08/17/2026
This is one of the pieces I'm working on for my Notions of Resiliency project. Changing Tides is a cluster of classic old florida cottages in Maderia Beach Florida. Many small cottages were built at ground level in the 40s and 50s to accommodate tourists visiting the beaches. I stayed at Changing Tides a few times in the orange cottage featured in this image. Canal front docks allowed me to bring my boat and tie up right outside of the cottage's covered porch. The Intracoastal waterway and Johns Pass are easily accessible to this location. I have sweet memories of this place, the kind of place where strangers feel like family. I had some stone carvings in a gallery at the boardwalk, one of which was stolen...but that's another story.
I stopped in a couple of months after Hurricane Milton and Helene passed to see how the place fared. Not well...being ground level...not well at all. You could still see the flood waterline just above the chair, below the window frame when I took a photo and drew this quick sketch. All of the interiors were ruined. Some clean up had been accomplished but the screens and some windows were askew, sliding glass doors missing, the remaining ones smeared with mud and torn, soiled floor length curtains shredded by the storm were gently swaying in the warm noontime breeze, wafting back and forth from the little living room, out to the porch and back with no glass door for a barrier. It was a haunting scene. As I surveyed the damage my good memories bounced around my mind echoing laughter and the quiet times this place provided so many, myself included over the many decades this place sometimes struggled and more often thrived.
After the storms someone placed a chair, spider plant and cement block just outside of the door most often used to enter this cottage. It's the door I used. A resting place during clean-up? A peaceful place to contemplate the sunset? A spot to warm up in the sun? All of that perhaps but I'll never know. So many times after storms someone places a chair in the midst of recovery where a home or business was severely damaged or destroyed, sometimes even completely washed away. Seeing these chairs gives me a feeling of hope, a glimpse of humanity and is evidence of the resiliency of the human spirit when faced with often overwhelming loss and determination required to regain some sense of normalcy.
So, I'm doing this project to honor folks determined efforts as the old Florida coastline I grew up with and love undergoes changes by the force of nature. Sea levels are rising. It's measurable as well as are temperatures. Plants, animals and bird regions are changing. I'm old enough to see the changes myself. I'm stubborn and I don't want things to change. But here we are. Resiliency is the key.
48x48 oil on canvas
