Maggie Ruley - Island Inspirations

Island Inspirations is Maggie Ruley's studio on Fleming Street in Old Town, and the important thing to know is that it is a studio rather than a gallery. There is no sales staff and no hovering. What there is is an artist who has lived and worked in Key West since the mid-1980s, a room full of her paintings, and usually something half-finished on an easel. You are welcome to look at the work in progress and to talk to the person making it, which is an increasingly rare thing to be able to do on this island.

Her route here is a good Key West story. She started in clay, firing pottery in a kiln at her home on Lower Sugarloaf, and got known for brightly painted ceramic flip-flops until enough other people copied the idea that she moved on. From around 1986 she worked out of a corner of Blue Heaven, which is about as deep in the island's history as a working artist can get. The palette she arrived at is unapologetically tropical, and the subjects are the ones you will actually be walking past: conch cottages, palm trees, roosters, boats, beaches and flowers, with people and animals that lean cheerfully cartoonish. In her own words, "the shimmering sea and crystal sky change minute by minute to visually stimulate the imagination in Key West. I use all of these elements in my paintings and tropical pottery."

She still works in both media, so alongside the acrylic paintings and prints there is tropical pottery, including serving trays finished to be used rather than admired, and she carries work by other local artists too. The range of sizes and formats is wide enough that this is a realistic stop whether you are furnishing a wall at home or looking for one good thing to carry back.

She also teaches. There are painting classes, private group painting parties, tutorials, and she is explicitly in the business of getting nervous beginners over the hump rather than training professionals. If you are travelling with a group and looking for something to do that is not a boat, a painting party with a working Key West artist is a better afternoon than most of what gets advertised. Hours, in her own words, are ten-ish to five-ish most days, so call ahead if you are making a special trip. Her work has been written up in the Key West Citizen and the New York Daily News.