A Note about Bonita Springs’ Art in Public Places Program The Secret Bench of Knowledge

Anthology of Articles about Leoma Lovegrove

ON THIS PAGE YOU WILL FIND AN ANTHOLOGY OF ARTICLES ABOUT MATLACHA ARTIST LEOMA LOVEGROVE. Leoma Lovegrove is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her splashy, artistic depictions of the Florida lifestyle. In addition to a degree in illustration from the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, Lovegrove has also studied at the Guild de Beaux Arts, ArtStudy Giverny and ArtStudy Florida. When she is not painting in her studio at Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens on picturesque Matlacha Island, creating colorful fashions for Bealls Department Store or promoting southwest Florida for the Visitors and Convention Bureau, she loves to recharge her artistic batteries touring and painting in Europe with her author husband, Michael J. Silberg. To learn more, please visit http://www.LeomaLovegrove.com.

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Lovegrove Gallery fills Indie Author Day gap in Southwest Florida (10-27-17)

Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens’ was again this year the only venue in Southwest Florida that took part in Indie Author Day. It’s an event that is designed to let aspiring writers know there’s a path to publication that does not necessarily entail finding a literary agent and getting a big name publisher. And it gave readers a chance to find out about books and authors they might have otherwise have never known about or had an opportunity to meet.

“Publishing your own work is more viable today than ever before,” notes Independent Book Publishers Association CEO Angela Bole. “Indie Author Day provides a chance to discuss publishing options, learn best practices and celebrate successes with a tribe of forward thinking writers, publishers and librarians.”

With a growing list of partners (including the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Publishers Weekly’s BookLife, Library Journal’s SELF-e, Pressbooks Public, RAILS, and BiblioLabs), authors participating in Indie Author Day gain support from all walks of the book publishing industry.

“Over the past four years, we’ve seen this movement grow and evolve, and Indie Author Day is the first instance of bringing this whole community together on one day to raise awareness of self-published books and demonstrate its place as a vibrant part of the publishing ecosystem,” adds David Greenough, General Manager & Group Publisher of Library Journal.

On a national level, Indie Author Day actually targets local libraries. Unfortunately, no Lee or Collier county libraries participated in the event in either 2016 or 2017. But there’s hope that one or more will step to the plate in 2018.

“In the meantime, I’m more than happy to fill the void,” says Lovegrove, who hosted the event at her Matlacha Island art gallery for the second consecutive year and proclaims that the event was yet another resounding success.

Patrons who came to Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens on October 14 or simply dropped into the gallery and found Indie Author Day in progress sipped Chardonnay, sampled “brain food” and got to mingle with half a dozen local independent authors and illustrators about their books, their inspiration and the publishing process. Among those on hand for Indie Author Day 2017 were Fran Thomas, Carol Ervin, Mike Silberg, Scott P. Smith, Jennifer Smith, Jim Usavage and Rick Weber. Although children’s author, Betty Freberg, couldn’t make it from Texas, her illustrator, Leoma Lovegrove, represented her and their book, Frebie Dog Tales (The New Mailman, The Dog Catcher and the Judge), which was inspired by a true tale. When Frebie’s owner of 13 years, Doug, moved to Washington D.C., he asked his widowed mom to let Frebie move in with her. Neither Frebie nor Mimi could imagine the adventures they were about to share.

Fran Thomas hails from St. James City. She writes romantic comedy with a local twist. Among her self-published books are The Lady is a Mayor, Southern Hospitality and Island Dreams. Each is a romantic comedy that takes place in a fictional town by the name of Calusa which closely resembles Pine Island.

Cape Coral author Carol Ervin writes historical-grounded period fiction set in a 1900 West Virginia logging town. She’s as prolific as John, with a series of six books, Girl on a Mountain (2012), Cold Comfort (2013), Midwinter Sun (2014), The Women’s War (2016), The Boardinghouse (2017) and Kith and Kin (2017) – plus two others, Dell Zero and Ridgetop. To give her books the authentic historical underpinnings her readers love, Carol found an very old manual and has become something of a self-taught expert on turn-of-the-20th-century logging in West Virginia.

Mike Silberg is a religious author. His book is titled Falling in Love with the Prince of Life. He also writes and lectures on religious topics on a regular basis. Mike was brought up in a church community in the western suburbs of Chicago where he was raised on the Bible. He developed a love for the Lord and His word and pursued these interests at Anderson University in Indiana, where he received a degree in Bible and Religion in 1977.

James Usavage spent a number of years criss-crossing the country with his wife, Judy, working odd jobs (everything from car salesman to musician to construction worker to teacher) and experiencing people and situations that would all ultimately lend to the characters, places, and adventures that make up his books, which include Waltzing with the Wind, Footsteps in the Attic, Miocene II and A.C.E. Vanguard – all thrillers.

Rick Weber wrote Pink Lips and Fingertips, and made contributions to three Chicken Soup for the Soul books. He has won the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, been honored twice by the Associated Press Sports Editors for column writing and feature writing, and won numerous state awards. He is also a gifted photographer, as folks discovered during Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens’ celebration of Slow Art Day earlier this year.

Scott P. Smith is a Southwest Florida author, grandfather, and animal lover who is writing a series of rhyming readers for children 3-10. They combine fun, education and the zany in order to cultivate the same love of language that authors like Dr. Suess, Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak instilled in him as a child. Modern, quirky, and colorful, Smith’s tales inspire creative thinking and fuel the desire to learn more. Scott chose the direction of rhyming readers not only for their fun, but because rhyming is a wonderful mnemonic device for educating both first and second language English speakers.

And it’s Scott’s wife, Jennifer, who illustrates each of the books in the Zaniac series. Jennifer is Vice President of American Graphics Institute and the author of numerous books on Adobe products. She is a member of the AGI Creative Team, which develops and delivers training programs for creative, marketing, and communications professionals through the American Graphics Institute.

As Indie Author Day participants discovered this past October 14, each of these authors has developed a battery of unique approaches to publish, market and familiarize the local community with their books. And that was one of the goals of Indie Author Day 2017. There’s a lot to be said for networking, and Indie Author Day gave the participating authors a chance to meet and trade secrets about how they go about selling their books.

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Among her many talents, artist Leoma Lovegrove is also an illustrator (10-27-17)

Children’s author Betty Reese Freberg lives and writes in Texas and couldn’t make it to Matlacha Island for Indie Author Day. But she and her book, Frebie Dog Tales (The New Mailman, The Dog Catcher and the Judge), were represented at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens nonetheless. That’s because Leoma Lovegrove was on hand for the event, and she illustrated the book.

The book was inspired by a true tale. Frebie was a mixture of Chow and German Shepard. As a six week old puppy, Frebie met and won the heart of his master, a Baylor University college student by the name of Doug. It was the start of a thirteen year love affair between two free spirits. But then Doug moved to Washington D.C. and couldn’t take Frebie with him. So he asked his widowed mom to let Frebie move in with her. Neither Frebie nor Mimi could imagine the adventures they were about to share.

Lovegrove traveled to Freberg’s home in Azle, Texas, where she rendered twelve illustrations for the book. (The originals were included in Palettes: Past, Present & Pursuits, a retrospective of Lovegrove’s work that was exhibited at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center this past January.)

The use of illustrations in books has a long and storied history. Even before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, medieval monks “illuminated” the manuscripts they copied out by hand. The would add gold and silver leaf letters, borders and images. The books were pretty expensive, and only the wealthiest patrons could afford one of these hand-produced illuminated manuscripts.

Printing made illuminated manuscripts obsolete, but did not obviate the desirability of including illustrations in printed text. Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations) was an author who fully embraced the use of illustrations to enliven his novels and short stories. The drawings helped his readers envision the characters and storyline that Dickens described in words.

Dickens’s most famous illustrator was H.K. Browne. He worked under the pen name “Phiz.” He worked so closely with Dickens as to the specific appearance of characters and the composition of plates that Phiz’s visual interpretation of a character became as important as Dickens’s description, if not more so.

“Like Doug and Mimi (Freebie’s owners), many of us have enjoyed the privilege of sharing a portion of our lives with a fur friend or other pet who touches our heart in a very special way,” Lovegrove says. “Many of the folks who came to [Indie Author Day] shared inspiring stories about the pets who’ve enhanced their lives. It was so much fun.”

Frebie Dog Tales is available for purchase on Amazon and at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens, which is located at 4637 Pine Island Road on sunny Matlacha Island. For more information, please telephone 239-938-5655.

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Author Rick Weber takes part in Lovegrove-hosted Indie Author Day (10-27-17)

Rick Weber was one of the artists taking part in Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens’ observance of Indie Author Day 2017. An accomplished author, Weber has written a biography, Pink Lips and Fingertips, and made contributions to three Chicken Soup for the Soul books. He has won the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism, been honored twice by the Associated Press Sports Editors for column writing and feature writing, and won numerous state awards.

Rick knew very early on that he wanted to be a writer. When he was in junior high, he’d sit in front of the TV, watching football and basketball games. When they were over, he’d pull out his father’s old Underwood typewriter and bang out crude game stories.

Weber’s writing career has taken him from Pennsylvania to New Mexico to California, Australia, Texas and Florida, but he has traveled over a million miles in search of great stories. He has talked to Michael Jordan as he laced up his shoes in preparation for a deciding playoff game. He has talked to Joe Montana after the quarterback won the Super Bowl MVP. He has talked to a 10-year-old boy who lost his mother three days earlier but was playing in the Babe Ruth World Series because that is what she would have wanted. He has driven a speedboat at 160 mph, bungee-jumped off a 125-foot bridge in New Zealand and tried out for the Minnesota Twins.

Every assignment possesses an element of mystery just waiting to be unraveled – and a story begging to be told. He has been fortunate to do that in over 10,000 magazine and newspaper articles, and now in three Chicken Soup books and a biography. He is at his best when he is telling human-interest stories with compassion, pathos and perspective.

Rick is also a talented photographer. One of his photographs, a stunning, evocative sunset, took first place in the 2014 Audubon Society, and his close-up of a fiddler crab took third. He won two more awards in 2017 for scenery and plants. His photos have been published in the Los Angeles Times and numerous magazines.

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Author James Usavage takes part in Lovegrove-hosted Indie Author Day (10-27-17)

One of the authors participating in Indie Author Day 2017 at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens this past October 14 is James Usavage.

Usavage has led a life as interesting as the characters he writes about in his books. On his way to a career in medicine, James came to the realization that the life of a doctor was not the one for him, and that understanding set him out on a journey of exploration that spanned the entire United States.

Accompanied by his equally adventurous wife, Judy, James spent a number of years criss-crossing the country working odd jobs (everything from car salesman to musician to construction worker to teacher) and experiencing people and situations that would all ultimately lend to the characters, places, and adventures that make up his books, which include Waltzing with the Wind, Footsteps in the Attic, Miocene II and A.C.E. Vanguard – all thrillers.

“I do a lot of research for each book,” James notes. “I don’t believe in cardboard characters and I make an effort to personalize them. When people that have read my novels comment about seeing a little piece of themselves in the characters, I greatly appreciate it and know that I’ve done my job as a writer. No matter what, though, I have to say there is no sense of accomplishment and pleasure like having a family.”

James credits H.G. Wells, Conan Doyle, Dumas, London, Steinbeck and Hemingway as influences. He even writes longhand as many of them did (which sheds light on his love for the classic way of creating worlds with nothing more than pen, paper, and imagination).

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Author Fran Thomas takes part in Lovegrove-hosted Indie Author Day (10-27-17)

One of the authors taking part on October 14 in Indie Author Day at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens was Fran Thomas.

Fran Thomas lives full-time in St. James City and is a former editor of the Pine Island Eagle. She recently worked at Florida SouthWestern State College with first year students creating and facilitating workshops to teach them success skills. Her book Average to Awesome: How to Ace Your First Year in College Exercising Your Emotional Intelligence is available as an E-book (Kindle) for free. One Amazon reviewer gave the book five stars and said, “If I had read this book during my college years, I would’ve been a more productive student.”

