There’s one spot where you can see it all.
Tony Albelo stood on the corner of a road that curves just right to see the entirety of the Coconut Grove Arts Festival stretch from east to north and the thousands of people making their way through artists’ tents. It was 2022, the festival’s return after it took a hiatus during the height of Covid-19.
“The streets were jam packed with people, and there was just this feeling in the air,” said Albelo, the CEO of EngageLive!, the company that produces the festival. “We actually came through and kept the festival going and made it as good as it’s ever been.”
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In the young, growing and rather inconsistent city of Miami, few institutions make it past adolescence. This Presidents’ Day Weekend, the Coconut Grove Arts Festival reaches seniority as it celebrates its 60th anniversary with hundreds of artists selling their work.
The festival seems to have cracked the code on longevity in the 305. What started as a one-off publicity stunt turned into a beloved cultural institution. Its been able to experiment and reinvent itself. It has come back from a pandemic hiatus with a vengeance, with total audience numbers growing from 30,000 before the pandemic to 80,000. And its reputation as one of the top art fairs in the country remains impeccable.
But maybe the key to long term success isn’t the weather, the waterfront location, the food, the live music or even the 80-foot diameter high-tech dome. It’s the art: The paintings, sculptures, woodwork, ceramics, posters, prints, glass and textiles that line the streets. The festival’s reputation grew exponentially over the years, as artists from around the country submit applications to participate in the show. It’s been a launchpad for several careers, from nature photographer Clyde Butcher to pop artist Romero Britto.
“If there was a Mount Rushmore of festivals and events in Miami, the Coconut Grove Arts Festival is definitely up there,” Albelo said. “It’s a staple of Miami. It’s a cornerstone of the event scene. And it’s true to its mission of being a world class art show.”
The Stunt
The story begins with a man by the name of Charlie Cinnamon.
Cinnamon, who died in 2016 at age 94, was a pillar in South Florida’s arts community who preferred to call himself a “press agent,” not a publicist.
In 1963, inspiration struck when he was promoting a production of the French musical “Irma La Douce” at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. “In those days, it was tough to get people to cross the causeway or from wherever to come to the Grove Playhouse,” Cinnamon told the Herald for a 2013 story on the festival’s 50th anniversary. “As a press agent looking for some sort of gimmick, since the show was set in Paris, let’s do a Left Bank Art Show. We booked the whole weekend around it when it really was an arts colony here.”
In order to get more eyes on the Playhouse, Cinnamon turned the surrounding streets into a Parisian-inspired “clothesline art show” complete with a French poodle show outside the theater’s front door.
Here’s the funny part. “People started to come,” Cinnamon told the Herald, chuckling. “We never figured out if they bought any tickets [to the musical.]”
The festival proved to be a bigger hit than the musical. It returned the following year -- and following decades -- as the Coconut Grove Arts Festival.
This year marks another milestone for the festival. Its president Monty Trainer, the business owner and local legend known as the “Grove Father,” is stepping down from the role after 15 years.
Trainer has been involved in the festival since the early ‘70s when he was asked to be a sponsor. He appreciated the “labor of love” artists put into the festival and watched as they’d unload their work from vans to set up and packed everything back in after the weekend. He was asked to join the board and later became chairman and president.
Running an arts festival in Miami always has its ups and downs, Trainer said. Like the time the festival dealt with a power outage. Or the other time a hurricane pushed boats onto the dock. Or the many times it has rained. But there’s also the fulfilling moments. Trainer said he enjoys seeing the festival award scholarships to local public magnet arts high school students each year.
His favorite thing to do is hop on a little golf cart and zip around the festival, greeting visitors and meeting artists.
“Art is the number one thing,” he said. “We’re an art community, and that’s what we focus on first.”
The revamp
Keeping a decades-old institution fresh is a challenge, Albelo said.
Before the pandemic, Albelo said, attendance had dipped and there was talk that “people were used to the way that it was.” The board, which still focuses on selecting the artists, hired EngageLive! to handle everything else; the festival’s logistics, marketing, ticketing and permitting. It’s like a “division between church and state,” he said.
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“One of the goals that we set out was to freshen up the festival,” Albelo said. “Realign it with it’s core value that it’s an art festival first, but that it is a festival and it has a big social component.”
The festival focused on attracting younger families and new South Florida transplants. There are The Stacks, a pyramid of containers for muralists to paint during the festival. Over 100 artists donated their works to the Young Collectors Club, where children can browse on their own and buy their first piece of art for just $5.
For the first time this year are Flavors of The Grove, a signature dish contest for local restaurants, and the Art & Drafts Beer Garden, where guests can sip craft beer while artists create new work. And then there’s a giant white dome that offers an immersive, 360 art exhibition inside.
The artists
The pride of the Coconut Grove Arts Festival is still the artists.
“These are artists you’re not going to see anywhere else. I’m not exaggerating when I say these are some of the best,” said executive director Camille Marchese. “I had artists calling me when our list was released saying, ‘Damn, you’ve got a good lineup.’”
The festival uses an anonymous jury process to score artists’ submissions based on skill, creativity and originality and select who will participate. In the past, the festival received about 500 applications for about 240 spots. This year, jurors had to sift through 1,100.
“It’s just a good show, artists make money here and that’s why it’s attractive,” Marchese said. “The artists in our show now are as good as any artists you’re gonna find in Basel.”
The festival’s 60-year run is a testament to the power of centering artists, Marchese said. Above all, she credits the festival’s board, volunteers and founders for creating something the community loves. She still gets phone calls from longtime festival goers asking how to buy tickets. She recently got an email from a guy who sent her a photo of a poster from the 1983 festival asking for more information about the artist.
“It’s just part of people’s year. It’s part of the community,” she said. “I run into people all the time that feel like this is their festival because this is their town.”
Artist Annie Bisone felt that energy when she showed her work at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival for the first time last year. She’s one of 45 returning artists who were invited back after receiving awards from the festival last year.
“The thing that I remember most is how engaged the audience was with my work and also excited to see something new,” Bisone said. “It felt fresh to have new eyes and conversations. It seemed like a mutual sparkle situation.”
Bisone, a Milwaukee-based fiber artist who runs Lalo Workshop, makes zero-waste, one-of-a-kind sustainable clothing made from leftover fabric scraps that otherwise would’ve been thrown away. She was happy to see that the Coconut Grove audience was so receptive to her work and her passion for slow fashion.
Before applying to the festival, she had asked fellow artists for advice on where she should go. “Coconut Grove always came up as number one,” she said. As an artist, she said she is heartened to see such a supportive event celebrate 60 years.
“It’s about the community. It’s about the collective,” she said. “It’s about like deciding that this is important, that this is necessary, that we need this in our lives. It’s life enriching. And yeah, without art, life is pretty boring.”
Coconut Grove Arts Festival 2024
When: Feb. 17 - 19
Where: 2700 S. Bayshore Drive, Miami. (Festival runs along streets of McFarlane Road, South Bayshore Drive and Pan American Drive.)
Info: $25 for general admission. Tickets available online.
This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
