As Alys Beach fell into the dis­tance while in the back seat of my friends con­vert­ible, me and my friends, all elated from the night’s event, stared at the stars and won­dered just how can such nat­ural beauty be per­son­i­fied into what turned out to be the most sen­sual soirée of the year. Dig­i­tal Graf­fiti pegged every artis­tic but­ton on my meter. Rethink­ing the evening while feel­ing the breeze across my face and rid­ing along scenic 30-​​A, I couldn’t help but truly appre­ci­ate the eclec­tic nature of Santa Rosa Beach and the pure vibrancy that it brings to those of us who allow it to pen­e­trate our minds, hearts, and emo­tions. To me, Dig­i­tal Graf­fiti not only hits home, it becomes a part of my cre­ative nature and infil­trates my senses in a way that no other artis­tic event can in this area.

The venue alone is enough to trans­port you from here to another exotic loca­tion as it always does with me. Artists from across the world show­cased their mas­ter­pieces of dig­i­tal art pro­jected on the stark white walls of Alys Beach’s com­mu­nity of homes. Cal­iza Pool, a part of Alys Beach, which in itself is a mas­ter­piece, was adorned with col­or­ful images and beau­ti­ful peo­ple danc­ing to music, played by a DJ was who ele­vated on a plat­form over the pool.

All in all, I am, and have always been, a walk­ing bill­board for this event. It is indeed the party of the year and quite frankly, kicked off my sum­mer in the best way pos­si­ble. If you missed it this year, check out some pho­tos and a few videos of the win­ning artists. Truly amazing.…

Dig­i­tal Graf­fit 2010 Entry Bala Boyd–Void? from Bala Boyd on Vimeo.

Bomb­shell from Don Relyea on Vimeo.

Nearly 300 men and women came together to pro­mote women’s health and raise money for local char­i­ties at the first annual Lit­tle Black Dress Party on May 22, at the Emer­ald Coast Con­fer­ence Cen­ter. The event included a Fash­ion Show by Dillard’s, live and silent auc­tions, a live band, great food and a fab­u­lous time!

The White-​​Wilson Cen­ter for Women’s Imag­ing part­nered with Emer­ald Ladies Jour­nal and other local orga­ni­za­tions to host the event. Over $15,000 was raised for The Shel­ter House, Oppor­tu­nity Inc., and the local chap­ters of The Amer­i­can Can­cer Soci­ety and The Amer­i­can Heart Association.

Each char­ity was pre­sented a check for $3,700 at the Lit­tle Black Dress Wrap-​​Up Recep­tion on June 30, 2010 at Two Trees Restau­rant in Fort Wal­ton Beach.

If you didn’t make it to the event this year, don’t hang your LBD (lit­tle black dress) up quite yet. Plans are already in the works for another event in 2011.

For more infor­ma­tion on this event or for a list of rec­om­mended annual health screen­ings visit: http://​www​.white​-wil​son​.com/​l​i​t​t​l​e​b​l​a​c​k​d​r​e​s​s​p​a​r​t​y​.​htm.

So many times, we get caught up in our own lives of what, to us, seems most impor­tant. But some­times, just some­times, there’s that moment of  com­plete seren­ity that comes over you.…maybe it’s some­one who just took the time to stop by and say hello, or crossed your path after years gone by, or maybe it’s just sit­ting on your back porch enjoy­ing the night time air. But there’s inevitably some­thing about that moment that brings us back to real­ity. The real­ity, not as we know it to be right now, but that inan­i­mate, unex­plain­able real­ity that shows us why things matter.

Recently, I cov­ered an an extrav­a­gant event in NYC that cel­e­brated a year of accom­plish­ments across the world, where chil­dren all over were granted the wish of a life­time. They were given smiles. Not just smiles (this par­tic­u­lar non-​​profit pro­vides surg­eries for chil­dren with cleft palates or cleft lips), but self-​​esteem, encour­age­ment, and oppor­tu­nity. But even still, with all the glitz and glam­our of a grand event that show­cases all the accom­plish­ments, the celebrity endorse­ments, the mas­sive amounts of money raised through suc­cess­ful businessmen/​business women, I still can’t help but stop and real­ize just how grate­ful I am for the life I have. There’s some­thing to be said for great friends, great fam­ily, and a sup­port sys­tem that give the ulti­mate sacrifice.…their time, their love, their life­long commitment.

What is most impor­tant in life? That’s the $64 mil­lion ques­tion. How often, I pon­der, con­tem­plate and even argue with my own inner heart strug­gling over that very thing. At at the end of my romp and rage, sat­is­fac­tion and dis­con­tent, I real­ize that, ulti­mately, I come back to the same con­clu­sion. Life just seems to be a jour­ney. We live, we love, we move on, we find new expe­ri­ences, and we learn from them. But in the end, it’s those that care about you the most that seem to make the most dif­fer­ence in our lives. Those that invest in us and make us feel like we really are worth­while. There’s no amount of money that can com­pare to the ones that take the time to make us feel.….well, real.