This past September, Thomas released Island Dreams, the third book in her Calusa Town Tales series, which is set in a quirky Florida town that bears a striking resemblance to Pine Island.

Although I’m not a native Pine Islander, I have lived here for 20 years and was once the editor of the Eagle,” Thomas told PineIsland-Eagle.com on September 27. “I’ve seen a lot of events unfold, so I have plenty of material to use as a starting point. Then I just embellish the details a wee bit.”

The inaugural book in the Calusa Town Tales series is The Lady is a Mayor, a novella that is available free of charge on Kindle. It’s a romantic comedy about a woman named Geneva Price who finds herself in charge of the small town of Calusa when its mayor disappears in the middle of the night. Geneva soon finds herself embroiled in a dispute between townsfolk who want to preserve the ecology and business people who are determined to save the town from economic ruin. A hotel developer with good hair might be the answer to her prayers in more ways than one, but first Geneva has arrange a truce between the local ecologists and economists.

In the middle of these two stories is Southern Hospitality.

All three novellas are playful stories with satisfying endings that Fran hopes will relieve the overabundance of stress so prevalent in today’s society. Each book offers a light-hearted look at life in a small town and includes G-rated romance.

Not only does Fran have a degree in English Literature, she’s read thousands of romances and edited a bunch more. So she has ample material to keep the series going for the foreseeable future.

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Author Caron Ervin takes part in Lovegrove-hosted Indie Author Day (10-27-17)

One of the authors taking part on October 14 in Indie Author Day at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens was Carol Ervin. Her story is all too common. After years of writing, she had begun to doubt that success would come to her. And (as she wryly observes) she wasn’t getting any younger. So she decided after a lot of thought and deliberation to self-publish The Girl on the Mountain.

“When I decided to publish on my own, I thought I’d learned enough from forums, blogs, and books to equal a bachelor’s degree in independent publishing,” said Carol. “Still, I felt I was exposing myself as an idiot that day in 2012 when I hit the ‘publish’ button on the Kindle Direct Publishing website. Three years later, I think I’ve surely accumulated enough knocks to equal a Ph.D.”

“My first inspiration for The Girl on the Mountain was the mountain wilderness itself, because West Virginia’s terrain and flora have always challenged and tested those who live here,” says Carol. But at its core, The Girl on the Mountain is historical fiction. Set in a mountain logging town in 1900, it shows how people were affected by the economy, culture and setting of the time.

“I was inspired by the history of industry and everyday life in the 19th century, the forerunners of today’s technology and culture,” Carol writes. “When I read Roy B. Clarkson’s non-fiction account of lumbering in West Virginia, (Tumult on the Mountain, 1964, McClain Printing Co., Parsons, WV), with more than 250 photos of giant trees, loggers, sawmills, trains, and towns, I found the setting for this story.”

The book is both a character and plot-driven story, and judging from reader responses, those features and the historical setting are responsible for its appeal. Conducting research into the unique problems and difficulties faced by the men and women of that time and place made her feel closer to her own grandparents, who she never knew.

Carol published a sequel (Cold Comfort) the next year. Then in 2014, she published the third in the series (Midwinter Sun) plus something different, a science/fiction dystopian novel (Dell Zero). Her fifth publication was Ridgetop, the remake of a story that had been in the drawer for about ten years.

She has also added three more books in her Mountain Women Series, The Women’s War, The Boardinghouse and Kith and Kin.

She provides summaries of all her books on her website, which you can link to here.

Carol chose to release her novels as ebooks. She’s had mixed results. But what she does have is a wealth of is knowledge about how to self-publish and self-market books, and she readily shared that trove with the folks who turned out at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens for Indie Author Day.

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Author Scott Smith and illustrator Jennifer take part in Indie Author Day (10-27-17)

Scott and Jennifer are the proud grandparents of two future avid readers.

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Author Mike Silberg takes part in Lovegrove-hosted Indie Author Day (10-27-17)

One of the authors taking part on October 14 in Indie Author Day at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens was Leoma’s husband, Mike Silberg. Mike’s book is Falling in Love with the Prince of Life. In this compelling book, Mike ponders questions such as:

What did Jesus mean when He commanded us to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect”?
What does it mean where it says, “When the perfect comes, the partial will be done away”?
What does it mean that Jesus is coming to us as a Bridegroom searching for a bride?
We need God, but does He need us?
Who are we?
We know God dwells in eternity, but does He dwell in the present?
Is it normal or abnormal to sin?
The Bible speaks of a second death — what is the first?
If Jesus died for us, why do we still die?

“I really enjoyed this book! Mike does an amazing job of continually referring to and supporting his narrative with the appropriate biblical text,” writes a commentator on Amazon, who gave Mike’s book a rating of five stars. “As someone who has been following Christ for 11 years now and who has read a lot of Christian books, I’m always a little skeptical about whether there is something new to learn but it didn’t take long to realize there was a lot to learn from this author and book.”

Mike was brought up in a church community in the western suburbs of Chicago where he was raised on the Bible. He developed a love for the Lord and His word and pursued these interests at Anderson University in Indiana, where he received a degree in Bible and Religion in 1977.

Today, Mike writes, speaks and fights battles with the Lord’s help in a way that was totally foreign to us both not too long ago.

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Lovegrove’s success with Bealls benefits Lee County’s economy (02-19-17)

Following an appearance on Fox4 Morning Blend, Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove headed over to Bealls Department Store on Cleveland Ave (just north of Daniels) to paint out loud and autograph purchases for a host of fans and Valentine’s Day shoppers.

Lovegrove became associated with the Bradenton-based department store four years ago, in February of 2013. The department store chain saw some of her paintings and liked Lovegrove’s bold, vibrant colors and the way her images capture Southwest Florida’s active, healthy, water-based lifestyle. But being a prudent, smartly-run company, Bealls deem it prudent to test the water by doing market analysis and focus group testing.

After completing their due diligence, they started out slowly, introducing a limited line of casual wear bearing new images they commissioned Lovegrove to create. The designs caught on, and so the following year, Bealls expanded its Lovegrove product line, adding handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more. The new products were rolled out at the same outlet in the Cypress Trace Shopping Center in Fort Myers where they’d first announced their affiliation with the artist. To mark the occasion, Lovegrove painted a seahorse live for a crowd of nearly 200.

Since then, Bealls has expanded its Lovegrove product line, which it offers in each of the Department Store’s 74 brick-and-mortar department stores throughout the State of Florida as well as online.

It is rewarding whenever any artist attains commercial success, but Southwest Florida residents and business owners have reason to be particularly appreciative of the popularity of her designs with Bealls patrons. Each of the millions of Lovegrove products offered and sold by Bealls mentions Matlacha Island, and over the course of her four-year affiliation with Bealls, scores of Bealls customers have embarked upon a pilgrimage to visit her island gallery and gardens or attend one of her Paint Out Loud performances at a local Bealls outlet. When they come, they don’t just spend money at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens or Bealls. They buy gas at an area service station, a meal at a local café or bistro, and shop the other galleries and boutiques that line Pine Island Road, Cleveland Avenue or downtown Fort Myers. Her success benefits the community’s economy. Art means business, whether on an individual or public scale.

Lovegrove is no stranger to the interplay between art and tourism. She worked for years with the Lee County Visitory & Convention Bureau (VCB) to bring international tourism to Southwest Florida destinations. And two years ago, the VCB and Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce Inc. honored Lovegrove during its annual Chrysalis Awards luncheon with its prestigious Junonia Award. Created in 2006, the Junonia Award recognizes individuals who have positively impacted the local tourism community by demonstrating unique capabilities, leadership, commitment, and dedication. Lovegrove was chosen for her tireless promotion of the destination.

In presenting the award to Lovegrove, Tamara Pigott, executive director of the VCB, described Lovegrove’s contagious love of Florida that has been instrumental in encouraging tourism from around the world. “The VCB has enjoyed a long-standing partnership with Leoma in promoting our destination. I have personally had the pleasure of working alongside her on many of our national and international marketing programs,” said Pigott.

Lovegrove brings her passion for Southwest Florida to every Bealls design and live art demonstration, as the more than 200 customers saw first-hand during Lovegrove’s Paint Out Loud performance at Bealls this past Valentine’s Day.

Bealls commemorated the occasion by releasing a brand new “heart” T-Shirt for everyone to enjoy.

Beall’s Department Stores is a division of Bealls, Inc. Founded in 1915 as a dry goods store, the Bradenton-based company now operates more than 540 stores in 17 states under the names Beall’s, Beall’s Outlet and Burke’s Outlet. Besides Florida, the company operates stores in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Today, Beall’s is the destination of choice for casual lifestyle and priced right apparel and home merchandise. To learn more about Bealls, please visit BeallsFlorida.com.

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Lovegrove retrospective fills Davis Art Center with hundreds of colorful Expressionist works (01-08-17)

The grand atrium of the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center was once the mail sorting room of the post office. With 20 foot ceilings and gleaming marble floors, it is immense, cavernous and imposing gallery in which to display and view art. On Friday night, Matlacha Island Expressionist artist made the room feel small and intimate with a show as colorful and vibrant of the artist herself.

Where most artists enjoying solo shows at the Davis Art Center struggle to exhibit forty or fifty works, Lovegrove delivered hundreds of paintings to Curator Shawn Ayotte for this retrospective. Included in the exhibition are a wide range of motifs, from patriotic and religious themes to landscapes, depictions of her beloved Matlacha Island, a series of sensual nudes, paintings produced aboard a replica of Claude Monet’s floating studio as it plied the tranquil waters of the Seine, homages to the Beatles and other entertainers, a portrait of Fort Myers Film Festival Executive Director Eric Raddatz, and the active-outdoor-Southwest-Florida-lifestyle motifs that Bealls Department Store has proudly incorporated into bestselling lines of casual attire, luggage, totes and an assemblage of housewares that bear Lovegrove’s name.

To Lovegrove’s credit, she did not impose any restrictions on how Ayotte hung the show. Rather than arranging the exhibition by series or motif, Ayotte selected cornerstone pieces for each of the eight walls in the grand atrium and east wing of the Art Center. Then he grouped paintings salon-style (that is, above and below eye level) around these big bold canvases based on their energy, vitality and palette.

The result is staggering. The towering cold white walls are drawn in, surrounding the viewer with a cacophony of pigment, brushstrokes, drips, splatters and smears, and a dichotomy of subjects and objects, including handpainted coats and heels in shadow boxes suspended from the rafters above the grand atrium’s gleaming marble floors.

What unifies this arrangement of seemingly disparate subjects is Lovegrove’s definitive Expressionist style.

“For me, art is not about the subject I am painting. I am not trying to depict a realistic image or an impression of light, shadow and color suggested by my perception of the outside world,” Lovegrove explains. “Instead, I am striving to convey my reaction to what I’m painting and the subjective emotions I feel during the painting process.”

Lovegrove accomplishes this objective through a combination of distortion, exaggeration, primitivism and fantasy, and enlists intense color, dramatic and agitated brushstrokes and paint drips in an effort to create an emotionally-charged representation of my subject. Nothing is off limits. No principle of perspective or point of view is sacrosanct. “It’s not that I am unaware of the strictures of fine art,” expounds Lovegrove. “Instead, I view these principles as subservient to my highly subjective, very personal, spontaneous self-expression.”

Most people equate painting with the slow, deliberate application of pigment to canvas, wood panel or a wall or ceiling. As this collection of artworks reveals, Leoma Lovegrove boldly occupies the opposite end of this spectrum. Her brushstrokes are jarring, sometimes bordering on violent. On occasion, she paints with such a sense of urgency that she uses her fingers and even the palm of her hands to move pigment across her canvas or other support.

Whether her motif is religious (such as the painting of Jesus on the cross that she did at Grace United Methodist Church in Cape Coral), political (like the American bald eagle she painted at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theater on the 10^th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks) or a fish or seahorse (subjects she’s painted during performances at Bealls), Leoma isn’t bashful about breaking conventional rules about form, harmony and visual realism.

