Jim Hunter

Jim Hunter with Donna Sweeny, Vickie Delgado and Lilia Garcia.

As many of you know, our friend Jim Hunter passed away on Thursday.

I got close to Jim in the last six months or so, but I had met him a couple of years earlier at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival Gallery. He was hanging a sign out front, I didn't know of his love of art or of all his accomplishments or his heavy involvement with the gallery at the time. He was humble and he never told me who he was or that all that art hanging in the gallery was by his students. I just thought he was the hired help hanging the gallery sign. He did most of the handyman work around both Arts Festival galleries. Of course I eventually found out who he was.

Jim transformed the Arts Festival's second gallery at the Mayfair Atrium from the former Palm Produce clothing store site. I would pass by almost daily and stop in and visit with him. He was a nice, friendly guy, always smiling. I always felt good just stopping in to see what he was up to and see what his progression was with the gallery. The door was always ajar and he never minded me popping in to say hello. And I never hesitated, I don't think a day went by where I didn't stop in if I saw him in there. He was easy to talk to.

He would show me the plans, how he would transform the place and change it from a clothing store into a gallery. The goal was to get it ready for Art Basel. He was all excited about that. He worked non-stop, it was his special project. This was October. Our almost daily visits were nice, I could always just pass by and know he was there getting the place ready for art, something he really loved.

Of course I would see him at all the Grove arts events, mostly at the Arts Festival Gallery during Gallery Walk night, he was one of the first people and one of the last people I would see on Gallery Walk Nights. I would always make the Arts Festival Gallery my first stop and my last stop. When the night was over and there were just a handful of people left cleaning up the gallery, including Lilia Garcia, his wife, and Monty Trainer and a couple of others, Jim and I would hang out a bit and end Gallery Walk nights that way with maybe one last glass of wine and talk about the evening.

One of the last times I saw Jim was at the gallery where I was photographing an artist with a patron and Jim was sort of in the shot. I yelled over, "Jim, can you move over a bit?" And he did. And then I joked, "No, you're still in the shot!" We got a good laugh out of that. He was always laughing, always a happy guy.

The Miami Herald has a very nice write up on Jim today, you can see it here.