Salvador Dali Museum - St. Petersburg, Florida

Salvador Dali was born in May, 1904, in Figueras, Spain, in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. His artistic talent showed at a young age, and he started his first drawing lessons when he was ten years old. He began to study art at the Royal Academy of Art in 1923, but he was expelled twice and never took the final examination because he believed that he was more qualified than those who would have examined him. A humble person, Dali was not.

In 1928, Dali went to Paris, where he became a leader of the Surrealist Movement. With the Cubism and Surrealism art movements among the most progressive of the day, Dali created some of his most famous works, including “The Persistence of Memory,” an icon of the Surrealist movement. During this time, he met his future spouse, Helena Diakanoff Devulina, better known as Gala. Gala was a Russian immigrant who was married to poet Paul Eluard when Dali met her. She became his companion, his muse, his model, and his business manager. Throughout his life, Dali was a master of self-promotion and a genius at parlaying his artistry into financial success.

To evade War II, Dali chose the US as his permanent residence in 1940. Dali was moving into a new type of painting with a preoccupation with science and religion. As he moved away from Surrealism, and into his classical period, he began his series of 19 large canvases, many concerning scientific, historical, or religious themes. Among the best known of these works are The Hallucinogenic Toreador and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. He was also inspired by the great classical masters like Raphael, Velasquez, and Ingres.

In 1948, Dali and Gala returned to Europe and spent their time in Spain, Paris, or New York. Dali painted one monumental history painting every year during the summer months in Lligat, Spain. In 1974, Dali opened the Dali Museum-Theater in Figueras, Spain. After Gala’s death in 1982, Dali’s health began to fail, and he had to retire due to palsy, a motor disorder. His hands trembled and were weak, and he could no longer hold a brush. Towards the end of his life, Dali lived in the tower of his own museum, where he died in 1989 from heart failure. Outside of the Dali Theater-Museum created by Dalí himself in his home town of Figueras, Catalonia, Spain, St. Petersburg's Dalí museum has the world's largest collection of Dalí's works.

From his early impressionist paintings through his transitional surrealist works and into his classical period, Dali was a constantly growing and evolving artist. He worked in all media, including oils, watercolors, drawing, graphics, sculptures, films, photographs, performance pieces, and jewels. He was known for his cutting-edge artwork and his flamboyant personality. Dali’s art may not be your cup of tea. It isn’t mine, but I nevertheless marvel at his creativity and the breadth of his achievements. His work is on display in many museums and remains eminently collectible.

Albert Whitted Airport

The Albert Whitted Airport is owned and operated by the City of St. Petersburg. It provides convenient access by air to the city's downtown waterfront, business district and urban communities

Galbraith Terminal, named in honor of local philanthropists, John and Rosemary Galbraith, who have supported both the community and the airport.

The Hangar Restaurant

In the words of a local food critic, “Good food makes for a smooth landing at the Hangar Restaurant at Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg.”

The airfield occupies 110 acres and handles around 80,000 general aviation aircraft operations annually.

A view of 3 planes from the restaurant

 

Bay Oaks Social Seniors Marchyne, Jean, Margie, Cora, Emma, Joanne, Sara and Justin (youngsters who lead the group), Robert, Barbara, Mary, Shirley, and John



Marchyne, Jean, Margie, Cora, Emma, Joanne, Sara, and Justin


 Robert, Barbara, Mary, Shirley, and John

Justin, Becky, Robert & Barbara

Museum Entrance and Salvador Dali's signature as seen on the outside of the museum

The thirty-five million dollar Dali Museum was built on the downtown waterfront next to the Mahaffey Theater, featuring a large glass entryway and skylight. The new museum opened on 1-11- 11 at 11:11 am. (I couldn’t find any significance in Dali’s life to explain the date and time. I think it was done that way just because they could.)

Mary & Barbara at the entrance to the Dali Museum

Emma, Jean, Joanne & Margie about to enter the museum

A living wall of plants at the entrance to the museum

Becky in front of the wall of plants and beside the “fountain of youth.”

A grotto-like massive stone with a vertical garden seems to hold up a corner of the building.

The Mahaffey Theater is a 2000-seat performing arts venue adjacent to the waterfront of Tampa Bay and across the plaza from the Salvador Dali Museum.

A Dali-inspired bench behind the museum

The glass dome rises 75 feet from the plaza.

The window wall undulates around the building.

The window wall as seen from the inside on the ground floor

This is how the window wall looks from the inside on the 2^nd Floor. The second floor houses administrative offices and a research library.

This is the view of the window wall/atrium on the top floor.

The main galleries are on the third floor atop a spiral staircase which some say resembles a strand of DNA. The artwork on the third floor is located above the flood plain and will be protected through a Category 5 hurricane storm surge. Its 18- inch-thick concrete walls can withstand 165 mph winds. The danger of a hurricane is a very real threat in this area of the country.