If you are looking for influences to Leoma’s style of painting, you need look no further than to Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. But as an art movement distinct from Impressionism and Post-Impressionist modernism, Expressionism itself traces its formal origins to Germany around the turn of the 20^th century. Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Lionel Feininger, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke, Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein are some of the leading artists involved in the German Expressionist movement, along with Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.

While the sheer number of paintings included in Palettes is staggering, and raises the bar for future exhibitors and exhibitions, numbers don’t tell the full story here. Many of the paintings on display in Lovegrove’s retrospective are immense in size and import. For example, stretched across the grand atrium’s southeast window is a 10 foot tall by 18 foot wide canvas that contains the names of the more than 3,000 victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They were painted by people from across Southwest Florida as Lovegrove transported the canvas to various venues in the weeks leading up to the observance of the tenth anniversary of 9-11.

Interspersed throughout the galleries are pedestals containing explanations and stories about the works on display. So this is a show viewers can appreciate on their own or in small groups without the necessity of a docent. The Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center is located at 2301 First Street in the heart of the downtown Fort Myers River District. Museum hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

For more information, please visit http://www.sbdac.com or telephone 239-333-1933.

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Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens wins TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence (06-09-16)

Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens is one of Southwest Florida’s most colorful destinations, and it has been honored recently with a TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence.

Now in its sixth year, the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence celebrates hospitality businesses that have earned great traveler reviews on TripAdvisor over the past year. Certificate of Excellence recipients include accommodations, eateries and attractions located all over the world that have continually delivered a quality customer experience.

“The staff and I are thrilled to receive this TripAdvisor award of excellence, and we want to thank the many visitors to our gallery for submitting their fabulous reviews throughout the years. It inspires me to keep creating for our guests and to make their visit special,” said Leoma Lovegrove.

The world’s largest travel site, TripAdvisor® enables travelers to plan and book the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers advice from millions of travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools that check hundreds of websites to find the best hotel prices. Operating in 48 markets worldwide, TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 340 million unique monthly visitors, and 350 million reviews and opinions covering 6.5 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions.

“With the Certificate of Excellence, TripAdvisor honors hospitality businesses that have consistently received strong praise and ratings from travelers,” said TripAdvisor Vice President of Industry Marketing Heather Leisman. “This recognition helps travelers identify and book properties that regularly deliver great service. TripAdvisor is proud to play this integral role in helping travelers feel more confident in their booking decisions.”

The Certificate of Excellence accounts for the quality, quantity and recency of reviews submitted by travelers on TripAdvisor over a 12-month period. To qualify, a business must maintain an overall TripAdvisor bubble rating of at least four out of five, have a minimum number of reviews and must have been listed on TripAdvisor for at least 12 months.

Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens is the international headquarters of renowned painter and entrepreneur Leoma Lovegrove. Her Gallery and Gardens have been featured in magazines and social media across the globe and is one of Florida’s most colorful destinations.

N.B.: Through its subsidiaries, TripAdvisor, Inc. (NASDAQ:TRIP) manages and operates websites under 24 other travel media brands:

www.airfarewatchdog.com,
www.bookingbuddy.com,
www.cruisecritic.com,
www.everytrail.com,
www.familyvacationcritic.com,
www.flipkey.com,
www.thefork.com (including www.lafourchette.com,
www.eltenedor.com,
www.iens.nl,
www.besttables.com and www.dimmi.com.au),
www.gateguru.com,
www.holidaylettings.co.uk,
www.holidaywatchdog.com,
www.housetrip.com,
www.independenttraveler.com,
www.jetsetter.com,
www.niumba.com,
www.onetime.com,
www.oyster.com,
www.seatguru.com,
www.smartertravel.com,
www.tingo.com,
www.travelpod.com,
www.tripbod.com,
www.vacationhomerentals.com,
www.viator.com, and
www.virtualtourist.com.

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Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens participates for fourth consecutive year in Slow Art Day (04-05-16)

Slow Art Day is a worldwide celebration of art that encourages people to look at art SLOWLY – and thereby experience art in a new way. Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is the only gallery in Southwest Florida that is participating in this global event. You can celebrate Slow Art Day with artists Leoma Lovegrove, Karen Jarstad, and Kirston Troyer from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on April 9, 2016 at main2 Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens, located in the heart of Matlacha Island at 4637 Pine Island Rd. NW., Matlacha, FL.

Here’s how it works. Lovegrove, Jarstad and Kirston have placed five pieces of art on exhibit inside Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens. Participants will meet in the gardens at 11:00 a.m. and then spend an hour studying and absorbing these works – forming and developing opinions about each piece in a way that’s rare in today’s rushed and increasingly harried world. At noon, the participants will head over to Bert’s Bar Restaurant, where they’ll discuss and share their opinions about the artworks from 12:15 to 2:00 p.m.

Tickets to the event are free; lunch is Dutch. To register for Slow Art Day, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/slow-art-day-2016-tickets-18553063713.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is participating in Slow Art Day.

You can see more about Slow Art Day and the mission behind it at SlowArtDay.com. Media contact for the event is Leoma Lovegrove, who can be reached by telephone at (239) 822-4109 or by email at LeomaLovegrove@gmail.com.

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Broadway Palm’s Producer’s Sunday Brunch Series features Leoma Lovegrove’s ‘My Studio’ this Sunday (02-29-16)

Ever wondered what a day in the life of Leoma Lovegrove is like? You can find out at Broadway Palm on Sunday, March 6, 2016, when Leoma presents her one-woman show, My Studio, as part of the The Producer’s Sunday Brunch Series. Leoma has painted her way around the world, meeting presidents and movie stars, and splashing color everywhere. She will share the stories of her adventures at a very special brunch. Paint and feathers will fly as Leoma creates art before your eyes and fills the room with various creative surprises. Tickets are $39-50. Reserve your table by calling the box office at 239.278.4422. Brunch is at 10:45 a.m. with the show starting at noon.

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Matlacha’s Leoma Lovegrove hosts raffle to help local firefighters purchase critical Jaws-of-Life (02-20-16)

Share some time with Florida based artist Leoma Lovegrove at her international headquarters in Matlacha and watch her paint a painting in minutes to some of your favorite tunes. Lovegrove will also share a snippet of her upcoming stage play, “My Studio.” This event will also benefit the Matlacha Island/P.I. Fire Department. But one or more raffle tickets to win Fire House Groupie, Leoma’s original 3′ x 4′ painting of a grouper. All the proceeds will towards the purchase of a much needed Jaws-of-Life. You are invited to have your photo taken with the artist and sport a pair for her zany trademark eyeglasses, and the firemen in attendance at the event. This promises to be a fun and exciting experience for the entire family. Lovegrove promises sweets and surprisess throughout the action-packed 3-hours event, which runs from 2-5 p.m. on Sunday, February 21.

Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is located at 4637 Pine Island Road on Matlacha Island.

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Bealls artist Leoma Lovegrove to give painting demonstration at Cape Coral store on February 16 (02-15-16)

Bealls is inviting the public to meet the artist behind the department store’s exclusive line of casual attire and household goods, Matlacha phenom Leoma Lovegrove. You can watch her create a painting in a few minutes and see her new collection, “Color Me Florida,” at 11:00 a.m., February 16, at Bealls Cape Coral location at 2301 S. Del Prado Blvd. An autograph session immediately follows until 1:00 p.m. Visitors are welcome to bring their cameras for a fun photo op with the artist and her zany trademark glasses.

Read on for more information about Leoma Lovegrove and her art.

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Leoma Lovegrove one of celebrity judges for February 1 edition of T.G.I.M. (01-30-16)

The T.G.I.M. film screening series continues tomorrow night inside the grand atrium of the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center. Attendees will help a panel of celebrity judges evaluate several of the short indie films being considered for inclusion in the sixth annual Fort Myers Film Festival on April 7-10, 2016. The panel for tomorrow night’s screenings include Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove, Scott Saxon, Happy actress Stella Ruiz, musical guest Al Holland, host Eric Raddatz and co-host Melissa DeHaven.

Leoma Lovegrove is an impressionist/expressionist artist whose works are characterized by exuberant strokes (applied to canvas not only via brushes of all sizes and shapes, but with her fingers and hands as well) and a palette bursting with vivid tropical color. She is popularly associated with Florida motifs that include birds, fish, palms, coconuts, and local landscapes. In fact, ArtFest Fort Myers recently chose Lovegrove’s Flotilla Fort Myers as the poster and t-shirt art for its 2016 outdoor art festival on February 5-7..

“Leoma has captured the essence of our downtown waterfront with her signature vibrancy and unique style and she created quite a sensation amongst our patrons,” explained ArtFest Executive Director Sharon McAllister. “She will be joining us for the first time at ArtFest Fort Myers 2016, along with over 200 wonderful artists from across the country and around the world.”

Bealls Department Store has likewise included Lovegrove’s depictions on clothing and other merchandise. In February of 2012, Bealls introduced a line of ladies and children’s apparel that features Lovegrove’s casual, colorful Florida motifs. They were such a hit with the store’s customers that Bealls decided in 2014 to expand their line of Lovegrove products to include handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more. The expanded product line is available in each of Bealls’ 74 department stores in the State of Florida, as well as online at: http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove.

In May of 2014, Leoma enjoyed the distinction of becoming the first American to paint on board Le Bateau-Atelier, which is an exact replica of the floating studio that Claude Monet rigged in 1874 so that he could paint en plein air along the Seine River. The boat is docked near Monet’s gardens, at the former home of famous French painter Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947). The owner of the home, Captain Bertrand de Vautibault, had the boat built to allow painters to sail on the Seine in search of the best scenery just as Monet did more than 140 years ago.

At the invitation of Captain Bertrand de Vautibault, the 20 works Lovegrove created during her time aboard the vessel were exhibited at Bonnard’s home, Maison du Peintre Pierre Bonnard. The May 4-12, 2014 exhibition of An American in Giverny also marks the first time an American has displayed work at the home of the famous French painter.

“I have always been inspired by Pierre Bonnard and am very grateful to Captain Bertrand de Vautibault and his wife for inviting me to share my art at their historic home,” said Lovegrove. “I have been painting and teaching in Giverny for more than 10 years and continue to find inspiration from my trips to France.”

Lovegrove has also developed a reputation as a gifted and accomplished portrait and entertainment artist. While Johnny Depp and Steven Tyler remain collector favorites, her Beatles Series was so well-received that it drew the attention of the City of Liverpool.

Leoma has also painted portraits of such luminaries as President Jimmy Carter (who has hung her painting in his presidential library in Atlanta) and Sir Richard Branson on commission for Virgin Airlines, who displays the work in their London headquarters.

Lovegrove’s work can also be found at the presidential library of President George W. Bush, the private collections of actress Sharon Stone, actor Jesse Metcalf, and the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Eva Alexandra, Countess Kenderffy.

Leoma has also ventured into the realm of public art, with works in the permanent collections of both the City of Fort Myers and Florida Gulf Coast University. And in 2013, Lovegrove also rendered a largescale mural on the east wall of the Matlacha Post Office that welcomes visitors to the island. Titled The Catch of Matlacha Island, the mural pictorially tells how an enclave of painters, sculptors, musicians and novelists built an arts community known by many as The New Key West from the ashes of the fishing community, which burned their boats when the a ban referendum went into effect in 1992 effectively ending their ability to harvest mullet from local waters.

Lovegrove has a degree in illustration from the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, and has studied at ArtStudy Florida and the Guild de Beaux Arts and ArtStudy Giverny in France. She maintains her gallery and a botanical garden in Matlacha.

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Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove and Bealls Florida plant free art in area Bealls’ outlets throughout January (01-12-16)

If you are on the Gulf Coast of Florida this month, Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove and Bealls Florida has some fun in-store (literally) for you. Over the next few weeks, they are hiding one Leomatized letter in a different store each day. Find the letter and take it to customer service to receive a $50 Bealls gift card – and you get to keep the letter!

