The Coconut Grove Arts Festival’s Official 2023 Poster Pays Homage To Dinner Key

 
The 59th Annual Coconut Grove Arts Festival is upon us in just three short weeks. It is currently ranked as the 5th best outdoor arts festival in the United States, which is certainly a great accomplishment but not enough to satiate the ambitions of our organizers. In 2023, we are upping the ante in an effort to become #1.

To accomplish this, organizers made some tweaks to the selection process that decides which artists are invited to take part in the festival, new attractions are being added (which we will get into more deeply on another day), and we have new commemorative artwork to mark the occasion. Here is the official poster for the 2023 Coconut Grove Art Festival, and it has a special meaning to our quirky and cool community.

Coconut Grove Art Festival 2023 Poster

“I love to create work that expresses movement and energy, and have been working with some really vibrant color palettes recently, and I think this piece combines all of those elements into an image that captures the history and vitality of the neighborhood that the show has called home for so many years,” said artist Benjamin Frey about his work in a Facebook announcement.

While all of these things are certainly true, we love how Frey threw it all the way back to the days of the early 20th Century in the Grove. This was back when Dinner Key housed one of the first aviation hubs in the country. Visitors would flock from all over to capture a glimpse (and maybe a ride) in one of the new “Sky Boats.” Don’t laugh, you would have called them something similar if you had never seen a seaplane before. If you would like to have a modern version of this experience, the new Bayshore Club at Regatta Harbour plays to this theme throughout the restaurant, offering spectacular views, an amazing fresh menu and nuggets of Grove history scattered throughout the experience.

Coconut Grove Seaplanes Dinner Key History

For those who did not attend the semester on Coconut Grove’s rich history, Dinner Key was once a small island in the bay, but was joined to the mainland in WWI in order to provide a Navy training facility. After the war, the facility was destroyed by the great hurricane of 1926. In its place a new facility was opened to accommodate non-commercial flights, eventually expanding to be the PanAm International Airport, which serviced flights from the United States to South America. You see, we have always been an international hub!

Once WWII was in full-swing, Dinner Key was requisitioned by the Navy once more and PanAm’s operations were moved to Miami International Airport, which was known at the time as PanAmerican Field. Ironically, the final flight PanAM made to Dinner Key took place on the same day that the atomic bomb ended the war, August 9, 1945.

The storied terminal is now the site of Miami City Hall. Grove Key Marina still utilizes the original hangars.

Copies of this piece of work can be purchased at the festival, or online in the coming weeks. Tickets to the festival start at $20, up to $250 for a 3-day VIP pass and can be purchased here.