A view of Tampa Bay from inside the museum

Sliding Doors Entrance
The doors open like an elevator and lead to the sizable gift shop.

 

Poster of Museum Opening
The museum's collection includes 96 oil paintings, over 100 watercolors and drawings, 1,300 graphics, photographs, sculptures and objets d'art, and an extensive archival library, and displays are periodically rotated.

The BOSS group is waiting for the tour to begin.

Gift Shop Wall of Posters
This gift shop is not your typical museum gift shop. It is very large and jam-packed with all things Dali. You have to enter the museum through the gift shop and wend your way through the aisles and aisles of items to get to the ticket sales booth. Also located on the ground floor is a snack bar, theater, and community room.

A glitzy, giant-sized praying mantis is suspended from the ceiling of the gift shop. This innocent- looking praying mantis had a sinister symbolism to surrealists because the female praying mantis devours the male after mating with him.

The Disintegration of Persistent Memory.

This work was done from 1952 to 1954. Dalí employed extensive symbolism in his work. The hallmark "soft watches" that first appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's  theory that time is relative and not fixed. The idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to Dalí when he was staring at a runny piece of Camembert cheese on a hot day in August. Dali created this painting to explore the effects of nuclear weaponry, asserting that the invention of such weaponry had a profound effect upon everyone on the planet, even those in the small fishing villages along the coastline of Spain. (This is a photo of the Dali poster and does not do the artwork justice, but I hope it gives you the idea.)

The Ship & The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

The Discovery of America was painted in 1958 and 1959. It is a Masterwork, which is more than 14 feet tall. The center of the painting is dominated by a young Columbus who is leading one of his ships onto the shoreline of the New World. He holds in his right hand a standard on which the face of Gala is depicted in the pose of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. To the right of Columbus is a kneeling figure of a monk, who is actually Dali.

The Hallucinogenic Toreador

This large vertical composition was begun in Port Lligat in 1968 and finished in 1970. This is a double image painting that repeats the image of Venus de Milo in such a way that the shadows form the features of the toreador. The Dali museum is home to 7 of the 18 masterwork paintings by Dalí (including The Hallucinogenic Toreador and the Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus), the most of any museum in the world. To be considered a masterwork, these paintings must be at least 5 feet in any direction and have been worked on for over a year.

Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at 20 Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

Completed in 1976, this painting is approximately 6 ¼ feet x 8 ¼ feet. Unlike most artists, Dali liked naming his works using very long names rather than just brief descriptions. As the painting’s title suggests, when you look at this painting from a distance, it becomes a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

This is Gala again. The painting plays tricks on my camera, but maybe if you move back from the computer screen and squint a bit, you can see Lincoln’s face quite clearly.

Rolls Royce Sign.

The wonderful Rainy Day Rolls Royce, a reinterpretation of a Dali surrealist artwork, is on display on the ground floor of the museum.. It is just right there, as if you were walking by it on a street. In one way, it’s good because you can examine it close-range, but in another way, everyone is milling around it, so you can’t get an uninterrupted view of the art.

Side view of the Rolls

Notice the details, including the snails and seaweed all over the car. I love the whimsicality of this piece, and the longer you look, the more you discover the unexpected, like the deep-sea diver-chauffeur and his passenger, the mermaid.

Rolls Diver/chauffeur in diving gear

Mermaid Passenger

Sorry I couldn’t get a better pic of the mermaid inside because of all the reflections. But, again,  I hope you get the idea.

Rear view of the Rolls, complete with manta ray on the roof

It's time to leave the museum and be on our way back home. Emma is ready.

The final view of the Dali Museum as we head for home. Farewell to the museum honoring the most famous surrealist artist/showman of the 20th century. 

SHARK VALLEY IN THE EVERGLADES

The Everglades National Park is the third largest in the continental United States, at one and one-half million acres. Shark Valley, located in southwest Florida, is a small section of the Everglades National Park, which is the northern-most section of the park. In Shark Valley, there is a fifteen-mile loop road, from which to see a wide expanse of saw grass prairies dotted with tree islands or “hardwood hammocks,” which are covered with a dense growth of shrubs, vines, and trees. The saw grass name comes from the tiny sharp teeth on the edges of the grass blades. There is also a wealth of wildlife found here, including alligators, birds, deer, and turtles. Halfway through the road loop, there is an observation tower approximately 65’ high that affords a panoramic view of the surrounding area.

The Chamber of Commerce is located just before the turnoff leading to Shark Valley. There are no sharks in Shark Valley. It is so named because it is part of the Shark River Slough, where the fresh water eventually meets the sea. The surrounding area is no more than 8 feet above sea level and this section dips a foot or two lower, hence it's a "valley". Somehow, “Shark Valley” still seems like a misnomer to me.

