World traveler and local painter Eileen Seitz has been a regular at the South Miami Art Festival for 12 years.  “I was born in Manhattan in the concrete jungle. When I began

The Giclee (or fine art print, original is sold) of “Side by Side” is a simple wooden dock image from Camden, Maine with colorful canoes resting alongside each other in a tranquil sapphire bay at sunset. 

The 28^th Annual South Miami Rotary Art Festival is open from 10am to 6pm February 25 and 26 on Sunset Drive between US1 and Red Road.  In addition to hundreds of artists

from around the country exhibiting, there will be a children’s alley on SW 57 Court, a multinational food court, live music, not for profit association tabling, raffle tickets and

beer and soda sales to benefit Rotary’s charities. 

For more information about the festival visit southmiamiartfest.org.

To find out about Rotary, visit the Rotary booth in front of headquarters on the festival site.

 

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Sea Turtle Oversight Protection www.SeaTurtleOP.org,  commissioned Eileen Seitz to paint this magnificent night scene of a turtle returning to sea.

6″ x 9″ Postcards were printed and placed into the hotel bedrooms along Broward County’s Beaches to guide and ask the guests to close the blinds at night before they leave the room.

STOP is a sea turtle conservation organization that is dedicated to the scientific and educational aspects of the human impacts to sea turtles on Broward County’s beaches, nationally and internationally.

Our primary directive is to humanly rescue the hatchlings from injury and death caused by
disorientation due to artificial illumination of the nesting habitat.
The science is obtained from our collection of data through real time observation and FWC
approved night vision cameras filming the nightly hatch outs and disorientation events of
endangered and threatened sea turtle hatchlings.

This data is compiled, organized, updated and available to the public via our website.
The data pool is the most extensive and accurate disorientation database in the state
of Florida to date operated by a private nonprofit.

Coconut Grove Childrens Mosaic Mural- US Post Office

Commissioner Marc Sarnoff ( and his Chief-of-Staff, Ron Nelson)
enabled and encourage Cyndy and Eileen to proceed with this project.

Major Conributors, Ron Nelson
Juan Carlos Ruiz (who donated the tiles for the mosaic.)

January 2011 and the tiles and thinset, grout have arrived!. Cyndy sits on the mound.

Cyndy, Eileen and Cynthia Shelly sit by the tiles outside of Shake-a-Leg, Miami, holding the blown up patterns made of the childrens original art works.

Eileen with the actual artwork created by the children from Shake-a-Leg, Miami and The Barnyard Center.

Here Cyndy and Eileen began the scoring of mosaic tile which were then made into color boards, by name, color and title. This is what we used to assemble all the elements.

Chris helps Cyndy cut tile Assistants Helen and Claudia cut tile.

Kids from Coconut Grove Elementary Leonard from The Barnyard Center
having a great time painting the patterns.

Sylvia from The Barnyard Center paints with Cyndy Cyndy pulling tiles

Eileen and Mary work on the yellow and blue fish… The original pattern – the fished mosaic.

This is the largest fish, spanning 4 feet

Eileen sits next to the BIG FISH

Helen creates the beautful blue anemone Eileen works on the pink and yellow fish

Here is the blown up pattern Completed fish

Cyndy teaches Melissa at the Net
Emilio and Daehmun make the sun at The Barnyard Center

Nancy is happy with her clouds
Julian and friend make the golden star fish

Brandy, Qeddrick and Drequan work on the grasses

Eileen paints the mangrove, sand and grass.
Shaun our assistant at The Barnyard lays out the life size patterns

Herman works on a Jelly fish Fiona works on the clouds

Cyndy and I are measuring the tree, grass and sand area to make this into 30″ x 30″ panels.

Working with Lindas completed fish Cyndy and I added the beginnings of the water, and tree in this panel. The puzzle pieces are coming to life.

Cyndy and I sit on the layed out artwork, picking and placing where they best fit, according to the original watercolor I painted using the kids artwork as the inspiration.

Stacks of carboard holding the completed elements. Cyndy and I worked from 12:00 noon to 11:00 pm just making it right.

Cyndy laying out a grid for 55 panels. This is how her mind sees things.

Plastic bags for us to use for each particular panel, will hold the broken tiles so we can complete the water around the elements.

Here Cyndy and I pull the broken tile per panel.
This is one of the completed panels.