by Monica McGivern
While Art Basel and the surrounding Miami Art Week tout ever more exclusivity, with attendance fees and corporate backing and in-crowd pedigree, local muralist Brian Butler just wants people to enjoy being creative.
The longtime Miamian was feeling a little put off a couple of years ago by Basel World’s direction. “Historically, artist pals would visit and we’d find walls around Wynwood to paint during Art Week,” Butler tells PureHoney. “Today, the mural painting feels less casual, and a majority of those old walls are completely gone.”
Butler’s solution: Redirect efforts from walls to towels — a medium South Floridians can appreciate — and don’t charge for admission. Thus the Beach Towel Art Show was born, growing from a sandy shoreline display in Miami Beach to include a shell mutant workshop, a message-in-a-frisbee event with Dale Zine bookstore, and, because it is Art Week, a “Beach Towel Red Carpet.”
The criteria are straightforward: Hand-paint, sew, quilt, collage, online-print or do something else to create your beach towel masterpiece. “There are no parameters enforced,” Butler says. “Some have cool shapes. Most are functionally devoid of a towel’s drying quality, but that’s what makes it weird and fun.”
Past highlights include a towel made of coozies, beverages included; a crime scene towel with chalk outline, evidence markers, an incident report and yellow police tape; and a set of mannequin legs sticking out of the sand, surrounded by a terrycloth towel resembling rippling water.
The show has even made its way up the seaboard to the Cape Cod Oldtimers Longboard Classic surf competition in Massachusetts. The towel fare might differ there — one was crafted entirely out of lobster bibs — but the spirit remains the same. “I think the desire to be creative is everywhere,” Butler says.
Butler acknowledges that art is very much in the air during Basel festivities in a way that can inspire almost anybody. He just gives that impulse an outlet. “Beach Towel Art Show is like the little brother to the fairs,” Butler says. “We’re off to the side, enjoying the sand.”
The Beach Towel Art Show runs 2pm-5pm Saturday, Dec. 5 at Ninth Street Beach in Miami Beach. instagram.com/beachtowelartshow ~ Olivia Feldman
