HIDDEN TREASURES OF KEY WEST / "I LOOKED UP AND I WAS IN HEAVEN"

With all due respect to Mr. Roy Ayers, our own “Mr. Ubiquity” would be plein air painter extraordinaire Dwight Kalb. Whether roaring by on his motorcycle, easel slung over a shoulder, or seated at a designated “launching pad,” Dwight is as recognizable a piece of Key West as Will Soto or the Southernmost point marker. And he’s accomplished this in a relatively short time.

Dwight arrived here in 1991 after suffering a broken shoulder that left him incapable of continuing his career as a sculptor of religious art. Depressed, he left his native Chicago to escape winter and try to sort out a new vocation. A fortuitous turn of events brought him to Key West (he was tossed out of Boca Raton for sleeping in his van) and now it’s virtually impossible to imagine our island city without his omni-presence.

His first night in town found him at Captain Hornblower’s jazz emporium, where his love for music found him listening to an eerily familiar musician. As it happened, Dwight had driven all the way from Illinois listening over and over again to a single cassette of Chet Baker playing sad love songs like “My Funny Valentine” and “Let’s Get Lost” accompanied by a distinctive bassist. Dwight had been listening to this cassette for thirty-two hours! The bassist at Hornblower’s so reminded Dwight of what he’d been hearing that he had to mention it to the flugelhorn playing owner. In typical Key West fashion, of course the bassist he’d been hearing was the very same player who’d been accompanying his odyssey for a day and a half! Stunned by the kismet of it all, Dwight broke out some paints on the spot and started his first canvas. Dan the owner checked it out, liked what he saw, and offered him three one hundred dollar bills!

He also offered him a bit of advice. He told him to park his van in Bahama Village where “the cops wouldn’t hassle him.” Dwight took the advice, rolled into the hood, and parked, thinking “I’m in Heaven.” Sure enough, the next morning when he awoke to the very un-Chicago sound of crowing roosters, he looked up and a sign announced that he indeed, was in “Blue Heaven!” His life has been a series of Key West exclamation points ever since.

His wildly colorful canvases grace hundreds of walls throughout the country as well as providing the house posters for both Blue Heaven (natch!) and The Green Parrot. John Penny, who bought the painting that won first prize at the recent Schooner Wharf Art Fair, mentioned that he had it hanging in his Miami Office and it made him smile and think of Key West every time he looked at it.

Of late he’s been combining his two great loves – art and music, by painting scenes of the Sunday jazz jam at The Parrot. Before he was a sculptor, Dwight was a trap drummer for Dick Clarke and provided half the rhythm section for a gypsy bus caravan consisting of the Supremes, the Shirelles, the Marvelettes, and a host of other early Motown acts. He still makes his money on a small swivel stool turning out one-of-a-kind solos and grooves that celebrate life and bring out the beat in the beast.

A true bohemian rhapsody of a man, Dwight might appear anywhere, dance through a composition of oil and light, and disappear like The Lone Ranger, leaving a smiling re-enthused observer to marvel at his talent, his joie de vivre and his love of soul music. He is Key West’s spontaneous combustion of color on the corner, and he’s many a tourist’s and locals’ alike “only in Key West” cherished experience.