joining me now to talk about the huge impact of the Arts on South Florida economically and Beyond is Dennis schol Dennis is a familiar face on the south Florida and National Art scene and he played a key role in bringing art basil to town over 20 years ago Dennis has also been a leader in the Arts with both the KN foundation and uite arts welcome it's great to have you with us Dennis good to be here so um tell us uh initially like what was the the impetus in bringing something like basil from Switz to Miami well I think 20 25 years ago nobody ever thought of Miami as a cultural Oasis we got to be honest however in the last 20 years or so we have gotten the best teaching Symphony in America the best young Talent spotting organization in young Arts we have one of the best ballets in America um and so Miami has kind of elevated as a cultural institution and when the Basel folks came to town over over 20 years ago and said we're thinking about doing a second version of the fair we knew as a community that this was a chance to hit the motherload really and so we whed them and dined them and one of the things that happened was the collectors in town came together uh the rubel family the brayman family the De La Cruz family uh they all came together to try to convince art bosel to come here and when it did it changed everything how hard was it one to convince both the for Basel to come here but also then for the community to to buy in and feel like this is something that we needed to have here it was actually harder to get the community to understand what it meant to have the fair here because there's a natural tendency to think well the art fair is coming somehow my art is going to be a part of it but it's an international art fair with 200 and something gallaries from all over the world with artists from various places all over the world so the actual footprint in the beginning of local artists was very limited so they did what artists always do they kind of figured out a way to get in the action and what they did was they would do these other events that were not part of Art bosle in the Miami Beach Convention Center but big events big installations and that is what's become Miami art week you have art bosle the fair which is what everybody flies in for in their private jets and goes to parties and everything but then you also have all the ancillary events around it with local artists with people coming in to show films to do events things like that so it has become one wild party that week yeah so Miami art week uh I'll tell you like I I do and do a lot around that I go and and see a lot of these amazing installations you know spend way too much time you know down there so maybe talk a little bit more about some of those great things that you see happening um outside of the the convention center so one of the things that has happened is that all the museums have up their game substantially so uh this year for art bosel the Perez art museum has an installation a big exhibition by one of my favorite artists Gary Simmons uh he works with uh chalk on on big wall drawings and uh he he talks about the black experience and he's amazing amazing artist and we're very lucky to have him uh here during art bosel but that's an example of what everybody does everybody kind of gets ready for art bosel to come to town and uh elevates their own exhibition progr program because uh you know people are in the convention center a lot when they come to town but they also move around the city and that's where we benefit we benefit from people getting to see Miami to see Miami Beach I would say that I think everybody knows that Miami has changed a lot in the last three or four years since covid we've had this huge influx of financial businesses I would say in in some part that is because people would have come down before that seen Miami for a few days during art bosel and said I could live here and they have and they've come yeah a lot of them a lot of them lot so with that being said um well I've seen it the evolution of Miami as a as an Arts city um from the rise of Winwood um and with with Art Basel being here so maybe Beyond just the the fair and and that week uh what's your ideas about how Miami has evolved as an art City well I think the big thing we are always shooting for is to make sure that uh Miami is in art City more than those 5 days when the fair is in town got to take care of the other 360 days and there are a number of organizations that have uh helped do that uh our Miami Dade County government is one of the largest art funders on a per capita basis of any County government in the country so they have always stepped up you couple that with a community that has the night Foundation which has put over $200 million dollar into arts in miamidade County uh over the last dozen or so years um and then there are other organizations I I happen to have run up until recently an organization called ight Arts that you mentioned and we work with individual artists and we also put money out to individual artists to help keep them going so there's this great safety net that has been built over the last couple of decades for working artists in our community um that seems great the only issue recently has been of course housing housing has become very difficult for everybody but particularly for artists because they're gig economy people they they work in gigs so they have time to work on their practice so um there's a lot of discussion about that oolite Arts has just decided to give artist housing stiens to artists so that if you become an oite resident artist you get a free Studio but you also get a housing stipend to help you know to help fight back against what has happened to rents so I would have to say that Mii Dade County is a very welcoming place for artists and it is a place where uh we have built up this uh set of tools as an artist that you can access got to do something about giving artists a way to live otherwise you're going to lose them so then to that point as an artist myself um I know what it was like me for like for for me growing up how do we help shift the idea of what it means to be a working artist right you know to so that people can start to think about artists as just part of society just as a doctor or an engineer or or an educator yeah well I think the disconnect is that people love art but sometimes we forget that it comes from artists and that's tough I mean it's a difficult situation to be in so I think as you said we have to begin to treat artists like any other professional in our community and to and to acknowledge that without artists our community would be a much different place and so you've got to find a way to create housing opportunities for them you've got to understand that they work differently than other people in terms of like I said the you know they'll take gigs versus have a 9-to-5 job so we've got to continue to fight for artists in our community because without it it would be a much sadder Place yeah absolutely absolutely you hear that everybody fight for artist um so before we go what are you looking for you mentioned the uh the exhibit at at Pam uh anything else that you were looking forward to this upcoming SE season well you know Art Basel Miami Beach the fair itself at the convention center is just a cornucopia of opportunities when it comes to seeing art you can see art from probably 40 countries and uh within the fair there's always something new I actually go through the fair uh every day because I I Walk This Way one day and then I walk the other way the other day and this way this way you know I mean the fair is so big and so massive and you know they do change it o overnight if things are selling really well that you know things change so I have to confess that I spend most of my time at the art fair itself the other two fairs that I really enjoy going to are called Untitled and that's right on the beach uh on 12th Street and uh just off of Ocean Drive there's a big tent right on the beach they build it and then a really young Fair where you see artists that someday will be in the main fair is one called NADA uh uh which is a fair that's on 14th Street on at the city of Miami it's it's across the bay um uh both of those are really fun really young and you can find something you can afford you know it's art art is comes at all levels and all prices and so in those fairs it's pretty easy to find something really cool Dennis thank you so much for joining us and hopefully I'll see you down at the fair we'll see you down there and come by and see the collection we'd love to have you I sure will I sure will