The Key West Art & Historical Society will mark its first major exhibit opening since the onset of the pandemic with âSand in His Shoes,â featuring the work of Key West artist Stephen Avila on Friday, Jan. 15, at the Custom House Museum.
Avila was born on the island in 1894 to Cuban parents and worked as an artist until his death in 1969. As a child, he scavenged Key West Bightâs wharves for discarded paint cans, using the remnants to paint pictures. He continued to develop his artistic talents, venturing into custom furniture making and wood sculpture.
Rich in ambition and talent, he taught himself to make new colors from his limited supplies of mostly construction and boat paint, using both the flowers of his island home and the sea that surrounded it as inspiration. Any surface could hold a painting: old bottles, driftwood, plywood.