads from above.

Then he asked if we had heard of “blogging” – I said “WHAT??….how do you spell it?”

He explained briefly that blogging was like a daily journal where we could write about our daily business and our involvement in the community, show pictures of Rick coaching little league, The local Heidi Hewes Chapter events, a family moving into their new Miami Shores home.  Where we could be down to earth and show our real human side to our customers.

That’s all it took folks.   I went home and started doing some research…..started putting thoughts on paper, I mean blog…..and less than a year later MIAMISM.com was born.

I am so grateful to Roy Llera for the idea and for giving me that push to change our marketing and our boring static website.  So go check out Roy Llera’s website and blog,  they are fantastic and he is THE BOMB!

Roy Llera’s studio is located at 11510 NE 2nd Avenue  in Miami and his telephone number is (305) 759-2600

**original article published on July 25th, 2007**

Related Articles:

Miamism Blog – Thanks Roy Llera originally appeared on Miamism on November 23, 2011.

“GIVE A WALL ST. BANKER ENOUGH ROPE AND HE WILL HANG HIMSELF”

New Wynwood Mural by artist “Above” can now be seen from I-95.  We’re talking a 255-ft. wide mural, stretching a whole city block, on NW 6th Avenue between 23rd and 24th streets in the Wynwood Arts District.  What impressed me more was my teenage son actually noticing it coming back from school one day and having real, intelligent conversation about the meaning of the installation.

….another Miamism !!

About Above:

known for his multi-layered and colorful social and political stencils, Above most often uses word play, arrow mobiles and installations to create tangible parodies of his message.  To date, he has created artwork in the streets of 90 cities in 50 countries worldwide.  The revival of public art over the past 20 years has found an incubator in Miami with Primary Flight, which since 2007 has produced a thoughtful, new brand of outdoor works transcending genres and labels.  The collective’s artistic and curatorial focus is mainly on the attitude and intellect commonly associated with defiance.

About Primary Flight:

Primary Flight is a collaborative curatorial organization dedicated to the production of site-specific, street level and indoor, murals and installations. Since its inception in 2007, Primary Flight has brought together more than 150 of the world’s most influential artists to install their bodies of work live in the streets of Wynwood, the Design District and greater Miami-Dade. Launching Primary Projects at 4141 NE Second Avenue, Suite 104 in December 2010, Primary Flight uses its 4,000-square-foot space as an art lab, giving professional, established and emerging artists the opportunity to redefine the context in which their work is experienced

GIVE A WALL STREET BANKER… from ABOVE on Vimeo.

More Photos – courtesy of goabove.com

Related Articles:

Miamism Fridays – Art Basel vs Wall Street originally appeared on Miamism on November 3, 2011.

We need to share the music of our good friends from the band Palo!  They play Afro-Cuban Funk, the type of music that makes you want to get up and dance.  The keyboard player and producer, Steve Roitstein, aka @gopalo on Twitter, brought me chicken soup to my house one day that I was sick in bed with the flu. I was a fan on the spot!!

Go to their website and check them out – you can even see where they are playing next! GoPalo.com

**thanks to @alexdc for the heads up on the vid**

NEW INTERVIEW!! And for those asking about the actual band and its members – check out this interview.

Related Articles:

Miami Music Video – Palo originally appeared on Miamism on October 23, 2011.

The Miami Country Day Walk for Cancer is tomorrow, Saturday, October 22, 2011.  Bring the whole family and enjoy the beautiful day, especially since it stopped raining.  Miami Country Day’s Walk for Cancer has become a neighborhood event that residents look forward to each year.

I will be there at 7:00 AM with my friends from The Heidi Hewes Chapter of the Woman’s Cancer Association and hope to see you.  Registration starts at 8:00 AM, so bring your check book!

Together we can beat cancer!!

Here are some photos from today’s event – check out the album in the Heidi Hewes WCA Facebook Page << and make sure to “like” the page and check in often! CONGRATULATIONS to everyone for another successful fundraiser!

Related Articles:

Miami Country Day Walk for Cancer – October 22, 2011 originally appeared on Miamism on October 21, 2011.

Just when I thought that there was nothing new The New World Symphony could offer, to someone that’s un-classical-music-inclined like me, they totally blow it out of the park.  The season kickoff was this past Saturday and was complemented with a simultaneous Wallcast in the park (SoundScape).  It was a bit wet outside and I decided to experience the night inside the concert hall, but it didn’t keep people from listening to the concert outside.

They say to expect the unexpected, but I really didn’t know what I was in for.  After the NWS played the first Bedric Smetana piece (Overture to The Bartered Bride), they moved Michael Tilson Thomas’ (MTT) platform out of the way and brought out a big concert piano to the middle of the stage.  I knew that a Spanish Pianist had been invited, but what followed was something my words will undoubtedly sell short.  Javier Perianes, the pianist, came out and then the whole NWS accompanied by MTT – the piece was Schumann’s Concerto in A minor.  The concert hall went dead silent when Javier sat down in front of the piano, and as soon as his hands hit the keys, tears started flowing from my eyes.  Rick turned around and looked at me like I was crazy and personally, I have no idea what came over me.  All I can tell you is that the feeling this brilliant man puts into music is powerful beyond words.

