When I was an art columnist for the St. Augustine Record, I often went from gallery to gallery "fishing" for a story line. No pun intended, but this time I actually found images of fish at Wendy Tatter's gallery uptown. The last weekend each month, Wendy invites local artists to show at her gallery. Jeannie Fitzpatrick's fish in watercolors were inspired by her own fly fishing excursions. Hanging next to these was one of Alexander Holborn's impressive steel fish wall sculpture. Wendy's batik "Pond of Koi" heads south for the month of August to Arts on Douglas in New Smyrna Beach. Road trip!

I met the green fairy in person. That's right. It all took place in the nation's oldest city, St. Augustine, Florida. For those of you who may not know, the green fairy is associated with the European libation referred to as absinthe. Pennsylvania artist John Pacovsky draws live model Kathleen Godwin into his Absenthe campaign ads for Crillon Imports. Michel Roux, owner of Absolute Americana Gallery on Bridge Street, commissioned the assignment. John joined other published artists at Bistro de Leon to sign the newly released book Absente: Images and Tastes of the Green Fairy on July 14th during their celebration of Bastille Day. You can thumb through colorful pages of high end art images with can-do recipes by the bistro's Chef Jean Stephane Poinard.

On a recent trip to Louisiana's capitol city, Baton Rouge, my husband and I stayed at the Hilton. I saw, standing in the corner of the lobby, what appeared to be an image of a man's head on the body of a fish sculpture. I didn't give it too much thought until we arrived at the Omni Royal in New Orleans. Next to the swimming pool was another similar sculpture, only this fish was painted in bright colors with multiple designs. I wonder if these pieces date back to 2000 when Festival of Fins took place? It was the largest public art display in the city's history. Many of the art pieces were auctioned off. Monies reached well into six figures from which nonprofit organizations benefited.