Daniel, his masks
and a bocanut.
Facing page, a
zombie snake.
G
M
extended family living on the island. He has been
the graphic designer and artist for the Boca Beacon
newspaper and several other Beacon publications
since 1986, and has had a drawing
implement in his hand since he was a small boy.
Art has been his love ever since, and one of his
favorite topics to focus on is Florida wildlife.
Always in the water or the woods, he still creates
wildlife art on canvas in oils to this day.
Now, though, his primary focus is on the fishing
guides in Boca Grande Pass and their fine old
tarpon boats.
“I was into the realism aspect of art long before
I got into fantasy,” he said. “My first painting
was of a fishing guide, almost 30 years ago. We
had just founded the Boca Grande Art Alliance
- me and Patti Middleton, JoJo Faulstich,
Janet Italiano, Barb Seitz, Stuart Hoeckel,
Leslie Joiner and several others.”
Daniel has also become quite well-known for
his Bocanuts. Coconuts have always fascinated
tourists from the north, and he decided in 1989
to make the most of a free - yet very popular -
commodity that the island is chock full of. This
was right around the time when the Post Office
began to popularize the idea of sending them
through the mail like a three-dimensional postcard,
which can still be
done to this day.
“I paint them with
acrylic paint, which
usually lasts longer, especially
if you keep the
coconuts dry,” he said. “I
always stick with Boca
Grande themes.”
In the last couple of
years Daniel has
branched out to include
palm boot masks in his
gallery. The boots are
actually old leaf bases
from coco palm trees
(he says they have the
biggest boots), usually
ones that have fallen off or are ready to drop.
Daniel washes them, sands them to remove the
fuzz and sometimes cuts them to size. It takes a
lot of preparation to get one ready for the
Winsor & Newton paint he always uses. Once
he gets started, though, the pieces of palm are
transformed into primitive masks that look like
they
could be hung in a grass
hut in a small village in Africa. He adorns their
edges with string once used to bind together Beacon
publications, which he often colors and strings with
beads. They are amazing pieces of artwork, and have
become quite popular.
Within the last year Daniel has also experimented
with papier-mache, and since red tide has been
plaguing the island for so long he has called one of
his collections the “Zombie Originals,” featuring his
unique take on alligators, manatees, turtles and other
marine wildlife.
“I’m one of the primitive locals,” he said. “I don’t
have a gallery and I don’t do many shows, maybe a
couple a year including the one at Whidden’s Marina,
but people can stop by the Boca Beacon office and
see a lot of my work right here.”
You can reach Jennifer McLaughlin at
(941) 830-0491.
Jon Hatch has a website, jon-hatch-originals.com. His
shop is located at 14375 Pambar Ave. in El Jobean, and
he can be reached at (941) 764-8838.
You can find some of Cheryl Miller’s work on her
website, MadeToInspire.net, and at her store at 333 Park
Avenue, upstairs. She can be reached at
(239) 250-2094.
Daniel Godwin can be reached at the Boca Beacon
office, located at 431 Park Avenue, up the stairs from
Gasparilla Outfitters. Daniel can be reached there
Monday through Friday at (941) 964-2995.
/jon-hatch-originals.com
/MadeToInspire.net