Many of Miami's creatives are transient, showing up on our shores and disappearing as quickly as the tides. The Art on the Street series will document this overlooked and ever-changing element of South Beach culture.
On the northwest corner of the sidewalk outside Walgreen's on Lincoln Road, a woman's lanky body is folded in on itself in a position that looks almost prayer-like. She wears a magenta head wrap draped around her head, despite the thick afternoon heat. She is surrounded by small tubes of paint, pencils, circular stencils, and pen and watercolor renderings pinned to the sidewalk by candles.
Before she tells me her name, she relates a murky and less than
linear account of the last six years, involving a husband lost to
colorectal cancer, conspiracy, poverty, and homelessness. As she talks,
her eyes often go wide, revealing a lot of yellowing white around her
milky blue-rimmed irises. It appears that most of her teeth are gone.
She's 55 years old.