Memories of my grandfather playing Schumann when I was only 4 years old filled my whole being.  Javier played the piano with his eyes closed and you could tell that the piano was only a tool to convey his love and passion for music.  If you’ve ever heard this piece, you know it’s a long one and he played it all by heart and with heart.

Recently, when asked for final advice for the public by artist and classical music critic, Sebastian Spreng, Javier said:

To enjoy, and to fall in love with music, the rational sense of life, to enrich their culture and to be, above all things: curious.  And when they go to a concert, to open their hearts, for it not to go so much through their head.  You see, I’m passionate about music because it’s not a profession, it’s a way of living, a way of understanding life.

It is truly rare to meet an individual that is so passionate about something, so brilliant about an art, and at the same time so humble.  They say that humility is the real path to our hearts, and Javier Perianes is the epitome of just that.  If you have a chance of hearing him play, please do, you will not regret it, and you will never forget it.  [and it doesn't hurt that he said I was prettier than my sister, pictured above]

So what’s the moral of this story?  For me it is not about the music, it’s about the experience – from the first time I caressed the wood finish at Frank Gehry’s New world Center, to the time I danced to Sergio Carreno’s percussions, even learning more about Matt Roitstein’s flute, and now tears from Javier Periane’s soft key strokes.  There are a lot of people responsible for The New World Symphony, including gracious donors, friends of the symphony and the back brains of it all…. all carefully orchestrated for the love of music and how it reminds you that we are alive.  So grab some tickets or go to a WALLCAST, we are lucky to have The New World Symphony in our back yard.

Related Articles:

New World Symphony Kicks off their new Season originally appeared on Miamism on October 17, 2011.

Many of you know that we are involved in a few charitable organizations. Our belief is pretty simple, you need to give in order to receive. Mothers Fighting For Others is one of those causes dear to our heart and one of the reasons is that it’s a small grassroots organization. It’s moms like you and me (or your wife or sister or neighbor), who decided that they could give beyond their family and have been able to break every day boundaries to help children elsewhere.

Please note that this is not a huge national organization with all kinds of overhead where you give $8.99 per month to provide food and clothing to a needy child.  MFFO is helping an orphanage of girls in Kenya and these moms take trips to visit the girls and make sure they are taken care of.  Imagine this, leaving your family for 3-4 weeks at a time to help these needy children.  **side note:  please read GIFT OF EDUCATION goals **

We sponsor one little girl by the name of Lillian at St. Monica’s and couldn’t be any happier that we received a video this week.  Love seeing how shy she is and also love to see how much she has grown.

Of course I would love for you to get involved in MFFO.org, but the reality is that we would just be happy if everyone reached out and gave in their own way.  Just last week, we attended a Social Media Club of South Florida meet-up where the speaker, Rohit Bhargava shared this video from GirlEffect.org – its powerful message touched our hearts and made us realize how important our involvement is.  Take a look and start thinking about how you can help change the world.

Related Articles:

A Video from Mothers Fighting For Others originally appeared on Miamism on August 20, 2011.

If you have not visited SketchyMiami.com, leave this page right now and go take a look, go on….I’ll wait.

The creators are Jordan Melnick and Robby Campbell, who also run the sister site BeachedMiami.com, which happens to be the go-to-blog for everything about Miami Culture and Arts.  Instead of trying to explain what the Sketchy Miami project is all about, we decided to interview Jordan and Robby and hear it directly from them.

So the whole point is that the relationship of artist/portraitist and regular people/subjects is not easy to attain.  This is because we may not have easy access to artists, may not know where to start or may simply be afraid to begin the process.  The Sketchy Miami project not only is exposing us to local artists, but it’s expanding that artist-subject relationship using new media where face to face interaction may no longer be necessary.  The thought of our on-line world being a facilitator to a growing and evolving artist relationship is beyond fascinating and very exciting.  In my opinion, Jordan and Robby have opened the door to a new world of cultural exposure with something as easy as a portrait, that immortalizes a human kind.  KUDOS to Beached Miami for thinking outside the box!

Sketchy Miami Party #2

There’s a Sketchy Party this coming Friday, August 12th, 2011 from 7:00-11:00 PM

at:

Bakehouse Art Complex
561 NW 32nd Street
Miami, FL
Facebook Event Page

*thanks to Panther Coffee in Wynwood for letting us do the interview there!**

UPDATE:

Not only did I submit my photo for a sketchy, but I did a sketchy of “Sex and TheBeach” Maria de Los Angeles (@vicequeenmaria)

Original Photo of Maria de Los Angeles

Maria de Los Angeles Sketchy by Ines

Related Articles:

Miamism F2F with Sketchy Miami’s creators originally appeared on Miamism on August 8, 2011.