Susann D’Antonio and the Art of Keys Living

Susann D’Antonio’s artistic offerings range from embellished gourds to mixed-media encaustic pieces to huge “living art” ensembles for Key West’s Fantasy Fest celebration. She can’t remember ever wanting a career outside the arts — and credits collisions with snowbanks, a cooperative cat and a yellow submarine with inspiring much of her Florida Keys creativity.

She encountered the snowbanks in 1970s Colorado, where she was a soon-to-be-divorced mom raising a young son. After her car collided with one too many of them, she took a friend’s advice and headed for snow-free Big Pine Key in the Lower Florida Keys — where she shortly “collided” with sculptor and musician Bobby D’Antonio, who ultimately became her husband.

“That was the beginning of that story,” Susann said.

Moving to Big Pine also was the beginning of her professional art career. When she discovered a book on artistic gourds, she realized they could provide a unique “canvas” for her talents.

“I’ve never been really interested in traditional painting; I’ve always been more interested in mixed media and incorporating unusual things into pieces,” Susann explained. “My other interest is doing things dimensionally, so that’s why the gourds appealed to me.”

Today her intriguing gourds — colorfully painted, wood-burned and adorned with elements like woven seagrass or feathers — can be found at Big Pine’s Artists in Paradise Gallery, the Key West Art Center and Key West’s Frangipani Gallery.

In the early 1990s Susann’s love for multidimensional contemporary art led her, with Bobby, to begin crafting pieces much larger than gourds. And that’s where the cat and the yellow submarine played their role in her creative evolution.

Then as now, Key West’s 10-day Fantasy Fest costuming and masking celebration attracted artists who enjoyed designing elaborate costumes, headdresses and floats. Their creations starred in the festival’s lavish grand parade and multiple costume competitions, including one for pets that sparked Susann’s imagination.

“I had this cat that was a big wet noodle — you could do anything with him,” she said. “So I made him a little Carmen Miranda costume, complete with a hat with fruit, and we won second place.”

The following year, Susann costumed the cat as a parrot.

The subsequent festival had a 1960s theme. Inspired by the Beatles’ classic ditty, she and Bobby built a yellow submarine shape and tried to put it on their dog. When the canine refused to cooperate, Susann decided to wear the “sub” herself and march in the Fantasy Fest parade.

“Bobby altered it so it fit on my shoulders, and we walked the parade,” she recalled. “As I walked, people just burst into ‘Yellow Submarine’.”

The couple began designing bigger, more elaborate pieces for Susann to wear each year. Their flamboyant constructions — crosses between gigantic costumes and small parade floats — included a 12-foot-tall “Octopus’ Garden” that featured a giant purple lamé octopus atop a shipwreck encrusted with underwater creatures.

“Fantasy Fest actually was a good impetus for me,” Susann explained. “It upped my momentum and kind of jumpstarted everything for me.”

Seven years ago she took a class in encaustic painting — heavily textural painting with beeswax and resin — that led her into a new artistic phase. After exploring two-dimensional encaustic painting, she began crafting multi-dimensional mixed-media pieces and small sculptures painted with the encaustic.

“Everything leads to something else, like a winding path, and that’s one of the things about art that’s so wonderful,” Susann enthused.

As well as pursuing her own muse, Susann operates a frame shop with Bobby in the back of Artists in Paradise Gallery. She enjoys the Keys’ snow-free weather, traveling, and coming home to the Big Pine house she and Bobby share.

“I’m not searching for a better place,” said Susann. “I’ve found the better place — a place that’s creative, that has fabulous nature and small-town open warmth and friendliness. That’s what keeps us here.”