Florida Maritime Museum Butterfly Garden

Original Butterfly Garden

What we now call Cortez Creek was an idea of an ex-student of mine wo became the manager of the Florida Maritime Museum in Cortez Florida. Kristin Sweeting contacted me about creating an ADA compliant  mosaic pavement in the grounds butterfly garden, where only a shell path existed before.  With over 200 square feet of ground to cover we knew it would need to be a community mosaic project so Kristin put a mosaic class together where we would teach the basic skills and offer the graduates the opportunity to participate in a community project. By October of 2019 Kristin had procured the necessary funding and the class was underway in the Barton House.

The plan was to cover the new concrete pavement with a series of numbered waves drawn on the ground and to trace each wave onto a piece of mesh. The volunteers could then take the mesh and a bunch of tiles home and make the wave at their leisure. Our intention was to create a creek between the museum wall and the garden gate. With the concrete set and the Rip Rap rock perimeter installed we began setting the interlocking waves. Each one bearing the signature style and colors of the artist.

Shortly before our final goal of reaching the garden entrance we were hit with Covid 19 and all activity came to a standstill. In the final month of 2020 I was able to complete the last segments alone and was helped by Suzy Venters and Tom Ney with the grouting.

When the dark clouds of the pandemic finally lift, it is my hope that everyone who participated in this project in any way at all can come together to celebrate this amazing achievement. I hope the pictures here do justice to all of the effort and long nights of nipping tile that it took to make this extraordinary artwork. It was not a project any artist would dare take on alone. It is a collective art work that will be enjoyed for many many years to come by so many people.

Cortez Creek