The fun started yesterday but we are not sure if the art has been found yet. Here is the rest of the schedule throughout Bealls’ Florida stores:

Hide Date 01/11/16: West Bradenton location, store 24, Letter L
Hide Date 01/12/16: East Bradenton location, store 67, Letter E
Hide Date 01/13/16: Sarasota location, store 20, Letter O
Hide Date 01/14/16: Palmer Crossing, store 3, Letter M
Hide Date 01/15/16: South Venice, store 1, Letter A
Hide Date 01/18/16: Englewood, store 9, Letter L
Hide Date 01/19/16: Port Charlotte, store 14 Letter O
Hide Date 01/20/16: North Fort Myers, store 59, Letter V
Hide Date 01/21/16: Cape Coral, store 19, Letter E
Hide Date 01/22/16: East Fort Myers, store 31, Letter G
Hide Date 01/25/16: South Fort Myers, store 61, Letter R
Hide Date 01/26/16: Bonita Springs, store 41, Letter O
Hide Date 01/27/16: North Naples, store 62, Letter V
Hide Date 01/28/16: Naples, store 12, Letter E

The Letter is actually a work of Lovegrove art in the form of a re-purposed Reader’s Digest condensed hardback book published between 1950 and 1989 that is in the shape of a letter of the alphabet. Each has a signature gold top edge, is Leomatized with her vibrant Florida colors and bears a tag that reads: “YAY! You found it! You are now in possession of a #RandomActOfArtKindness from Leoma Lovegrove. This letter is yours to keep, and as a bonus, you can take it to the Customer Service desk right now to receive a $50 Bealls gift card.”

Follow BeallsFlorida on Twitter to find clues. #FindLeoma smile emotico #FindLeomaG. Finders keepers and good luck!

Bealls offers Lovegrove-inspired casual wear, handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more in each of its 74 department stores in the State of Florida, as well as online at: http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove, and has given Matlacha Island and Southwest Florida added name recognition and a welcome boost in tourism since each item identifies Lovegrove as an impressionist/expressionist artist from Matlacha. Beall’s Department Stores is a division of Bealls, Inc. Founded in 1915 as a dry goods store, the Bradenton-based company now operates more than 540 stores in 17 states under the names Beall’s, Beall’s Outlet and Burke’s Outlet. Besides Florida, the company operates stores in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Today, Beall’s is the destination of choice for casual lifestyle and priced right apparel and home merchandise. To learn more about Bealls, please visit BeallsFlorida.com.

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ArtFest Fort Myers unveils 2016 commemorative poster and T-shirt by local favorite Leoma Lovegrove (01-08-16)

ArtFest Fort Myers unveiled the artwork for their 2016 commemorative poster and festival -shirt at an invitation-only party on January 8 at The Marina at Edison Ford in downtown Fort Myers. The event marks the beginning of the ArtFest’s 16th season.

The post and T-shirt feature the fabulous work of Leoma Lovegrove. An impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her colorful artistic depictions of flora and fauna, Lovegrove calls Matlacha Island her home and maintains a working studio, gallery and waterside botanical garden there. Her contagious love of the local tropical environment has been instrumental in encouraging tourism to the state from all over the world.

“I enjoy creating art for visitors from around the globe,” said Leoma Lovegrove. “I am proud to share authentic Florida in a tropical, painterly way.”

She joined ArtFest Fort Myers to present her original painting, Flotilla Fort Myers.

Proceeds from the festival’s poster and T-Shirt support ArtFest Fort Myers’ art education outreach programs, with a portion of the poster proceeds also supporting The News-Press “Newspaper in Education” program.

ArtFest Fort Myers takes place February 5, 6 & 7 in the Fort Myers River District. It features 215 professional artists from across the county and around the world, the largest high school art exhibit and competition in south Florida, and free interactive art experiences for children of all ages. Become a VIP for additional perks. For more information, please visit ArtFestFortMyers.com.

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Lovegrove’s pink-themed works for Bealls helping to fight breast cancer (08-26-15)

When most people think of autumn color, they picture the reds, orange and gold of falling leaves. Not so with Leoma Lovegrove. For her, the color of autumn is pink. Lovegrove has created three pink-themed works of art for Beall’s Department Store. The designs will appear on women’s T-shirts, housewares, and even quilts to be sold during Breast Cancer Awareness month in October. The paintings are titled Pink Lady, Pink Racer, and Pink Power. The first depicts a sailboat, the second a bicycle. They both convey a sense of hope and eventual freedom from this devastating disease. The third painting is a bevy of pink flamingos symbolizing the support that women give each other to battle breast cancer.

Along with these three original paintings, Lovegrove will display six additional works she created in prior years to lend her talent on behalf of this cause. They will be part of her 50 Shades of Pink show that will run throughout October at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens, 4637 Pine Island Road NW, Matlacha Island, FL 33993.

In addition to the show, Lovegrove has found another way to say “Nuts to Cancer.” She will offer opportunities for visitors to paint a coconut pink and personalize it to honor or encourage someone who has been touched by the disease. Lovegrove also plans to paint 50 coconuts herself and send them into the world in what she calls “Random Acts of Pink Art Kindness.” She will place them to inspire those who find them. For more information, please call 239-822-4109

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VCB and Greater Fort Myers Chamber honors Leoma Lovegrove with prestigious Junonnia Award (05-01-15)

The Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau (VCB) and the Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce Inc. honored Leoma Lovegrove during the Chrysalis Awards on April 16 with its prestigious Junonia Award. The business and tourism awards luncheon and trade show is held annually at the Harborside Event Center in downtown Fort Myers.

Created in 2006, the Junonia Award recognizes individuals who have positively impacted the local tourism community by demonstrating unique capabilities, leadership, commitment, and dedication. The Junonia is a highly treasured shell and was selected as a symbol of the VCB’s annual award because of its rarity and exceptional quality. Lovegrove is known worldwide for her bold depictions of local flora and fauna. She was chosen for her tireless promotion of the destination.

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Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens hosting Slow Art Day 2015 on April 11 (04-03-15)

Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is again hosting Slow Art Day. Taking place on Saturday, April 11, this annual globally-recognized event gives people a chance to form, develop and share their own opinions about art in a way that’s rare. Five pieces of art will be exhibited at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens, including the work of artist and gallery patron Karen Jarstad and four original works by Leoma Lovegrove that have never been shown before.

Slow Art Day 2015 Matlacha-style takes place from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. At 2:00 p.m., all who attend will meet at the Blue Dog Cafe (a few doors from the gallery) to discuss the art. The event is free. RSVP appreciated. Just telephone 239-283-6453. You can also RSVP on line with Eventbright – Slow Art Day Matlacha Island Eventbright.

Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is located at 4637 Pine Island Rd. NW, over the bridge onto the island

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Leoma Lovegrove painting to be presented to Fort Myers Mayor Randy Henderson (03-20-15)

On March 24, the City of Fort Myers will acquire a second original painting by Leoma Lovegrove. The artist painted the work live before an audience to the music of Al Holland of The Platters earlier this year. It was then used as the official poster for the Fort Myers Film Festival. FMff Director Eric Raddatz will present the painting to Mayor Henderson at Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall on opening night of the festival. Tickets to all the week’s events to the Fort Myers Film Festival are available at www.fortmyersfilmfestival.com.

Click here for information on the first Lovegrove painting in Fort Myers’ public art collection, Freedom, and the painting, Remember 9-11, that is part of Florida Gulf Coast University’s public art collection.

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Lovegrove to ‘Paint Out Loud’ at Sun City Center Community Hall on March 3 (03-02-15)

The Art Club in Sun City Center and Kings Point Art League are presenting “Painting Out Loud With Leoma Lovegrove” on Tuesday, March 3. Lovegrove will share scenes from her development and life as an artist and create original works on stage. The event takes place from 1-4 p.m. Tickets are $5. Sun City Center Community Hall is located at 1910 Pebble Beach Blvd. in Sun City, Florida.

Contact Mary Ann Meeker 813 634-7006 or Marsha Lucidi 813 938-5100 for ticket information.

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Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove announces daily itinerary of Giverny painting workshop (02-21-15)

Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove has announced the date and itinerary of her popular painting workshop in Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France. The weeklong event takes place May 16-23, 2015 and will include a session aboard an exact replica of Monet’s floating studio along the River Seine. Enrollment is now open, but act quickly because space in this rare and exclusive workshop opportunity is extremely limited.

Following is a sampling from Lovegrove’s daily itinerary which begins with a Normandy breakfast buffet:

“Day 1

“You arrive in the village of Giverny and check in at Le Moulin des Chennevieres. It is a fairytale B & B situated just down the creek from Monet’s water lily pond. Gerard and Stephanie are the proprietors. It is very Normandy and very French. You will feel like you are living in an impressionist painting. After lunch and a brief orientation, we will do a walk-through of Monet’s Gardens and water lily pond with the famous Japanese bridge.

“Day 2

“A Day in Giverny. After morning coffee we go paint in Monet’s Gardens! Then it’s off to the Ancien Hotel Baudy (say bow-di). It is a must stop for anyone making a pilgrimage to visit Monet’s life. It is where many famous impressionist painters stayed when visiting Monet. We will be painting in the gardens behind the Baudy, just like impressionist painters have been doing for a hundred years.

“Day 3

“A day in Les Andelys. We will be traveling north up the Seine river valley to a little medieval village called Les Andelys. It was a favorite village of the impressionists to paint and still is today. The white chalk cliffs and the imposing King Richard’s Castle looming above the town make it one of the most picturesque villages in Normandy.

“Day 4

“Monet’s bateau. The day will be spent painting on a replica of Monet’s floating studio. Captain Bertrand Vautibault built the bateau (boat) for artists to paint in just like Monet did. He and his wife Danielle will be our hosts. They will serve tea for a meet and greet at their house where Monet’s bateau is moored. It is also the house where Pierre Bonnard (a famous impressionist painter) lived.

“Day 5

“Vernon and La Roche Guyon. We go to a real Normandy outdoor market in Vernon. It’s like going back in time. There are two markets every week where everybody goes to get their groceries. In the afternoon we head to La Roche Guyon. This was another favorite of the impressionists. There is a massive chateau tucked into the cliffs of the Seine river bank. Rommel made his headquarters in this chateau during WW II.

“Day 6

“Auvers-sur-Oise. We go to what Leoma lovingly refers to as Van Gogh-ville. Here Van Gogh spent the last seventy days of his life. We will visit the Auberge Ravoux Inn where he stayed. During this time Van Gogh painted eighty of his masterpieces. The village has set up replicas of his paintings where he actually painted them. We will visit the sites of some of his best-known paintings.

“Day 7

“Lavacourt. In the morning we will head to Lavacourt, another picturesque village on the banks of the Seine. And another favorite of the impressionists. Monet lived here for a short time before he moved to Giverny. “Day 8 (Saturday, May 23, Optional)

“Paris day trip. Get up for the early morning train to Paris to visit impressionist museums. We go to the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. This is the museum dedicated to French impressionism. It has the largest collection of impressionist paintings in the world including originals from all the major impressionist painters. Then we walk to Musee de l’Orangerie which houses eight huge water lily panels on canvas that Monet donated to France before he died. Then a special treat. We go to the Parisian apartment of one of Leoma’s fans (Rowan Marques) for a Champagne send-off. We return to Giverny late evening.

“Day 9 (Sunday, May 24)

“Sadly depart for home.”

To learn more, please visit LeomaLovegrove.com.

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Beall’s Department Store to host Leoma Lovegrove live painting performance and autograph session (02-16-15)

Bealls Department Store at 13300 S. Cleveland Avenue will be hosting a live painting performance tomorrow featuring Leoma Lovegrove, the artist behind its popular line of ladies and children’s apparel that features casual, colorful Florida motifs. Lovegrove will also have an autograph session immediately following the performance, which begins at 11:00 a.m. Watch her create a painting in a few minutes honoring President’s Day and bring your camera for a fun photo op with the artist and her zany, trademark glasses.

Bradenton-based Bealls is celebrating the second anniversary of introducing Lovegrove-inspired casual wear, which it expanded a year ago to include handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more. The new products were rolled out at the same outlet in the Cypress Trace Shopping Center in Fort Myers.

