Latest Press Release- North Florida Muse Melrose Bay Gallery July 2009

North Florida Muse

Linda Blondheim’s new North Florida Muse exhibit at Melrose Bay Gallery on State Road 26, Melrose, Florida is a “must see.”
Dates of Exhibit:
7/01/2009- 7/26/2009

Opening:
Saturday July 11, 2009
10AM-4PM

Gallery Hours:
Saturdays 10AM-6PM
Sundays 1-5PM
Come join Linda for a Hot Dog picnic and enjoy her paintings.
Blondheim is passionate about her beloved north Florida. Her farms and ranches show pristine pastures that house fat cattle, ranging in color from honey to sienna to mahogany and jet black. Majestic, long-armed, mossy oaks and tall, graceful palms guard the cattle as they graze along historic Orange Lake. On the land side of County Road 225 in Evinston, Blondheim paints at graceful and elegant Fair Oaks Farm with her French Bulldog Henry.
Whether she focuses on landscapes, rivers and lakes, or, in her new series, Florida Farms and Ranches, Blondheim throws every bit of her skill into artistically capturing and preserving the South in which she was born, has raised her daughters,and is a self-supporting artist. Blondheim’s paintings about farms and ranches will include such historic land owned by farmer Freddie Wood and his wife Wilma Sue Wood of the Wood Swink Post Office, the oldest working post office in Florida, a combination antique store, post office and produce market. Through her reverent depictions, you’ll be invited to step back in time, pull a chair near the old wood stove, play checkers, and buy a cola out of an old metal drink box.

Says Blondheim, "Freddie Wood and I have a dream to make Evanston [FL} an art destination. There is an old shack on the Wood farm that could be re built into a painter's cabin for visiting painters. The Wood Swink could become a fine gallery for original Florida landscapes. The large packing shed could become an art center for classes and workshops. We hope that a benefactor will come forward to help preserve this wonderful Florida town for artists and visitors.”
Through her north Florida Muse you’ll see beef cattle, feed sheds, barns, packing houses, fish camps, and fields of tall grasses.
Take a pictorial stroll on such horse farms as Town and Country (a thoroughbred breeding facility in McIntosh) and Rabbit Hill Farms located on county road 320, owned by Louise and Kiki Courtelis.
You’ll imagine you hear cattle lowing and owls hooting. Blondheim’s painted world is the rural South, the music of nature, and the visions of the critters, all just as desperate as you to escape the city’s lights, noise, and congestion.
Deeply committed to Southern Culture—what she knows, understands, and loves—Blondheim is also a realist. A supporter of the Alachua County Land Trust and Florida Land Trust, she realizes that not only is she painting what she knows, but she is preserving it as well. Barns may collapse from disuse and time, horses and cattle may become displaced by human “development,” but Blondheim’s paintings will capture and save forever the South that once was, still is but less so, and that may disappear into Progress.

Blondheim says of her North Florida Muse series, “Natural Florida is our state treasure. We must preserve these beautiful lands, rivers, marshes and crystal springs with their culture as a historical testament to the real Florida that is rapidly vanishing. My North Florida Muse series is a tribute to the farmers, ranchers, land and water conservationists of Florida.”
For additional information, see:

Linda Blondheim
Studio 386.462.5726
http://www.lindablondheim.com




lindablondheim@gmail.com

http://linda-blondheim.blogspot.com
-For collectors


http://melrosebayartgallery.com/home.html



http://www.cowartandmore.com

http://www.floridaseden.org/guide/index.php- about the Wood Swink.

http://www.amelianow.com/winter00-cattle.htm cattle industry history in Florida

http://floridacrackerlivinghistory.com/

http://home.comcast.net/~711trish/flcrack.html