SeaSister Island Gallery

SeaSister Island Gallery is at 303 Duval Street, and it belongs to Rachel Garreau, who goes by Mermaid. Her route here is the story. She was born in Casablanca, landed in Key West with thirty-six dollars in her pocket, tended bar at Sloppy Joe's, and worked her way up to five years as senior art director at the James Coleman gallery before selling her house to put the proceeds into a storefront of her own. She opened SeaSister in January 2021. As she put it at the time, being on Duval representing artwork was "kind of surreal."

What is on the walls is fine art rather than souvenir craft: sculpture, oils and watercolors, and fine art photography, mostly by Key West and emerging regional artists, with a range of prices that includes genuinely accessible work alongside serious pieces. Among the artists is the late Benjamin Curry "Dink" Bruce, which is worth a paragraph of its own.

Dink Bruce was a fifth-generation Conch. His family arrived in Key West in the 1830s, and his great-great-grandfather built the family house on Southard Street in the 1850s. His father Toby came down as Ernest Hemingway's carpenter and handyman and became one of Hemingway's closest friends, which meant Dink knew Hemingway personally, and he later helped catalog the Hemingway papers that turned up in 1961. He worked in photography, wood, metal and paint, ran boats for film productions, and knew the backcountry flats as well as anyone alive. He died in 2020. Having his work on a wall on Duval Street is a direct line back to a Key West that has very few people left in it.

The gallery also carries Elizabeth DeVries, Brian Arthur and other local artists. Garreau's stated ambition for a visit is modest and pretty good: she wants people to walk out saying "that was fun."