The expanded Lovegrove product line is available in each of Bealls’ 74 department stores in the State of Florida, as well as online at: http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove, and has given Matlacha Island and Southwest Florida added name recognition and a welcome boost in tourism since each item identifies Lovegrove as an impressionist/expressionist artist from Matlacha

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Lovegrove featured in Art Walks the Runway to benefit Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center (01-24-15)

Leoma Lovegrove is not one to wear clothes right off the rack, unless she added a splash of paint or a signature embellishment of her own first. Now that she is Beall’s Florida artist, she’s sharing her designs with the world, and at 8 p.m. on January 31 Lovegrove will show some of her personal, one-of-a-kind wardrobe creations and introduce her latest designs from Beall’s at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center, where hand-painted Leoma-couture and Spring Beall’s clothing mingle.

Advance tickets are $25 or $30 at the door. Those who purchase $50 VIP tickets in advance will receive a special gift from Leoma. Please call 239 333-1933 to purchase your tickets in advance.

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Leoma Lovegrove creates largescale triptych of Mina Edison for Fort Myers Founding Females portrait show (12-30-14)

Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove has rendered a 6 x 6′ triptych of Mina Edison to serve as the centerpiece of the Fort Myers Founding Females portrait show, an exhibition designed to introduce to Southwest Florida residents and visitors the names, faces and stories of some of Fort Myers’ most prominent female leaders, civic activists, philanthropists and entrepreneurs. Utilizing her signature tropical color palette, the portrait shows the influence of Lovegrove’s recent month–long sojourn to Giverny, France, where she painted and taught impressionism in the gardens of Claude Monet and enjoyed the first show by an American in the former home of Pierre Bonnard. Please click here for more information on this 3-panel painting and the subject who inspired it, Mina Edison.

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Leoma Lovegrove profiled on Art Southwest Florida (12-29-14)

Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove is now profiled on Art Southwest Florida. Lovegrove is known for impressionist works characterized by exuberant strokes (applied to canvas not only via brushes of all sizes and shapes, but with her fingers and hands as well) and a palette bursting with vivid tropical color. While she is popularly associated with Florida motifs that include birds, fish, palms and coconuts, Lovegrove easily adapts her quasi-expressionist style to portraiture and entertainment art. Her subjects have included former President Jimmy Carter (who hung his portrait in his presidential library in Atlanta) and Sir Richard Branson (whose portrait was commissioned for Virgin Airlines’ headquarters in London). The presidential library of George W. Bush also includes Lovegrove’s work, as do the private collections of actress Sharon Stone and actor Jesse Metcalf. Lovegrove’s homage to the father of expressionism, Vincent van Gogh, is on display in the lobby of Hotel Indigo in the downtown Fort Myers River District. Other of Lovegrove’s works have graced the windows of New York’s Rockefeller Center.

In this profile, you will find on a single page information about her French Connection, how the city of Liverpool has embraced her renderings of the Beatles, the 6×6′ triptych of Mina Edison that she rendered for the Fort Myers Founding Females portrait exhibition on display December 1, 2014 through March 31, 2015 at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, her public artworks and her connection with Bealls Department Store.

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Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens to celebrate Slow Art Day on April 12 (11-23-14)

Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens was one of the few galleries in all of Southwest Florida that participated in Slow Art Day in 2014. But the experience was so rewarding for those who participated that the gallery will again be hosting Slow Art Day in 2015.

“I would like to officially welcome you as a host to Slow Art Day 2015,” writes Slow Art Day Global

Operations Coordinator Maggie Freeman, confirming Lovegrove Gallery’s status as an official Slow Art Day host. “I’m glad that you decided to join us again this year, and I look forward to working with you to make your Slow Art Day event a success. Thank you for being a leader in the global Slow Art Day movement!”

Slow Art Day is a worldwide celebration of art that

encourages people to look at art SLOWLY – and thereby experience art in a new way. Last year, Lovegrove debuted a new exhibition of portraits of Christ that she painted throughout the years. Many of them were painted live during special performances at various churches throughout the United States. The large and small canvases then remained on exhibit at her gallery during Holy Week.

Leoma Lovegrove, is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her splashy, artistic depictions of the Florida lifestyle. Located in the heart of Matlacha Island on the southwest coast of Florida, Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens is one of the most colorful landmarks in the Sunshine State. To learn more, please visit http://www.LeomaLovegrove.com. To register for Slow Art Day, please visit slowartlovegrove2014.eventbrite.com. To learn more about Slow Art Day and the mission behind it, please go to http://www.SlowArtDay.com.

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Leoma Lovegrove to teach two workshops this season at Edison & Ford Winter Estates (11-08-14)

Internationally-known artist Leoma Lovegrove teaches only at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates and in France. Don’t miss this chance to work with this master teacher and renowned artist, who is teaching two workshops at the Edison Ford Winter Estates:

November 12 & 13, 2014, 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Painting in the Gardens. Learn painting technique and create original work in the Edison Moonlight Garden and the new West Porch at the Museum. Good for all skill levels, supply list will be provided. The workshop will teach the basic principles of painting trees, landscapes, flowers, pathways, people, and nature with an impressionistic and abstract style.
March 25 & 26, 2015, 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Collage. Create history through personal photographs and other objects combined with painting and the instruction of Leoma Lovegrove. Work in areas of Edison Ford and at The Marina at Edison Ford. Lunch on your own at Pinchers with Leoma.

During these intimate sessions, Leoma will not only provide instruction in painting and collage, she will also offer one-on-one critiques of the works each participant produces. At the same time, she will share stories about van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, Bonnard and other French impressionists that she’s learned from the locals while painting in Monet’s gardens in Giverny, creating art on board a replica the floating studio that carried him up and down the Seine, exhibiting in Pierre Bonnard’s home and travelling throughout the surrounding countryside just as these masters of Impressionism did more than 100 years ago. See why painting outdoors is so inviting and popular.

Space is limited, so early registration is recommended. Tuition is $350 for Edison Ford Members and $375 for non-members. To register, please contact the Edison and Ford Winter Estates by calling (239) 334-7419 for more information or click here to register.

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Artist Leoma Lovegrove to be first American to exhibit at Maison du Peintre Pierre Bonnard in Giverny, France (09-21-14)

Lovegrove’s “An American in Giverny” exhibition was created during her time aboard a replica of Monet’s Floating Studio, Le Bateau-Atelier, earlier this year. She will exhibit this work at Maison du Peintre Pierre Bonnard beginning October 4, becoming the first American to ever exhibit artwork in the home of the renowned Impressionist painter (1867-1947), where Monet’s floating studio is also docked.. Lovegrove will attend the opening reception and plans to paint aboard Le Bateau-Atelier again during the exhibition.

The Floating Studio Boat (Le Bateau-Atelier) is an exact replica of Monet’s 1800s floating studio and was launched for the first time during the spring of 2014. During her three hours as the first American aboard the studio, Leoma signed the boat and created twenty pieces of art in her signature impressionistic style for the “An American in Giverny” exhibition.

Lovegrove is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her energetic style and depictions of her environment at home and abroad. Located in the heart of Matlacha Island on the southwest coast of Florida, Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens is one of the most colorful landmarks in the Sunshine State. Learn more at: www.LeomaLovegrove.com.

“An American in Giverny” will run through October 12, 2014 at the former home of famous artist Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) where Monet’s floating studio is also docked

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Remembering Leoma Lovegrove’s ‘Remember 9-11 Tenth Year’ on 9-11 (09-09-14)

Everyone observes 9-11 in their own highly personal way. But on the tenth anniversary of the attacks, Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove felt that people in Southwest Florida needed a way to express their emotions about the life-altering event in a public, cathartic manner. So she took an 10 by 18 foot rolled canvas to various sites throughout Lee and Collier counties and invited folks to select the name of a victim at random and paint it on the canvas, which she planned to turn into a commemorative artwork during a ceremony taking place at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Click here to view a 3:50 minute U-Tube video on the thought behind Remember 9-11

To give as many people as possible a chance to participate in the community-wide and community-based art project, Lovegrove launched an ambitious 12-week tour during which she escorted the canvas to events at the Franklin Shops on First (during July’s Art Walk), the Red, White and Boom in Cape Coral on July 4th, Naples’ Dennison-Moran Gallery (August 7), Fox 4 Morning Blend (August 12), Iberia Bank in Cape Coral (August 12), Sam Galloway Ford in Fort Myers (August 13), The Shell Factory (August 14), Fort Myers Fire Station No. 6 on Veronica Shoemaker (August 18), Hotel Indigo in the River District (August 20), Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens in Sanibel (August 21), Sip and Send in Cape Coral (August 25 and 26), Bubba’s Roadhouse in Cape Coral and the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on September 11th.

Each event turned out to be highly emotional, with people sharing stories and reflected on where they were that day ten years ago. “Many, many tears,” Lovegrove recalled with a hitch in her voice as she reflected back on the events. “I have never seen so many.” A surprisingly large number of those who turned out lost a friend or family member in the attacks.

“Some people came with a list of names of people they’d lost,” Lovegrove related. “So the names of some of the victims have been painted on twice, but we don’t care.” And those who selected names at random from a glass bowl often forged bonds with the person whose name they chose. “They’d go home and Google the person’s name to learn more about him or her,” observed Kirsten Troyer, a friend of Lovegrove’s who volunteered to photograph many of the events.

Lovegrove had planned for the victims’ painted names to serve as backdrop for an American eagle that she would engraft over them during a Paint Out Loud performance at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on September 11. “[But] the names became so sacred that Leoma decided she couldn’t paint over them,” Fox 4 Morning Blend’s Carley Wegner reported to the Standing Room Only crowd who attended the emotionally-charged program. “So she started a separate painting of an American eagle that’s she going to finish today.”

Thus, one flag became two, and while both paintings now stand in tribute to those who died on 9/11, the soaring eagle against a bright orange background called Remember 9-11 Tenth Year hangs now in the library at Florida Gulf Coast University, where it will serve as a reminder of the fragility of life, heroism of those who took action that day in history, and that in spite of our too-often polarized politics, all Americans are bound together by love of flag, country and our fellow countrymen and women. From its new home perched high above the floor of the library at FGCU, Remember 9-11 Tenth Year will inspire students for years to come to dedicate themselves to compassion, community and country. It was added to FGCU’s public art collection in a ceremony that took place in the library on February 19, 2014.

Leoma Lovegrove is known for expressionist works characterized by exuberant strokes (applied to canvas not only via brushes of all sizes and shapes, but with her fingers and hands as well) and a palette bursting with vivid tropical color. While she is popularly associated with Florida motifs that include birds, fish, palms and coconuts, Lovegrove easily adapts her quasi-impressionist style to both portraiture and entertainment art. Her subjects have included former President Jimmy Carter (who hung his portrait in his presidential library in Atlanta) and Sir Richard Branson (whose portrait was commissioned for Virgin Airlines’ headquarters in London). And while Johnny Depp and Steven Tyler remain collector favorites, her Beatles Series was so well-received that it drew the attention of the City of Liverpool. The presidential library of George W. Bush also includes Lovegrove’s work, as do the private collections of actress Sharon Stone and actor Jesse Metcalf. To commemorate the unification of East and West Germany, Lovegrove’s work Focused was presented to the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Eva Alexandra, Countess Kenderffy. Lovegrove has garnered reviews in numerous magazines and art publications, and she was featured in February of 2012 in Galileo, a German television show that is viewed by more than 2.5 million people in five countries.

Lovegrove maintains her gallery, studios and botanical gardens on picturesque Matlacha Island, a popular tourist destination for visitors to southwest Florida. However, many art enthusiasts and collectors have become familiar with her work through her Painting Out Loud performances, during which Lovegrove completes an entire composition in a matter of minutes before a live audience to the accompaniment of inspirational music and a multi-colored light show. Her painting, Freedom, was created during such an event, as were Remember 9-11 and Remember 9-11 Tenth Year.

On February 19, 2012, Bradenton-based Bealls Department Store introduced a line of ladies and children’s apparel that features Lovegrove’s casual, colorful Florida motifs. They were such a hit with the store’s customers that Bealls decided in 2014 to expand their line of Lovegrove products to include handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more. The expanded product line is available in each of Bealls’ 74 department stores in the State of Florida, as well as online at: http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove , which will add to the prestige that FGCU enjoys from having Remember 9-11 Tenth Year included in its public art collection.

