Longboat luminaries

Anne Abgott
When Abgott began painting in 1998, she knew immediately she had found her passion. As her passion grew, so did her skill.

In 2013, Abgott attained her proudest accomplishment: the American Watercolor Society’s signature membership, which selects 110 paintings from up to 1,500 submissions.

Eventually, Abgott lost the exhilaration she felt when painting and decided to begin a new style of watercolors.

“I wasn’t excited about anything anymore,” she said. “I didn’t have the feeling in my stomach where I wanted to get up and paint, so I wanted to do something different. I have a new style, and it’s working out for me pretty well.”

Recently, Abgott received two local awards, the Watercolor Award at the Venice Arts Center and the Society’s Award from Florida Watercolor Society.

“I like to do things that nobody else does, which is pretty hard to find because everything has been painted,” she said. “I just have to find a new way to present it and paint it.”

Ed Brickman
Ed Brickman, a renowned jeweler, is the first person to receive the Ageless Creativity award posthumously.

Brickman began his jewelry-making career at 16. He worked for a professional jeweler but realized he wanted to create his own designs.

He went on to start a business that imported and distributed nuts, screws and bolts; it became a global company. But his passion was creating his own jewelry. His designs can be seen in the Museum of Art and Design in New York City and the Newark Museum in Newark, N.J.

Brickman’s children, Carol Diamant and Eli Brickman, accepted the Ageless Creativity award on their father’s behalf.

“He had to know it all,” Brickman said. “He even took jewelry classes, even though he was an expert at it. He was an amazing guy. He was a student of life.”

Al Hixon
When the percussionist at a Worcester, Mass., movie theater was fired after movies with sound became mainstream (a live orchestra used to perform during silent movies), he gave a 6-year-old Al Hixon his drum set. Thus began Hixon’s music career.

Hixon developed his talent and started playing professionally in the seventh grade, working two nights per week. He continued playing professionally, making enough money to put himself through college at the University of Massachusetts.

Hixon became a landscape architect/land planner. He began his work in the late 1960s at an office on St. Armands Circle, and he eventually bought a house in 1987 on Longboat Key.

Hixon currently plays with his trio three to five times per week and considers his band to be one of the busiest on Florida’s West Coast.

“I enjoy the ability to community with other musicians on the stage in an extemporaneous way,” he said.

“I’ve learned the harder you work, the luckier you get, and I’ve been very lucky.”

Ron Johnson
From his days as commissioner and mayor, Ron Johnson is no stranger to the Longboat Key community.
Johnson began photography in high school but gave it up until his 75th birthday, when he decided to achieve a longtime goal of becoming a photographer.

Three years later, in spring 2010, Johnson bought his first camera.

In the past four years Johnson has had a camera, he estimates he has taken around 20,000 photos, but he said he has to take numerous pictures to capture a good one. His favorite subjects to photograph include clouds, beaches and birds.

Johnson has traveled to places such as South America and Italy to photograph, but he said his favorite place to shoot is Longboat Key.

“My best pictures don’t come from those trips,” he said. “I find so much interest here.”

Ed Miracle
Ed Miracle began painting at 21, after he was discharged from the Navy, and became a professional painter at 25.

“I love the freedom of being an artist,” he said. “Being an artist is a lot more freeing than most anything else.”

Miracle’s most famous painting is “I Told You So,” which has experienced copyright infringement many times since its origin.

“Over the years, the FBI has been involved many times,” he said. “One time they estimated there were about 300,000 of those brought in from Taiwan and places like that.”

At 65, Miracle decided to put down his paintbrush and become a full-time sculptor, a medium in which he also found success.

“I do like being a painter the better of the two,” he said. “I always loved sculpture, but the problem is a sculpture really nails you down. Painting you just roll it up and stick it in a suitcase.”

Miracle’s most famous sculpture is “Trilogy,” which was donated to the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi.

Margy Rich
Margy Rich, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, had a career as executive vice president at Saatchi & Saatchi, an advertising firm with internationally known clients such as Visa, Toyota and General Mills, but she wasn’t fulfilled. So, she quit her job and began painting full time.

Rich earned her MFA in painting in 2010 from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she was the oldest member of her graduating class by a generation, and then moved to Longboat Key.

“There are many accomplished, creative people on the Key,” she said. “That’s why we love living here.”

Rich’s work, known for its focus on space and place, has been in collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art’s Library Collection in New York City.