Loved that December Full Moon in Miami ...

Wow. Can you feel that strong full moon? Prevented me from sleeping last night. Along with the strong solar activity its giving us quite a cosmically charged energetic New Year.. at least for the sensitives like me. Happy New Year! :-)

Last full moon I was visiting a different country. Miami. I was on Miami Beach with a crowd of people taking in the full moon shining on an incredible work of art – listening as artist ES Devlin talked about her unique inspiring installation on the beach Library of Us.

I didn’t quite know what to expect going to the Art Basel Miami Art Week in early December for 5 days but I didn’t expect I’d fall in love with it. It’s one thing to go to an art show in a gallery in New York, like I was fortunate to do twice in September for two gallery shows that included my paintings. It’s quite another thing experiencing 15 different large art shows centered in one vibrant city over 5 days. My paintings Freedom, Rainbow Jaguar and Sacred Apu were in the Red Dot Miami show and I thought I should go see what it’s all about.

My seat mate on the plane down, a woman, Portland interior designer who’d been going annually for the past 7 years told me to expect very bad traffic and high heels on the beach.

A year and a half ago I wrote on my substack that

The Neolithic Goddesses are Calling us back to the Land. Are we Listening, my little essay asked…

The Art Basel Miami Beach experience gave me hope. We are listening. It might not be what some people want or expect but the experience of this global art scene rocked. Every day was something that blew my mind, opened my eyes and made me want more.

What do you get when you bring together 14 satellite art fairs surrounding one of the biggest art extravaganzas of the year? The Art Basel Miami Beach where a global audience of 80,000 people descend on the city, the billionaires show up in their $450 million yachts parked in Biscayne Bay, to traverse the clogged Collins Avenue along with the 20-somethings in their knee high fur lined boots and maxi dresses, South American women walking through the sand in high heel stilettos and kitten heels, Asian women decked out in red leather full one piece jumpsuits, white stuffed animal perched across the shoulder and red 6 inch platform boots. What is it with the stuffed animals carried on the shoulders? I saw it also in the Miami Airport.

I should have at least brought my zebra print denim jacket and sequin studded jeans. At least I had my black-jaguar/tropical birds jungle scene French L’Agence shirt to wear on the final night. I didn’t have a small dog in a baby carriage or a live parrot to take as a tag along to the art shows like some people. I didn’t have a curious, relaxed cat perched on my shoulder as I rode happily along the boardwalk on my bicycle like some people.

Miami felt like a different country. It helped that the hotel supported me with a stunning room location, cute verandah where the serenity of five sunrises could be happily drunk in and watched with the water taxis coming and going, boats, birds and bright Full Moon beaming her light all over Biscayne Bay.

The Goddess HAS returned. She was all over these 15 art shows if you knew how to see her. It gave me hope. We’re not going back to the 16^th century or the Middle Ages like some people want. People, We Have Moved On.

The 22 inch high hippo headed Venus sculpture was a complete delight. The oil painting Venus of Willendorf. The pink hued Lisa Yuskavage Peacock in the Garrett was what I wanted to see. And most of all, David Zwirner anchored their show with the Jeff Koons Red Balloon Venus. A giant 6 foot tall Venus of Willendorf shaped from red glass balloons. I went to the Art Basel show just to see it and the Yuskavage painting. I purposely avoided the 4 legged canine robots with humanoid heads of famous people like Bezos and Musk that made the headlines. No thanks. There was better art to see. Like Kevork Mourad’s Memory Gates.

Like Jamaican sculptor Laura Facey who I, star struck got to meet for the first time. I asked if we could take a picture together and she said let’s snuggle in here as she held us embraced by her amazing sculpture Abeng. I’m an emerging artist I told her. I’m emerging too she said to me. Surprisingly to me, this being the first time she’d had works shown at Art Basel Miami in the Design Show.

Thank you Artavita / World Wide Art for including me in your delightful Booth 110 with great artists at the Red Dot Show. Looking forward to Artexpo New York April 9-12, 2026.

I didn’t even mind when Alaska Airlines bumped me from the oversold flight Sunday putting me up at an airport hotel with a $500 credit towards future flight. It gave me one more night in that foreign country (note to self: always pack a bathing suit in your carryon, just in case…), one more morning to sit by the pool, watch the planes landing and see a plumpish green iguana scurrying down to the blue lagoon.

p.s. see more Miami pictures on my Instagram @kstanleyart and read a very recent conversation with me about my art over at the Contemporary Art Collectors site.