Throughout the year, Marietta Museum of Art & Whimsy founder and namesake Marietta Lee searches near and far for art. This season, she acquired more than 20 works by the Florida Highwaymen and their mentor, A.E. Backus, among other “finds.” Now that the museum is closed for the summer, it’s time to decide how and where to exhibit the new additions.
“The first thing that we do is at the end of May is take all of the chairs out and bring in all the new acquisitions and figure out how we’re going to set this up for next year so that we can tell stories of how this painting is more developed and this painting has different colors, and we talk about the artists,” said Lee.
Lee created the Sarasota museum in 2008.
“Long, long, long, long, long ago, it was a motel. And along the way, it was the Salastine Palace, it was a Thai restaurant and then it was a Buddhist meditation place. People did yoga here. Then it was the Serendipity Gallery, and they did haute couture clothing, which meant you could buy a scarf for a thousand dollars.”
Lee discovered many of the colorful paintings, stained glass, sculpture and other art objects on display in the museum’s meandering warren of rooms and gardens while strolling Florida’s numerous outdoor art fairs and festivals, such as the Sarasota Spring Craft Fair at Five Points.
“There’s a story associated with every single artwork inside the museum and on the grounds,” Lee said. “And that’s part of why I buy what I buy. That’s why you don’t see too much abstract work here. I think that people like to hear stories, and I thought we need to be telling good stories to each other.”
Lee and the museum’s volunteers love to regale visitors with these and many other tales. Sometimes the artists come, too.
So make plans to visit the Marietta Museum of Art & Whimsy next season. It reopens November 29, 2025.
You can’t miss it. It’s the place on Tamiami Trail in Sarasota with the big pink flamingoes outside.
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Lee noted that roughly 98 percent of the artwork on display is owned by the museum, with the other 2 percent on loan from her personal collection.
“We have artists that work in metal,” Lee said. “We have painters. We have sculptors. We have people that work with clay. Quite a variety."
The inclusion of the word “whimsy” in the museum’s name lets the public know that the artwork inside and throughout the grounds is fun and uplifting rather than the somewhat stodgy offerings people find in most art museums.
“I was a caregiver,” Lee explained. “I was both an artist and a registered nurse, and my dad had a big stroke. I wound up going back and forth from Florida to Connecticut, and finally I wound up just living in Connecticut, helping out with my mom and dad. There were times when I just seemed down, and I would go to art museums to get away and try to pick up my spirits. Sometimes that happened, but most times it didn’t.”
These experiences left Lee with the conviction that many museums miss the point of why people visit them.
“Do they go to get depressed?” Lee asked herself. “I don’t think so. Do they go to maybe lift their spirits? Sure, that sounds a little more plausible to me. And so I just kept going to all these different art museums up north and in Florida, and I just thought that there needed to be something different.”
Such as artworks that show a sense of humor.
“Museums are a bit devoid of humor, and I thought that was kind of weird because people are humorous. They love humor. We all kind of have a silly streak. When I look at artwork, I look to see is there an element of humor.”
For Lee, humor has a very specific definition.
“When I was growing up in Connecticut, we were all very, very good at the put-down, at sarcasm,” said Lee. “It took me a long time to realize that with sarcasm, you’re putting down another person or a group of people to elevate yourself. That wasn’t what I wanted to do at all. The artwork I love most contains humor that just strikes everybody’s funny bone, no matter what color you are, no matter what problems you have. It’s just part of being human. It’s a universal humor. We’re all kind of goofy. I like art and artists who can tap into that universal goofiness.”
Lee actually started the museum in Connecticut. The year was 2006. But she wasn’t able to find a place in Connecticut with enough space and parking.
“I thought that this was going to be a hit because we all have parents and we all have times when we’re a little down and we need to get a little uplifting, and so after three failed land contracts, I got on a plane, came down here and then the next day, I saw this place. I lived about two blocks away, so I knew the social problems of this neighborhood, but I still thought there was a possibility here that this would be a good spot.”
Lee said there is roughly 3,500 square feet under air, but more than double that in the gardens adjoining the museum.
“Yeah, we have really, really nice grounds,” Lee acknowledged. “I bought this property not because of the building. I couldn’t understand the building. But I bought it because of the grounds. I’m a gardener. The oak trees were just beautiful in the back, and I had already been collecting outdoor sculpture and so I thought this was going to be just fine.”
Even though she moved the museum to Florida in 2008, it took two years to rehab the building. Lee finally opened her doors in 2010.
One problem that Lee encountered even before she opened her doors was signage.
“You’re only allowed so much space for an advertising sign,” Lee observed.
She came up with an inventive solution to those limitations by placing five large pink flamingoes along U.S. 41.
“I did that on purpose,” Lee noted with a wide grin. “What I wanted to do was have people say, ‘Oh yeah, oh yeah, that’s the place with the big pink flamingoes.’”
Her plan worked to perfection, and 15 years later, residents and out-of-towners alike know the Marietta Museum of Art & Whimsey as the place with the big pink flamingoes.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
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