Hi! I am Stewart Stewart, and I wear many hats.
I am a visionary artist, an actor, and the Executive Director & program facilitator for Center for Folk & Community Art (“CFCA”), a non-profit Art outreach organization I co-founded with my wife artist/author Dena Stewart. I’m a civic activist and an orator. I’m also the producer of Alive on South Beach®™, a video show I co-host with Dena Stewart.
Dena and I relocated from New York to Miami Beach in January of 1987. We were offered studio/exhibition space on Lincoln Road at a price we couldn’t refuse. Besides, it was snowing in New York, so joining the South Florida Art Center as among its first out-of-state artists to relocate, was seductive. And we stayed!
I started painting in New York and experimented with different mediums and styles. As a visionary artist, my work is an expression of my fantasies and experiences on canvas, wood, and in multimedia boxes. In NY, I painted outdoor murals, indoor Atmospheric Wall Illusions, personalized art-to-wear, and house portraits (people sent photos of their homes, and I painted my version on canvas).
My gallery affiliations and art exhibitions include, but are not limited to: America’s Folk Heritage Gallery (New York); The Hortt Exhibition — The Museum of Art (Ft. Lauderdale, FL); Galerie Bonheur (Greenwich, CT); Cuban Museum (Miami, FL); Gallery: Why Not? (Miami Beach, FL); “Two Person Show” — Amdur Gallery (Miami Beach, FL); Gallery of the Eccentric (Coral Gables, FL); Sokolsky Gallery (Miami Beach, FL); “Portraits” — Metro Dade Library (Miami, FL); “A Salute to Outstanding Florida Artists” — State Capitol Building, (Tallahassee, FL); The Sher Gallery (Aventura, FL); and the CANDO Co-op Gallery on Miami Beach.
My artwork has been showcased in Country Living Magazine, Salon (Tokyo, Japan magazine), The New York Daily News, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, Modern Maturity Magazine, and in a variety of syndicated newspaper articles.
As the head of Center for Folk and Community Art “CFCA” (non-profit I co-founded over 25 years ago), I work with people of all ages, but mostly at-risk teenagers. The mission of CFCA is to use writing & drawing as tools of intervention, prevention and education to impact community issues and improve the human condition. Using our original, nationally recognized writing & art-making program “Telling Stories Through Visuals” we have addressed community issues that include, but are not limited to, Civility … or lack of it, Bullying, Unfairness, Prejudice, Abuse in Teen Dating Relationships, Crime, Growing Older, and Trauma from natural and man-made disasters, etc.
Under my leadership, CFCA Highlights and Program Recognition include, but are not limited to:
● Telling Stories Through Visuals was selected by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities as a model program that effectively combines the visual arts with social service.
● Telling Stories Through Visuals is featured as a Lesson Card entitled “Rebuilding Lives Through Art” in SRA/McGraw-Hill language arts program – Imagine it! a comprehensive literacy tool used in schools in more than 50 countries around the world.
●Telling Stories Through Visuals is one of six programs featured in “ART WORKS! Collaborations That Change Lives,” a publication of the Miami Coalition for a Safe and Drug-Free Community.
● CFCA received more than a dozen proclamations from Miami-Dade County, FL, as well as Miami Beach, Dallas and San Diego in recognition of ongoing community outreach; and CFCA co-founders, Dena Stewart and Stewart Stewart received The Key to the City of Miami Beach in appreciation of ongoing community service.
As an orator, I have been a guest speaker at several universities and national conferences including the New World School of the Arts, the Miami International Press Club, Bluffton College (Bluffton, Ohio), Florida International University’s Second National Conference on Urban/Multicultural Education: Teaching, Learning and Beyond, the State of Florida Department of Health’s Disease Intervention Conference, and at a Ford Foundation sponsored Symposium at the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, DC.
My role as a civic activist includes service as a member of the Board of Directors of the Miami Beach Lincoln Road Development Corporation; member of the Creative Arts Initiative; and Miami Beach commission-appointed member of the Safety Committee.
As a professional actor, I am a dues-paying member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (AFTRA), and Actors Equity Association (AEA).
I graduated from the University of Toledo (Ohio) with a degree in Public Relations, returned to New York, and after several jobs with larger PR firms opened my own, staging national promotions and events. As a publicist and “brander”, I also represented restaurants, as well as small and large companies.
For one startup company, I launched a teaser campaign. As designated company-spokesperson, a caricature of my face appeared on hundreds of thousands of stickers that were pasted on buses, in subway cars, on the doors of restaurant and movie theater restrooms all over New York. Many, many years later I was honored with the title of “The World’s First SLAPTAGGER” by Slaps Illustrated.
In 2010, I became the producer and co-host of Alive on South Beach®™, an internet video show that takes people behind the scenes at events to meet some of the celebrities (actors, artists, authors, recording artists, performers), local characters, and interesting visitors who make Miami … MIAMI!
Alive on South Beach®™ is produced under the umbrella of Syndicated News Network (“SNN.bz”), an International news & entertainment-gathering website. SNN.bz has been in operation for more than 20 years. Alive on South Beach®™ has been associated with SNN.bz since 2010. Due to extraordinary growth and volume of content, AliveonSouthBeach.com now has its own platform (with SNN.bz linked to it). Alive on South Beach®™ videos have been picked up in China and can be found on BAIDU (equivalent of Google search engine) and on Weibo (YouTube equivalent).