Lovegrove has a degree in illustration from the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, and has studied at ArtStudy Florida and the Guild de Beaux Arts and ArtStudy Giverny in France. She returns to Europe each spring to recharge her artistic batteries by sketching, drawing and painting in the cradle of the impressionist and expressionist movements.

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Lovegrove to teach plein air workshop on new Edison porch overlooking the historic gardens (09-09-14)

Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove will be teaching a Plein Air Impressionism Workshop at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers this fall. Workshop dates are November 12 and 13, 2014 and follows on the heels of Lovegrove’s sojourn to France in October, where she will paint in Monet’s gardens in Giverny and have an exhibition of her art in Bonnard’s former residence.

Participants of this class journey into the lush gardens of Edison Ford, while Leoma personally critiques each artist’s work through the painting process. The workshop will teach the basic principles of painting trees, landscapes, flowers, pathways, people, and nature with an impressionistic and abstract style.

Join Leoma and discover the excitement of Manet, Monet, Cezanne, van Gogh and other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters who vowed to abandon their studios in order to paint outdoors where they could study the effects of light and shadow on color, shape and the form of their motifs. See why painting outdoors is so inviting and popular. Even your smallest painting becomes a dramatic blast of color in this two-day workshop.

Tuition is $350 for Edison Ford members and $375 for non-members. Space is limited, so early registration is recommended. To register, please contact the Edison & Ford Winter Estates by calling 239-334-7419. And for more information about this class and Lovegrove’s other upcoming workshops at the Edison Ford Estates, please click here.

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Leoma Lovegrove selling Hurricane Charley art to benefit local chapter of American Red Cross (08-11-14)

This Wednesday marks the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Charley. Following the age-old adage of making lemonade when life deals you lemons, Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove converted hurricane debris into artwork. Today, she announced that she’s selling 12 pieces of that artwork for sale in order to benefit the local chapter of the American Red Cross.

“[My husband] Mike and I were traveling home from Michigan when Charley was striking Matlacha Island,” Leoma shares. “When we arrived, we began to clean up the mess at our gallery. Being the middle of the summer, it was unbearably hot. I noticed Mike had piled up over 200 feet of my pink fencing along the side of the road and it made me sad. Then, I had a Leoma moment. I retrieved all the fencing (it took an hour) and stashed it behind an unwanted shed. Mike was delighted (NOT).”

For years, Lovegrove made art out of pieces of the fencing and attached a little story about Hurricane Charley on the back of each one. Yesterday, she gathered up the 12 remaining pieces of art she’d made from the pink fence and put them on sale today for $100 each, with 100 percent of the sales price going to the American Red Cross Florida’s Southern Gulf Region (our local chapter).

“I remember how the Red Cross drove around the entire island and passed out water and boxed meals while we cleaned up our homes and businesses,” Leoma recalls. You can purchase the Hurricane Charley art at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens, 4637 Pine Island Rd. NW, Matlacha Island, Florida, or by phoning 239-283-6453. The gallery will ship it to you within the USA free of charge.

The American Red Cross Florida’s Southern Gulf Region serves Collier, Lee, Hendry and Glades counties. The American Red Cross is where people mobilize to help their neighbors—across the street, across the country, and across the world—in emergencies. Each year, in communities large and small, victims of some 70,000 disasters turn to neighbors familiar and new at the American Red Cross. To learn more, please visit American Red Cross Florida’s Southern Gulf Region.

Leoma Lovegrove is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her wildly vibrant depictions of the Florida lifestyle. Located in the heart of Matlacha Island on the southwest coast of Florida, Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens is one of the most colorful landmarks in the Sunshine State. To learn more, please visit LeomaLovegrove.com.

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Nova Paints endorses ‘Catch of Matlacha Island’ muralist Leoma Lovegrove (08-07-14)

In 2013, Matalacha artist Leoma Lovegrove rendered a mural on the post office that welcomes visitors to the island. Titled The Catch of Matlacha Island, the mural tells pictorially how an enclave of artists built The New Key West from the ashes of the fishing community that burned their boats when the net ban referendum went into effect in 1992. Lovegrove used Nova acrylic paint for the project, and now the California paint manufacturer is reciprocating by endorsing the Matlacha phenomenon.

Nova Color Artists’ Acrylic Paint is a top quality artists’ acrylic paint suitable for use on canvas, paper, fabric, wood, plaster, masonry, and most non-slick, non-oily surfaces. Nova Color Artists’ Acrylic Paint is used as a fine art paint and mural paint as well as for fabric painting, decorative painting, fiberglass sculpture painting, interior/exterior faux finishes, set painting, scenic painting, surfboard painting and handcraft painting. It is available in over 80 colors including the traditional artist’s colors plus iridescent paint, pearl paint, metallic paint and fluorescent (blacklight or UV) paint.

Nova is just the latest to recognize the impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her splashy, artistic depictions of the Florida lifestyle. Studios magazine is featuring Matlacha Island artist Leoma Lovegrove’s traveling studio in their Summer 2014 issue that is online now and on newsstands at popular retailers nationwide like Barnes & Noble, Michaels, A.C. Moore and Jo-Ann Fabrics. Earlier this year, Lovegrove enjoyed the honor of being the first American to paint in Claude Monet’s Floating Studio, Le Bateau-Atelier, near his gardens in Giverny, France, and was also invited by Captain Bertrand de Vautibault and his wife to be the first American to exhibit her artwork at their adjacent home and gallery, Maison du Peintre Pierre Bonnard, where the boat is docked. On February 19, Florida Gulf Coast University added Lovegrove’s 10 x 18′ painting Remember 9-11 Tenth Year to its permanent public art collection, where it joins works by Albert Paley, Robert Roesch, Clyde Butcher and Karen Glaser. And in January, Bradenton-based Bealls Department Store expanded their line of Lovegrove products to include handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more in addition to the ladies’ casual wear and children attire they already carried.

Lovegrove operates out of her studio and gardens on Matlacha Island. Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is one of the most colorful landmarks in the Sunshine State. To learn more, please visit http://www.LeomaLovegrove.com.

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Rare YouTube footage shows Claude Monet painting outdoors in gardens at Giverny (07-09-14)

Leoma Lovegrove was recently given the honor of being the first American to paint in Claude Monet’s Floating Studio, Le Bateau-Atelier, near his gardens in Giverny, France. She was also invited by Captain Bertrand de Vautibault and his wife to be the first American to exhibit her artwork at their adjacent home and gallery, Maison du Peintre Pierre Bonnard, where the boat is docked. Lovegrove visits Giverny annually to recharge her artistic batteries and re-energize her joie de vivre by painting in Monet’s famous garden. But have you ever wondered what it would have been like to be in the gardens at Giverny while Monet was there, painting water lilies? Well wonder no more. Compliments of local artist Linda Busch Benson, enjoy this brief (2:26 minute) YouTube footage of Monet painting en plein air at Giverny.

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Lovegrove traveling studio featured on cover of Summer 2014 edition of Studios Magazine (07-04-14)

Studios magazine is featuring Matlacha Island artist Leoma Lovegrove’s traveling studio in their Summer 2014 issue that is online now and on newsstands at popular retailers nationwide like Barnes & Noble, Michaels, A.C. Moore and Jo-Ann Fabrics.

“It is an honor to be chosen for their cover and the 7-page feature where they highlight traveling artist studios,” says Lovegrove. “The Studios summer issue is available in stores and online. I also have a link to the publication on the homepage of my website at LeomaLovegrove.com.”

Lovegrove’s mobile studio is a 14-foot vintage camper from the 1960s. Leoma and her husband, Michael, originally bought it so they could travel with their parrot, Solomon. Over the years, however, Leoma found herself spending more and more time using it as an art retreat so she could keep creating while she was on vacation. Eventually, it became a full-fledged traveling studio.

Cherie Haas, Online Editor for ClothPaperScissors.com said, “This issue makes me long for a road trip. I can’t imagine what it would be like to create as freely as artists like Leoma. One of the beautiful things about magazines like Studios is that they connect us with others who share the same passions. It seems like every paragraph of this article pulled me in closer to Lovegrove, as we have so many things in common.”

“In my mobile studio, I like to surround myself with things that inspire me, such as photos, letters, inspirational quotes, and—of course—good music,” Leoma reveals. “I have filled the walls with both completed and in-progress artwork, and wearable art hangs in the closet. I am thrilled to have the readers of Studios Magazine across the nation take a look inside. I always enjoy reading Studios and seeing the creative ways in which other artists are expressing themselves.”

Studios takes readers inside the creative spaces of artists who paint, bead, collage, quilt, knit, felt, assemble, stitch, and dream, with dozens of tips and tricks from artists and professionals. Studios is a special issue of Cloth Paper Scissors published quarterly by Interweave, a division of F+W Media, Inc. To learn more, please visit clothpaperscissors.com.

“The feature in Studios magazine is a look not just into my traveling studio, but also into what inspires me to create each day,” Lovegrove adds. “I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing my story.”

Leoma Lovegrove is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her depictions of the Florida lifestyle. Located in the heart of Matlacha Island on the southwest coast of Florida, Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is one of the most colorful landmarks in the Sunshine State. To learn more, please visit http://www.LeomaLovegrove.com.

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Franklin Shops to feature Leoma Lovegrove pop-up gallery on Independence Day (07-01-14)

Leoma Lovegrove will be inside the Franklin Shops on First during Independence Day, and she is inviting the public to come and paint flags with her from 3-9 p.m. The flags that are painted will be part of a collaborative piece to benefit and promote the Pride & Patriotism performance held at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall later this year, on November 6. The Franklin Shops on First are located at 2200 First Street in the downtown Fort Myers River District. The event is free and open to the public.

Pride & Patriotism of Lee County is an organization that works in partnership with the Southwest Florida Symphony, all public schools in Lee County, and various veterans organizations to promote the spirit of patriotism in schools and our community. Its November performance at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall will showcase local students and their patriotic thoughts and talents musically, poetically and visually while honoring our veterans. For more information, please visit http://www.PrideandPatriotism.org.

Vino’s Picasso has graciously agreed to donate all supplies for the patriotic pop-up art event at Franklin shops. this benefits lee co schools Pride & Patriotism event for Nov. 6 at bb Mann

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Having painted on Monet’s floating studio, Lovegrove to exhibit in Bonnard’s home next (06-22-14)

The Studio Boat (Le Bateau-Atelier) is an exact replica of Monet’s 1800’s studio and was launched for the first time this summer. During her three hours aboard the studio, Leoma signed the boat and created twenty pieces of art in her signature impressionistic style. She was invited to exhibit the pieces she created at Pierre Bonnard’s home and private gallery, Maison du peintre Pierre Bonnard, in October of this year.

“I have always been inspired by Monet and am very grateful to James Priest, the head gardener of Monet’s gardens, for extending such a gracious offer to have me be the first American aboard,” said Lovegrove. “I have been painting and teaching in Giverny for more than 10 years and continue to find inspiration from my trips to France. When I first saw a painting of Monet’s floating studio years ago I came back to Matlacha Island and created my own floating studio at my gallery and gardens.”

Lovegrove is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her depictions of the Florida lifestyle. Located in the heart of Matlacha Island on the southwest coast of Florida, Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens is one of the most colorful landmarks in the Sunshine State. To learn more, please visit http://www.LeomaLovegrove.com.

The Studio Boat (Le Bateau-Atelier) is an exact replica of Monet’s floating studio. It is docked at the former home of famous French painter Pierre Bonnard near Monet’s gardens. The owner of the home, Captain Bertrand de Vautibault, had the boat built to allow painters to sail on the Seine in search of the best scenery. The boat will be used for painters who wish to navigate the footsteps of Impressionists such as Monet and Bonnard.

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Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove hosting patriotic pop-up art studio in Franklin Shops on July 4 (06-12-14)

Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove is hosting a pop-up art gallery at the Franklin Shops on July 4th. It’s your opportunity to display your patriotism in artistic form.