In a world where movies, tv, mag­a­zines, not to men­tion just our sphere of influ­ences make us feel like we have to be some­one or some­thing else, you have to ulti­mately under­stand that it’s peo­ple that make the world go round. And not just peo­ple, but those that know you inside and out. Those that have that uncanny sense when some­things wrong even though they are miles away, or those that believe in you no mat­ter what cir­cum­stances make you feel like there’s noth­ing left ahead. I call them my “angels on earth”.  Put sim­ply, they make me feel like life is worth liv­ing after all. It’s because they see some­thing in you that’s sub­stan­tial and they adamantly and fer­vently want to see you suc­ceed, whether it’s life, love, or career. Ulti­mately, they want to see you happy.…You can’t put it on paper, you can’t cash it in the bank. Sim­ply an amaz­ing, irre­place­able feel­ing that can only be filled by those cer­tain “angels” that show up in life and give you a gift that’s all yours. Care­fully crafted to the per­son you are and given with care, pas­sion, love and wis­dom. Words say some, actions speak vol­umes. And I’m so thank­ful that despite what goes on around me, I have all of these things in my life and the know­ing that every­thing will always turn out alright in the end.

I am NOT a morn­ing per­son, let’s just start right there…But as lethar­gic as I felt the past two morn­ings when my alarm clock, which has never seen that early, buzzed me awake at 4am, I fun­neled large amounts of cof­fee and quickly began to antic­i­pate the excite­ment of the day ahead.

Yes­ter­day, as I made my way inside the two-​​bedroom cot­tage in Alys Beach, I joined the lovely group of ladies who have come together for a photo shoot that means more than just show­ing off cute clothes and beau­ti­ful women, it’s a state­ment. It’s a col­lab­o­ra­tion of pow­er­ful, intel­li­gent and styl­ish women who have trav­eled and worked across the coun­try, yet have found their home in the retreats of Scenic 30-​​A. With the city lifestyle still in their blood, it comes as no sur­prise that they want those else­where to see just what it is that makes this area so attrac­tive and stylish.

The idea to show­case the area’s styl­ish beach riv­iera orig­i­nated with Sheila Goode, a well-​​known and amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­pher, who part­nered with Nfo­cus Mag­a­zine, the pre­mier social lifestyle mag­a­zine out of Nashville, to cover a story about New York fash­ion at the beach. For some rea­son, it seems that “emer­ald coast” style res­onates a under­whelm­ing impres­sion in the minds of those who don’t live here. In fact, the very ladies who Sheila brought together includ­ing myself, Alli­son Craft (Alli­son Craft Designs), Hay­ley Green (Hay­ley Green Pho­tog­ra­phy), Julie Van Otten (Make-​​up Artist), Stephanie Nichols (DejaVu & Judith March Cloth­ing), & Paige Schnell (Trac­ery Inte­ri­ors) have all at some point or another worked in or with the fash­ion indus­try in some of the biggest fash­ion epi­cen­ters in the coun­try. We all want to show­case not only our arts and tal­ents, but more impor­tantly to make a state­ment about all the fash­ions and fash­ion­istas which make this area so incred­i­bly chic and memorable.

Sheila approached me to help style about eight dif­fer­ent ladies, NYC style, in cloth­ing donated by designer, Stephanie Nichols, who pro­duces a line of woman’s clothes called Judith March and Deja Vu. Alli­son Craft’s beau­ti­ful hand­made pearls were laid out all over the comfy white bed ready to be paired with the tons of fab­u­lous shoes, acces­sories, hand­bags and hats that filled the rooms with color, inspi­ra­tion and flair. We all fever­ishly pulled, plucked, paired, and per­fected out­fits, hair, makeup and acces­sories to make sure we had the per­fect looks. The finale to all of yesterday’s hard work, sweat (because it was 100 degrees out­side), and patience, was the last shoot of the day.…the Sex in the City shoot. Some­thing about see­ing every­thing put together and brought to life out­side at the mag­nif­i­cent Cal­iza Pool, made me com­pletely under­stand what we were work­ing towards and why we really do want to show off our local style, tal­ents, and designs. Every­thing has cul­mi­nated into a fab­u­lous, fun and mem­o­rable shoot.

Here are some of the shots I took dur­ing the last two days. These are only a few that I was able to squeeze in, but we lit­er­ally have hun­dreds of awe­some pics, so there’s more to come!!  S’amuser!