“Cast-Net”
Bunche Beach. Fort Myers, FL.
22-Sept.-2025
It was a fair, sunny day in Fort Myers, Florida when I made this painting. We decided to spend the afternoon at Bunche Beach, just a fifteen-minute drive from our place. Bunche isn’t like many of the other coastal beaches—less tourist-lined, a little unkempt and wild. Mangroves dapple the shoreline, and at low tide you can walk quite a ways out across the flats.
I wasn’t living in Fort Myers when Hurricane Ian came through—I moved here about two years later. Much of the coastline had already been rebuilt by then. But nature doesn’t forget so easily.
Even though I’d never seen this beach before the hurricane, I could tell it had changed. Sand lay piled high, pushed further inland than it usually sits in these coastal marshes. The dominant vegetation was the hardy, tolerant mangroves and sea grape; there was little floral or structural diversity beyond them. Skeletons of trees protruded along the shoreline and further inland—a ghostly reminder of what this coast had endured.
I remember wishing I’d brought along a coastal biologist, someone who could help me interpret what I was seeing, help me better understand the quiet stories written in the plants around me.
I had brought my sketchbook, my gouache paints, and a good blanket, knowing I wanted to paint for a while. I settled myself beneath a broad sea grape canopy, shaded from the sun, and began painting what I saw.
The sky was a brilliant turquoise, and russet seaweed lay scattered across the pale beige sand. The glossy green leaves of the sea grape seemed to glow under the warmth of the sun.
After watching me paint for a bit, my husband wandered off in search of his own adventure.
As I sat there, still and quiet, life slowly began to stir around me. Crabs scuttled out from beneath the sea grape leaves, moving with steady purpose. Birds flitted through the branches overhead, occasionally daring to venture closer and inspect my work. A brown anole skittered up the branch beside me—a Florida tourist turned local, much like so many residents here.
I found myself humbled by the resilience of the life around me.
So much had been lost. But nature doesn’t dwell on loss. She focuses on what remains—moving forward, making use of whatever is left.
This system may have taken a beating. It may never look the same again. But maybe that’s the point. Becoming something new.
By the time I finished my painting, my husband had found his way back. He’d come across an Asian immigrant family throwing a cast net in the shallows. Despite the language barrier, they managed to strike up a conversation. The man was new to casting, still learning himself—but he took the time to show my husband what he knew, even letting him throw the net a few times.
After a while my husband thanked the man, wished the family luck, and made his way back to me.
It struck me then what a beautiful existence we share here: a place resilient enough to recover, and people generous enough to connect—even across languages, across cultures, across completely different lives.
Life has a way of persisting like that. It keeps weaving itself through places and people alike, forming quiet connections.
And sometimes, nothing needs to be said. It’s already understood.