“Join me at The Franklin Shops on First Street in the cool air-conditioning and paint with me,” Lovegrove invites. “I will be painting live to patriotic music and you are welcome to join in and paint an American Flag with me.” The flags that are painted will be part of collaboration piece to benefit and promote Lee County School Corp production of the Pride & Patriotism event to be held in November at Barbara B. Mann. “Special celebrity guests will join in to paint throughout the event,” the artist adds.

Lovegrove has created an event page so that you can follow her on Facebook.

Leoma Lovegrove is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her splashy, artistic depictions of the Florida lifestyle. In addition to a degree in illustration from the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, Lovegrove has also studied at the Guild de Beaux Arts, ArtStudy Giverny and ArtStudy Florida. When she is not painting in her studio at Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens on picturesque Matlacha Island, creating colorful fashions for Bealls Department Store or promoting southwest Florida for the Visitors and Convention Bureau, she loves to recharge her artistic batteries touring and painting in Europe with her author husband, Michael J. Silberg.

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Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove to be first American to paint on Claude Monet’s floating studio (05-19-14)

In 1874, Claude Monet decided to abandon his studio and never again paint a single stroke except in front of the motif. So he got a little boat, fitted it with an umbrella and easel, and set out along the Seine to explore the moods and the effects of light on the river scenery. Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove will soon become the first American to paint on Monet’s floating studio.

“An exact replica has been made and it was just launched a month ago,” reports Lovegrove, who is in Giverny, painting in Monet’s garden. “The head gardener at Monet’s garden has set it up for me. Along with floating on the Seine, they will drop anchor so I can paint an additional two hours.”

It is an incredible opportunity, replete with historical significance. Monet’s contemporary, Edouard Manet, became so inspired during a visit that he painted Claude working in his open-air studio. That painting now hangs in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich. Lovegrove has yet to announce where she’ll exhibit the works she produces aboard Monet’s floating studio.

Several local artists have also taken to the water to follow in Monet’s wide wake. Gardner Colby impressionist Frank Corso, for example, has been known to use a specially-rigged kayak as a floating outdoor art studio. “I paint from the kayak,” Corso told American Art Collector magazine for their February 2007 feature story (Vol. 16), “and am able to go down little rivers, drag an anchor and start painting on an easel I have bungee chorded to the kayak.” The rig allows Corso to access parts of the Everglades few people have ever seen. It also enables him to paint into the evening, which permits him to capture twilight and night scenes. “The great thing about painting with the moonlight,” Corso said in the American Art Collector interview, “is that it’s so bright you can paint with no assisted light and it’s surprising at how accurate you can be. The kayak also lets me maneuver through the mangroves and the mazes of waterways that are part of [the Everglades].”

Art Walk/Arts for ACT denizen Linda Benson has also taken a page out of Claude Monet’s playbook. She has outfitted a 46-foot 1969 Chris Craft vintage Aquahome that she’s dubbed Artist Xpress as an art studio and floating gallery which she uses to paint ghost shrimp boats, “Jaws-Sea-Art,” plein air paintings and other nautically-influenced motifs.

“I’ve had to extend my stay in Giverny [to take advantage of the floating studio opportunity],” Lovegrove adds in her email. Yeah, she’s bragging. To learn more about the artist and her art, please visit LeomaLovegrove.com.

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‘Have You Seen Jesus?’ portraits on exhibit at Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens during Holy Week (04-15-14)

Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens is hosting a new exhibit during Holy Week. Titled Have You Seen Jesus?, the exhibition features portraits of Christ that Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove has painted throughout the years. Many were painted live during special performances at various churches throughout the United States.

Large and small canvases will be on exhibit at her gallery during Holy Week from April 12 through April 19. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. The Gallery is located in the heart of Matlacha Island at 4637 Pine Island Rd. NW. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Leoma Lovegrove is an impressionist-expressionist painter known worldwide for her splashy, artistic depictions of the Florida lifestyle. Located in the heart of Matlacha Island on the southwest coast of Florida, Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens is one of the most colorful landmarks in the Sunshine State. To learn more, please visit http://www.LeomaLovegrove.com.

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Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens to celebrate Slow Art Day on April 12 (04-03-14)

Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens will be participating Slow Art Day on Saturday, April 12. You can celebrate the day with Leoma Lovegrove and guest artist Karen Jarstad from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Matlacha Island gallery, which is located at 4637 Pine Island Rd. NW. Then, following the event, guests are invited to meet at Miceli’s Waterfront Restaurant at 3930 Pine Island Road to discuss the art they’ve seen and enjoyed.

Slow Art Day is a worldwide celebration of art that encourages people to look at art SLOWLY – and thereby experience art in a new way. For Slow Art Day, Lovegrove will debut a new exhibition of paintings that contains numerous portraits of Christ that she has painted throughout the years. Many of them were painted live during special performances at various churches throughout the United States. These large and small canvases will remain on exhibit at her gallery during Holy Week. The exhibition will be open and available to the public between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. from its opening on Slow Art Day on April 12 through April 19.

To register for Slow Art Day, please visit slowartlovegrove2014.eventbrite.com. To learn more about Slow Art Day and the mission behind it, please go to http://www.SlowArtDay.com.

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The making of ‘Remember 9-11 Tenth Year,’ FGCU’s newest public artwork (03-11-14)

Click here to read a new article on Examiner about the making of Remember 9-11 Tenth Year, FGCU’s newest public artwork.

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FGCU adds Lovegrove painting to public art collection (03-10-14)

On February 19, Florida Gulf Coast University added a new painting to its public art collection. Titled Remember 9-11 Tenth Year, the work was rendered by Matlacha Island expressionist/impressionist artist Leoma Lovegrove in a live performance in front of a Standing Room Only crowd at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on September 11, 2011.

Remember 9-11 Tenth Year is a 10-by-18-foot acrylic painting depicting a bald eagle in flight against a field of lemon yellow, bright orange and red. Beneath the eagle’s talons are lists containing the names of the more than 3,000 victims who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 – in the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City, at the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and in a barren field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed following an attempt by passengers to regain control of the plane from four hijackers.

Lovegrove created the work on September 11, 2011 in front of a live audience at an emotional event held at the packed Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. “It was a time to honor the heroes,” Lovegrove explained at the February 19, 2014 dedication in Library West. “The eagle represents the power of America and that freedom will prevail.”

Although the expressionist/impressionist painter does not characterize herself as a wildlife artist, many varieties of birds and fish have appeared in her vibrant artwork over the years. “I’ve always painted the eagle, but never one this large,” she quipped during the ceremony. The regal bird is not only a national symbol; it also serves as FGCU’s mascot, which makes Florida Gulf Coast University a natural home for the painting.

The gift grew from a conversation Lovegrove had last year with FGCU President Wilson G. Bradshaw at a reception where the painting was displayed. “The eagle embodies a spirit of strength and freedom that we value at FGCU and instill in our students,” Bradshaw said at the dedication. “Leoma Lovegrove’s striking work of art is sure to inspire those who view it for many years to come.”

Donations of artwork, as well as monetary gifts to the university, are administered by the Florida Gulf Coast University Foundation. Remember 9-11 Tenth Year joins nearly 100 other artworks in Florida Gulf Coast University’s public art collection, which includes such notable monumental sculptures as Albert Paley’s Cross Currents, Robert Roesch’s Transition 2012, Brower Hatcher’s Archway, Depend du Soleil and Whatever You Say Dear by Mark Fuller, Clayton Swartz’s Skyward, and Verve by fused glass artist Michele Gutlove. Lovegrove also has public artworks in the collections of the City of Fort Myers and Matlacha Island.

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Beall’s hosting Lovegrove “Meet the Artist’ and ‘Painting Live’ performance February 4 (02-03-14)

Beall’s Department Store and Florida artist Leoma Lovegrove will be showcasing Lovegrove’s exclusive new line with Bealls with a “Meet the Artist” event for guests and media at the Fort Myers Bealls Department Store at Cypress Trace Shopping Center on Tuesday, February 4. The event also includes a Painting Live performance beginning at 11:00 a.m., with an autograph session to follow.

Bealls is now offering Lovegrove’s stunning renditions of Florida to customers statewide. Lovegrove’s vibrant, tropical art in multiple product lines including ladies and children’s apparel, handbags, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more is available in all of Beall’s 74 department stores located in Florida as well as online at http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove. Beall’s Department Stores is a division of Bealls, Inc. Privately held since its opening in 1915, the Bradenton-based company now operates more than 540 stores in 16 states under the names Bealls, Bealls Outlet and Burke’s Outlet. To learn more about Bealls, please visit BeallsFlorida.com.

Cypress Trace Shopping Center is located at 13300 S Cleveland Avenue, Fort Myers, FL 33907-3871.

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Bealls launches expanded Lovegrove product line online and in 74 Florida department stores (01-24-14)

Last February, Bradenton-based Bealls Department Store introduced a line of ladies and children’s apparel that featured the casual, colorful Florida motifs of Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove. They’ve been such a hit with the store’s customers that Bealls decided to expand their line of Lovegrove products to include handbags, totes, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more. The new products were rolled out yesterday at the Bealls Department Store at Cypress Trace Shopping Center in Fort Myers.

“We wanted to share the Florida we know and love with the people who shop in our stores,” noted Bealls President Lorna Nagler at yesterday’s launch. “So two years ago we began searching for an artist whose work would translate well into the kinds of products our customers want and appreciate.” Although the company interviewed a large number of candidates, “Leoma had this spark that let us know right away that she was the artist for us.” Of course, the company convened focus groups and conducted extensive market research and analysis. “But when her tees figuratively flew off the shelves, we knew we really had something special with Leoma.”

The expanded product line is available in each of Bealls’ 74 department stores in the State of Florida, as well as online at: http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove, which should give Matlacha Island and Southwest Florida added name recognition and a potential boost in tourism since each item identifies Lovegrove as an impressionist/expressionist artist from Matlacha.

During the event, Lovegrove shared her inspiration with a group of nearly 200 Bealls executives, employees, customers and well-wishers by painting live on a stage set up in the Misses Department of the Cypress Trace Shopping Center store. “When people ask how long it takes me to complete a painting,” Leoma told the group as she tossed hand-painted frisbees into the audience, “I tell them 3 and 30. Three minutes and 30 years of experience.” It took slightly longer than three minutes yesterday, but the folks who turned out for yesterday’s launch were astounded nonetheless as Lovegrove worked with all sized brushes and even her fingers to bring a magenta and purple seahorse to life on the Bealls stage.

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Bealls and Lovegrove announce launch party for new product lines (01-20-14)

Beall’s Department Store and Leoma Lovegrove are introducing Lovegrove’s exclusive new product lines at Bealls Department Store at Cypress Trace Shopping Center at 3 p.m. on Thursday, January 23, 2014. In addition to Lovegrove’s ladies and children’s apparel, Bealls is adding handbags, luggage, beach towels, Tervis drinkware and more.

This event is being hosted by Bealls Department Store President Lorna Nagler. During the event, Lovegrove will “Paint Out Loud” as she shares her inspiration for the new lines. Guests will also get a sneak peak of originals from the collection at the event. Light refreshments will be provided as well as a special giveaway for attendees. Please RSVP to springrsvp@beallsinc.com by January 21 if you would like to attend.

“For all of our friends up North who may not be able to attend, Leoma’s vibrant, tropical colors are now being featured on a variety of products not just at Beall’s Department Stores statewide, but also online at: http://www.beallsflorida.com/online/leoma-lovegrove,” notes Bealls in the press release announcing the event. Beall’s Department Stores is a division of Bealls, Inc. Privately-held since its opening in 1915, the Bradenton-based company now operates more than 540 stores in 17 states under the names Bealls, Bealls Outlet and Burke’s Outlet. To learn more about Bealls, please visit BeallsFlorida.com.

The Bealls in Cypress Trace Shopping Center is located at 13300 S Cleveland Avenue, Fort Myers, FL.

