Pepper's Magical Art Walk
Today on my afternoon wanderings I landed at an art walk right down the street from my home in “The Hammock”, a sleepy, old-school, Florida beach town.
The event, located on the grounds behind JT’s Seafood Shack had a distinct hippie vibe that could easily could have existed in1968 as much as it does today.
The organizer Pepper Pyle, a 30-something powerhouse, with her hair stacked wildly on the top of her head, walked around booth to booth, engaging with each of the artists, while reggae tunes filled the air.
Jacksonville artist Karen Moore with event organizer Pepper Pyle
I walked around the grounds with a tingle of excitement in my belly. So much art! So much love!
At the DJ’s booth, my friend (and birthday boy) Kasey “Da Creative” with LoveLight Productions chose the music while his wife Sunshine sold her wares, their seven (yes, seven) children running about, helping Pepper with odd jobs, chatting it up with the local artists.
Kasey DaCreative, Sunshine, and "the band"
At a booth surrounded by beautiful ceramics sat Chloe (@cwk.pottery), a 16-year-old ceramicist in a flowery sundress. Chloe told me she just finished her sophomore year of high school in St. Augustine, Florida, and has recently been admitted to Douglas Anderson, a magnet art school in Jacksonville. She explained after taking a ceramics class for fun a few years back, she became hooked and got her first wheel. She hasn’t stopped since. “It’s her therapy,” Chloe’s proud mother Kara explained. Both Kara and Chloe believe this move to an art school will be a good one.
Then there was Randy Casimir who sat in the 90-degree heat amongst his wooden wonders - surfboards comprised of intricate inlaid wood sourced from a variety of hard and softwood trees. Randy said growing up, his grandparents lived on the gulf coast of Texas. As a kid, he couldn’t afford a foam surfboard so he and his friends taught themselves to build their own boards (and boats!) out of wood. Many years later he is a master wood crafter, creating masterpieces that are as much at home as art on his customer’s walls as that are on the waves.
As I spoke with all the artists I saw a theme. Their work was sourced from a place of joy, a labor of love - creation for creation's sake. Yes, to make money, but also to help them channel their own energies, to discover themselves through their passions.
Pepper’s magical art walk was a space of Everyday Mystics, a group of happy creative people who were able to transform the visions of their minds into something tangible that they can share with the world.
About the Author -
Becky Magnolia is the author of 14 books, an intuitive card reader, and researcher, who is obsessed with understanding the ways that everyday people connect with their inner power and in doing so help to heal the world.
To learn more about Becky's counseling and therapeutic card reading services click here.