 Our group has stopped here briefly. The members of Bay Oaks Social Seniors who are in the fluorescent orange T-shirts are biking the 15-mile route today.

Laurie is our trip leader and was the very first director of the Bay Oaks Social Seniors group.

Frank, Jan and Mary in the parking lot of the Chamber of Commerce.

Don and Joe are checking on information about Shark Valley.

Ursula, Carol and Laurie

Justin, Senior Program Coordinator, and Laurie

Joanne and Dan are not only expert kayakers, they are also seasoned bike riders. Jean is going on the tram with me.

To explore this part of the Everglades, visitors can bike the 15-mile paved road, which has no hills to climb or rough terrain to traverse. The typical bike ride lasts between 2 and 3 hours, and the advantage is that you can take your time and get up close and personal with any wild things that catch your eye. The caution is that 15 miles is 15 miles, and you should consider whether or not you are in condition to go that distance. In our group, some people did the distance with no difficulty, but in the warm weather, others struggled. Biking is fun for those in shape to do so, but there is also an open-air tram tour that is conducted by a naturalist who points out the unique wonders of the “River of Grass.” The tour lasts 2 hours, and tours leave hourly during the height of tourist season, December through April.

The bikes are unloaded at our destination.

The tram tour sign

The Shark Valley tram

The Shark River Slough--a slough is a marshy or reedy pool, pond, inlet, or backwater. It is  pronounced “sloo.”  The slough is the main "river of grass" in the Everglades and flows across the park from the north, sweeping in a wide curve to the west and the Gulf of Mexico. It is a very shallow slough, ranging from a few inches to 3 feet deep. The width of the slough is between 10 and 30 miles if you only count the deeper areas. If the shallower areas (often called prairie rather than slough) are included, it is up to 70 miles wide. The water flows very slowly through the slough, moving maybe 100 feet each day. It flows even slower in the shallow prairies.

This is one tree island on the prairie that is dotted with many tree islands.

This is both a prairie and a slough.

Can you find the baby alligator in the photo? His camouflage serves him well.

This is the 8-mile leg of the tour, and it leads to the observation tower. The road is flat and even, but not arrow-straight, the way the return route is.

This gator is submerged, except for his eyes, and there are 2 baby gators on either side of the photo.

Two birds are sitting in a pond.

Sawgrass creates the primary plant in the slough and prairie. During the dry winter, most of this area is covered with very shallow water. The ground below the grass is covered with a substance called periphyton. Up close periphyton looks a little like short stubby worms made of clay. Periphyton is a complex mixture of algae and various microbes that creates the basic food source for the Everglades wildlife. The smallest animals feed on the periphyton, and they in turn are eaten by bigger animals. Without it, everything else dies.

Jose, our naturalist guide, gathers periphyton and brings it to us so that we can examine it close-up.It seems unremarkable to me, but it is vital to wildlife on the prairie.

The tram wends its way to the observation tower.

These 2 alligators float in the pond as quietly as logs.

The observation tower is a very graceful structure. It curves around from ground level to a height of 65 feet, but nevertheless, it rises unexpectedly from the flatness of the prairie.

I hear a lot of different languages on the deck of the observation tower. The Everglades must be an interesting destination for foreign visitors.

The bicyclists from Bay Oaks stop on the lowest level of the observation tower to have lunch.

Robert is on his way to the observation tower.

Becky climbs the walkway to the observation tower.

Margie and Jean are on their way to the observation tower.

Ursula, in the orange T-shirt, has reached the top level of the observation tower.

The long road back to the beginning of the trail stretches for 7 straight miles in the distance.

This is a great blue heron who seems to be tourist-watching.

An alligator lurks by the side of the road.

This alligator could be scoping out a prey. Generally, gators leave people alone because we are too big to be their prey. However, if a human does something stupid, like pick up a baby gator, the baby will “bark” for its mother, and the momma gator will be after you in a flash. Also, if a human goes quite near the edge of the water, a gator can propel itself on its hind legs, leap at you and try to pull you back into the water and drown you. The guide told us these types of incidents are rare.

 Supposedly, this cormorant is in a spread-wing posture to dry his plumage, but I think he is posing for my picture. I am no more than 6’ away, and he shows no fear.

He obligingly holds his pose until I get a great back view photo, too. A member of our group told us that in China, she saw a fisherman with a cormorant on a tether. The bird had a collar around its neck. The bird dives for fish, but can’t swallow it because of the collar. The fisherman takes the fish and sends the bird back out for more fish. Who said life is fair?

Ranger Eric is holding a photo of a gator and a python in mortal combat. The python is a non- native menace to the Everglades. Neither alligator nor python survived this battle to the death.

Bikes are loaded up, and Justin and Don are ready to depart Shark Valley.

SO LONG, GATORS, IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YOU.