The third Saturday of March falls on or near the Spring equinox and is the designated annual date for Artful Day. The brainchild of T.A. Wyner of Sunnier Palms, Artful Day is a meeting of South Florida artists and supporters who positively depict the human form through their art.
The gatherings typically have artists painting or drawing life (figure) models, observing a body painting demonstration, learning about live body plaster castings, and participating in photography of the nude. The nude in art is the celebrated theme and plenty of past examples are on display. At the end of the day, the event culminates with a review of the created artworks during a late afternoon tea party.
Artful Day host and organizer T.A. Wyner has been a tireless activist for naturist rights, nude beach rights, and body acceptance issues since the 1980s. She is the one who made international news in 1989 through her protest and arrest at MacArthur Beach State Park (located near West Palm Beach). MacArthur Beach was original known as Air Force Beach and was owned by philanthropist and millionaire John D. MacArthur. MacArthur himself used to sunbathe without clothes on Air Force Beach and allowed 1000 - 5000 other naturists to join him in what had become the largest nude beach in the southeast United States. All of that came to an end when MacArthur died in 1981. Although his will gave Air Force Beach to the State of Florida and Palm Beach County as a park, his specific instructions that the park accommodate the traditional nude beach use was ignored by authorities. The subsequent and repeated arrests of peaceful unclad beachgoers eradicated the naturist user group from the park. To this day MacArthur Beach has yet to recover and attract a large number of visitors again.
During T.A. Wyner's 1989 arrest, she was protesting the crackdown on naturists and was advocating for the reestablishment of Air Force Beach's nude beach. She chose to do this by expressing her art through drawings and messages on her her unclad body. The suppression of expression and of art is expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. Many years of court cases have given T.A. a number of victories and since then, there have been annual, permitted one-day nude protests at MacArthur Beach. Nonetheless, the issue of beach nudity at MacArthur remains largely unresolved. Today a small group of naturists have started re-using the northern part of the park again, although they are cautious and will briefly cover up when rangers patrol the beach.
T.A. Wyner's victory in many court cases involving freedom of expression and the human body led to the creation of Artful Day. Held at Sunnier Palms Nudist Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida, Artful Day is an annual spring rite of reaffirming the normalcy of the human body and its depiction through art. Among the participating invitees are St. Lucie County Commissioners, the County Sheriff, and members of the local chamber of commerce, all of which have been educated about the goals of Artful Day and fully support the right of Sunnier Palms to exist and thrive.
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