Art Smarts
On Holmes Beach and Anna Maria Island, the soft white sand and rows of Australian pines have lured painters, sculptors and photographers for years and left a string of galleries dotting the beach.The area's most vibrant artists' community, however, is the Village of the Arts in Bradenton. Local artists have restored many of the 1920s and 1930s bungalows, creating a culturally rich neighborhood studded with studios in which artists and artisans of all disciplines live, work and sell their wares.
I pick up a "Texas-sized" muffin for $1.50 from Bonni Bakes Edible Art before joining one of the popular ArtWalks (held the first Friday evening and the first Saturday morning each month). Strolling from one gallery to the next, I pause occasionally to chat with the artists, who are more than happy to talk about what inspires them. The best part? I find some great deals on original artwork at a sidewalk sale.
Nearby, there are more deals to be had where brick sidewalks and 1920s lampposts delineate an up-and-coming antiques district. Three antiques shops -- Retro Rosie, Braden River Antiques and Cobweb's -- offer more than enough to keep me busy for a couple of hours.
Artifacts: Back to the Roots
The South Florida Museum, also in downtown Bradenton, focuses on arts of another kind. Here, exhibits span Florida's natural and cultural history from the Pleistocene epoch to the present through displays of fossils, artifacts and life-sized dioramas.I arrive just in time for a manatee presentation with Snooty, a nine-foot, 63-year-old sea cow who knows how to delight a crowd just by gliding around the pool. Next to the aquarium is a beautiful Spanish plaza with full-scale replications of a 16th-century Spanish home, chapel and Hernando deSoto's birthplace.
Wandering around the other galleries, I nearly give myself a heart attack by stumbling onto the 19-foot-tall mastodon skeleton, a cast of the largest mastodon ever discovered in North America. I stop in the museum's Bishop Planetarium, a state-of-the-art, all-digital theater, where I watch a sound and light show that takes me to the skies.
Of course, museums aren't the only places to find artifacts. At Emerson Point Preserve, whispers and shadows of a 1,200-year-old Native American village hide amid 195 acres of mangrove swamps and salt marshes. I pass a cistern and the remains of a chimney from a 19th-century plantation settlement on my way to the Portavent Temple Mound. On top of the Indian mound, it's hard not to feel insignificant next to the massive oaks that are testaments to a wilderness that has seen thousands of years pass by.
Architecture: Preserving the Past
Established in the 1880s, historic Cortez is a thriving fishing community across the bay from Bradenton Beach. The docks bustle with fishermen -- professional and amateur anglers alike -- bringing in the day's catch. I pick up a walking tour map from the Cortez Village Historical Society and check out the rustic bungalows and fish houses -- all fine examples of Florida vernacular architecture and reasons why the village was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places.Other architectural gems in the Bradenton area include The Powel Crosley Estate, a Mediterranean mansion built by industrialist/inventor Powel Crosley. A few miles east of downtown Bradenton lies the Manatee Village Historical Park, a collection of historically important buildings that date back to the county's founding in 1855. Across the Manatee River, Gamble Plantation Historic State Park stands as the last remaining antebellum mansion in South Florida.
Before leaving Cortez, I make one last stop at the Sea Hagg, a hodge-podge of truly unusual antiques and quirky gifts. Determined to bring home a timeless treasure for myself, I waver between a spooky old-fashioned dive helmet and one of the brightly colored Japanese glass floats that hang from the ceiling. With so many treasures to choose from, it's no wonder Hernando deSoto once mistook the Bradenton area for El Dorado, the Golden City.