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Matlacha’s Lovegrove kicks off ‘Painting Peace’ campaign at Marco’s Blue Mangrove Gallery (01-18-14)

Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove kicked off her Painting Peace campaign on Thursday in Marco Island at Blue Mangrove Gallery. Dozens attending her solo show had the opportunity to imagine peace as they painted peace symbols on a museum-quality 9 by 12 foot canvas that Lovegrove carted to Blue Mangrove expressly for that purpose.

Inspired by the upcoming Yoko Ono exhibition at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, Painting Peace is a collaborative project designed to enable thousands of Southwest Florida residents and visitors to imagine peace in an experiential, artistic way. Lovegrove is accomplishing this objective by taking the 9 x 12 foot canvas to various locations around Southwest Florida and inviting the public paint peace symbols on it in various shades of blue.

At the opening of her solo show at Blue Mangrove on January 16, Lovegrove provided attendees with brushes and ten shades of blue paint. As each applied the acrylic paint to the canvas, Lovegrove asked them to imagine what life in 2014 would be like if there was “nothing to kill or die for” and “no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.” Lovegrove also spread the word about the exhibition of Yoko Ono’s conceptual art that opens January 24 at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery.

Yoko Ono Imagine Peace presents several of the artist’s most current works, re-imagined anew for the installation at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, which is located on the Lee campus of Edison State College. Four recent works, Wish Tree (1996/2014), Imagine Peace Maps (2003/2014), Onochord (2003/2014) and Imagine Peace Tower (2006/2014) offer gallery visitors an opportunity to participate individually and collectively with the artist in the realization of the work. Passages of Light, a video that chronicles the conceptualization and construction of the Imagine Peace Tower, and reinterpretations of the works Parts of a Lighthouse and Mend Piece (for Fort Myers, Florida), are also featured in the exhibition. Play It By Trust, a monochrome chessboard and all white-painted lawn-sized game pieces, invites visitors to experience a playful metaphor for the futility and confusion of all types of conflict – where differentiation between opposing sides is difficult if not impossible to distinguish, and the commonality of opponents is exposed.

The show has been presented in several other venues, but the installation at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery is being configured in direct collaboration with Yoko Ono to reflect the Gallery’s mission and its role as a learning laboratory. The exhibition opens on Friday, January 24 with a Gallery Talk by co-curator Kevin Concannon in the Rush Auditorium in Building J that starts at 6:00 p.m. and reception from 7:00-9:00 p.m. The exhibition will continue through March 29, 2014.

Although Lovegrove is working independently of the artist, Concannon, and the Rauschenberg Gallery, she hopes to inspire people who come in contact with her and the project in much the same way that the Rauschenberg exhibit and associated Imagine Peace billboard on Cleveland Avenue will positively impact those who see them. “I have been a Beatles fan all my life,” Lovegrove expounds. “This is the 50th anniversary of the British invasion, and even today, portraits of John Lennon are highly coveted by the people who visit my gallery on Matlacha Island. One of John’s most touching songs is Imagine, and I know that the lyrics were inspired in part by Yoko.” (Back in the 1960s, Ono created so-called “instruction paintings” that were nothing more than textual instructions for imagining scenes or objects that would fill empty frames. One of those conceptual paintings was called Cloud Piece, whose instructions begin “Imagine clouds dripping ….” That thought fragment later inspired Lennon’s 1971 song Imagine, which John recorded with Yoko by his side.)

Lovegrove has yet to set dates for her other Painting Peace events, but she intends to “keep it on the islands – Sanibel Island, Captiva Island, Pine Island, Staten Island, Long Island, Anna Marie Island, Useppa Island and so on.” And between events, the canvas will reside on Matlacha Island, where the 500 or so people who visit Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens each day will have the opportunity to add their painted blue peace symbol to the 9 x 12 support.

For more information about Painting Peace, please call Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens at 239-283-6453 or follow Painting Peace on Facebook. The gallery is located at 4637 Pine Island Road NW, Matlacha, Florida 33993.

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Lovegrove announces ‘Painting Peace’ collaboration with Southwest Florida residents and visitors (01-08-14)

Inspired by the upcoming Yoko Ono exhibition at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove has announced a collaborative project that will enable thousands of Southwest Florida residents and visitors to “Imagine Peace” in an artistically experiential way. Between January 17 and March 29, Lovegrove will encourage folks to “imagine all the people living life in peace” by painting a peace symbol in various shades of blue on a museum-quality 9 by 12 foot canvas that she will take to various locations throughout the area.

“I plan to kick off the campaign at Blue Mangrove on January 17,” reports Lovegrove, who has a solo show opening at the Marco Island gallery on that date. Lovegrove will have the canvas, brushes and ten shades of blue paint set up at the gallery so that guests attending her opening can paint peace signs on the canvas while imagining what life in 2014 would be like if there were “nothing to kill or die for” and “no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.”

“Some people will paint ovals or circles, others squares. Some will have hearts inside. It’s completely up to each individual to decide what their peace symbol will look like,” explains Lovegrove, who is thrilled that Yoko Ono’s conceptual art will be represented in Fort Myers at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery. “Art brings people together. It unites people.” Which is precisely what Yoko Ono Imagine Peace co-curators Kevin Concannon and John Noga and Rauschenberg Gallery Director Jade Dellinger hope will happen at and as a consequence of the Ono exhibition.

The magic of Yoko Ono Imagine Peace is that it works on the collective zeitgiest first of the audience, then of the surrounding community, and ultimately the entire world. Say “imagine peace” enough, and you will. Write your individual wish for peace on a tag and attach it to Yoko’s Wish Tree, and you have converted thoughts to action. Hear that your wish has joined more than a million others at the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, and you may just come to believe that peace is not just possible, but inevitable if enough energized people come to share that dream.

And that conviction lies at the heart of Lovegrove’s Painting Peace initiative. Although Lovegrove is working independently of the artist, Concannon, Noga and Dellinger, she hopes to inspire people who come in contact with her and her project in much the same way that the Rauschenberg exhibit and the Imagine Peace billboard on Cleveland Avenue will positively impact those who see them. “I have been a Beatles fan all my life,” Lovegrove expounds. “This is the 50th anniversary of the British invasion, and even today, portraits of John Lennon are highly coveted by the people who visit my gallery on Matlacha Island. One of John’s most touching songs is Imagine, and I know that the lyrics were inspired in part by Yoko.”

Back in the 1960s, Ono created so-called “instruction paintings” that were nothing more than textual instructions for imagining scenes or objects that would fill empty frames. One of those conceptual paintings was called Cloud Piece, whose instructions begin “Imagine clouds dripping ….” That thought fragment later inspired Lennon’s 1971 song Imagine, which he recorded with Yoko by his side.

While Lovegrove is deeply religious (husband Mike is a preacher and author of religious books), it’s not hard for Lovegrove to imagine people living for today. Or attending her Painting Peace events in order to express their own frustrations with the continuous stream of wars and rumors or war that fill the headlines and news feeds of every paper, news cast and social media outlet. “Painting Peace will enable members of our community to think about war, and the impact it’s had on them personally, and imagine what it would be like if everyone could just get along and live peacefully,” Lovegrove adds.

Tangentially, Painting Peace will serve to draw attention to Yoko Ono Imagine Peace, a result that Lovegrove will buttress by having literature at each venue that tells people about Wish Tree and urges them to go to the Rauschenberg Gallery so that they can attach their personal wish for peace to the tree. All the wishes collected during the two-month exhibit will be sent to Yoko, who will forward them to the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, where more than a million other wishes await.

She also hopes that Painting Peace will inspire others throughout Southwest Florida to give voice to their own reactions to both Yoko’s art and the Imagine Peace billboard on Tamiami Trail.

Leoma undertook a similarly ambitious project in 2011 in conjunction with the 10-year observance of 9-11. In Remember 9-11, people chose the name of a victim from a fish bowl and then painted it on an even larger, 12 x 20 foot canvas. “It not only allowed them to process their own deeply emotional feelings about that tragedy, but to connect to the victim whose name they drew. Many actually researched the victim on their laptops and tablets while they were still at the event. Some even contacted the family to tell them that they’d painted their loved one on the canvas,” relates Lovegrove, who shared in their pain and catharsis during the course of the 4-month Remember 9-11 tour.

Lovegrove has yet to set dates for her other Painting Peace events, but she intends to “keep it on the islands – Sanibel Island, Captiva Island, Pine Island, Staten Island, Long Island, Anna Marie Island, Useppa Island and so on.” And between events, the canvas will reside on Matlacha Island, where the 500 or so people who visit Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens each day will have the opportunity to add their painted blue peace symbol to the 9 x 12 support.

For more information, please call Lovegrove Gallery & Gardens at 239-393-2405 or follow Painting Peace on Facebook. The gallery is located at 4637 Pine Island Road NW, Matlacha, Florida 33993.

For more information on Lovegrove’s show and Painting Peace event at Blue Mangrove Gallery, please telephone 239-393-2405, email bluemangrovegallery@gmail.com or visit http://bluemangrovegallery.com/. Blue Mangrove Gallery is located in Suite 417 of the Marco Town Center, 1089 N Collier Blvd., Marco Island, FL 34145.

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Bealls expanding line of Lovegrove painted apparel and merchandise (01-01-14)

Matlacha artist Leoma Lovegrove closed out 2013 with a splash. The Business Observer reported two days after Christmas that starting in January, Beall’s Department Stores is rolling out Lovegrove art on all sorts of products, from apparel, handbags and beach towels to drink ware.

“Beall’s is expanding Lovegrove’s products in response to positive results from ladies’ tops adorned with her art that have sold well in stores this year,” the Observer noted, adding that “Lovegrove’s success brings to mind Guy Harvey, whose fish now adorn countless shirts and other goods at stores such as Bass Pro Shops. His art is particularly popular among sport fishermen.

The new product lines build on the popularity of T-shirts that feature hand-painted renditions of Florida life including sea life, birds and Florida landscapes bursting with tropical color, vibrant tones and brilliant hues. “Bealls is committed to bringing fresh and unique merchandise to our customers,” said Beall’s Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Sean Sondreal when introducing the line in February of 2013. “We are thrilled to partner with local artist Leoma Lovegrove in an exclusive collection. Ms. Lovegrove’s striking depictions of our Florida lifestyle make her collection a perfect addition to our Women’s Department.”

Lovegrove is known for expressionist works characterized by exuberant strokes and a palette bursting with vivid tropical color. While she is popularly associated with Florida motifs that include birds, fish, palms and coconuts, Lovegrove easily adapts her quasi-impressionist style to both portraiture and entertainment art. Her subjects have included former President Jimmy Carter (whose portrait hangs in his presidential library in Atlanta) and Sir Richard Branson (whose portrait was commissioned for Virgin Airlines’ headquarters in London). The presidential library of George W. Bush also includes Lovegrove’s work, as do the private collections of actress Sharon Stone and actor Jesse Metcalf.

Lovegrove maintains her gallery, studios and a botanical gardens in picturesque Matlacha, a popular tourist destination for visitors to southwest Florida. The artist holds a degree in illustration from the Ringling School of Art & Design in Sarasota, and has studied at ArtStudy Florida and the Guild de Beaux Arts and ArtStudy Giverny in France. She returns to Europe each spring to recharge her artistic batteries by sketching, drawing and painting in the cradle of the impressionist and expressionist movements.

Bealls Department Stores is a division of Bealls, Inc. Privately held since its opening in 1915, the Bradenton-based retail store now operates more than 540 outlets in 17 states under the names Bealls, Bealls Outlet and Burke’s Outlet. To learn more about Bealls, or to shop online, please visit BeallsFlorida.com.

About the Author

Tom Hall is both an amateur artist and aspiring novelist who writes art quest thrillers. He is in the final stages of completing his debut novel titled "Art Detective," a story that fictionalizes the discovery of the fabled billion-dollar Impressionist collection of Parisian art dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune, thought by many to have perished during World War II when the collection's hiding place, Castle de Rastignac in southern France, was destroyed by the Wehrmacht in reprisal for attacks made by members of the Resistance operating in the area. A former tax attorney, Tom holds a bachelor's degree as well as both a juris doctorate and masters of laws in taxation from the University of Florida. Tom lives in Estero, Florida with his fiancee, Connie, and their four cats.

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