Gifford Lane Art Stroll: Creativity and cucumber punch

March 9, 10:46 AMMiami Travel ExaminerGeorge Leposky

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The Gifford Lane Art Stroll happens on Sunday, March 15, 2009, transforming a quiet residential street in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood into an open-air at gallery and community get-together from noon to 5 PM.

It’s an informal, leisurely, low-key event – and it’s free, unlike the enormous Coconut Grove Arts Festival, which for several years has annoyed local residents by charging admission.

During the Art Stroll, more than 50 artists display their works along the 3200 block of Gifford Lane, a block north of McDonald Street (SW 32nd Avenue) between Shipping Avenue and Day Avenue.

Some of the artists have booths or canvas tents; others use tables or impromptu home-made shelters, or just hang their art work on fences, bushes, or lengths of rope strung between the trees that form a shady canopy above the street.  Several live along the street and turn their front and back yards – and even their living rooms – into display galleries.

Entertainment, food, and libations

Entertainment is provided by street dancing to a local band, Outta D Blues, and by the antics of a local juggling club, the Coconut Grove Juggling Exchange.

Some residents serve free or low-cost foods and beverages, including the ever-popular cucumber punch concocted for the occasion by Dave Collins, a Gifford Lane resident who heads the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District. Grilled shrimp and hamburgers are available, along with assorted dips, pastries, and other goodies.

Ten percent of the artists’ proceeds as well as donations from food sales are contributed to two local charities: the St. Alban's Child Enrichment Center in the West Grove and the St. Stephen's Episcopal Church AIDS Ministry. 

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