I’m in National/Miami News!

Printed with permission of the Miami New Herald Times:

Miami Beach Renames Neighborhood for Current Cultural Arts Fellow

[Miami Beach, FL] – Welcome to Smid Beach?

That’s what the City of Miami Beach wants you to call the upper swathe of the island straddling South Beach and the upper island.

Today, the Department of Cartography and Cultural Development (CCD) has awarded a 12-month artist fellowship to a writer who intends to rename a local neighborhood after herself.

Lisa Smid, a Miami-born writer and visual artist, is the winner of the first annual CCD Prize for Excellence in Artistic and Civic Vision.

The CCD’s mission is to enrich the economic and cultural fabric of Miami Beach through the support of special projects fostering events and cultural arts programming. Now, the department wants to take this enrichment to a new level.

“We’ve been thinking all along that, once the local artist community comes into its own, both numerically and organizationally, we would make a concerted effort to cross-pollinate with artists from other communities,” said J.S. Poisson-D’Avril, CCD’s interim Liaisons Officer.

“With that notion in mind, we awarded a grant for someone with a more comprehensive vision of what the new Miami Beach could be.”

Smid’s proposal called to designate the neighborhood north of South Beach’s Art Deco District as a distinct cultural area in its own right. The newly incorporated Smid Beach will retain its historic legacy while developing its own identity as a modern artist-friendly living space. To this end, a CCD Fellow will be entitled to occupy living and studio space free of charge within designated geographic boundaries.

“So many Miami and Dade County thoroughfares and landmarks are named for entertainers of a bygone era,” Smid said recently in a telephone interview. “To build the Miami Beach of today, we need to recognize the living people who make it what it is – the artists, the writers, the little people. I fit all three categories.”

“We need to move beyond South Beach,” Smid added. “South Beach is a bastardized tourist mecca for interlopers. Smid Beach is the real Miami-Dade. Smid Beach not a monument to me. It’s a monument to the Everywoman inside us all.”

The name will double as an acronym for the two local neighborhoods the area borders. “Smid Beach” is the new nomenclature for the neighborhood bordering South Beach and what is known in the common local parlance as Mid-Beach. Beginning at the north border of Lincoln Road, its boundaries will run along the southern side of Dade Boulevard to its intersection with 23rd Street.

Smid Beach will encompass City Hall, the Miami Beach Convention Center, Jackie Gleason Theater, Bass Museum of Art, and the Miami Beach Branch of the Miami-DadePublic Library, which will serve as Smid’s office and residence for the 12-month Fellowship term.

The name will remain permanent on all official Metropolitan maps.

“When we viewed her grant application, something clicked,” said Poisson-D’Avril. “Why put a superficial sheen on our cultural image when we can effect change on a deeper level?”

“Any city can use artists to gentrify its neighborhoods. We’ve found one to improve our cartography. South Beach, Mid Beach, Smid Beach – you can’t argue with something so right.”

Smid, a Dade County native, was removed from the city limits against her will when she was seven months old. She hopes the publicly funded endowment will re-integrate her into her natural habitat and reintroduce her to her Floridian heritage.

The Fellowship funds a temporary housing in which Smid to live for the next fiscal year. She will occupy an open-air studio space in Collins Park and a dedicated study room in the Miami Beach Public Library. For the first year ever, the library’s arbored courtyard will be designated for the Fellow’s specific use according to the provisions of the CCD. A Fellow may permit local patrons use of the facilities with permission.

“We’re inclined to allow the public to continue using those library facilities,” Poisson-D’Avril conceded. “So long as they don’t disturb this young lady when she’s trying to write. That would be a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

With a rich history as a trend-setting arts center, Miami Beach’s identity is intrinsically linked to the arts. Today its entertainment, production and arts communities are stronger than ever. The new Smid Beach promises to rival its southern neighbor as a center for international entertainment and cultural destination.

“It’s a great spot where Miami Beach taxpayers can kick back, relax and watch hell freeze over together,” said April Fools, Director of Communications for the new Smid Beach Chamber of Commerce. LINK