Magda's Love Boat

Miami Art Week is sizzling with arts, parties and spectacles. It might surprise you to learn that the boldest and most heartening piece of canvas to grace our city during Art Week wasn’t located in our many galleries and museums, but sailing across our bayside and broadcasting a powerful message of hope. Art Of Sail Art Basel, a wonderful project of the non-profit the Impossible Dream, was launching their colorful sails painted by new Miami resident Magda Love.

Impossible Dream, a universally designed catamaran, founded by Deborah Mellen, was created to bring disabled and non disabled people together in productive, collaborative endeavors. With its unique accessible design, the Impossible Dream is an equalizer, creating a community that works together to sail our boat, exchange ideas and experience the empowering sensation of being in a beautiful, barrier free environment.

Our resident artist, Magda Love, invited by our head curator David McCauley, founder of Rise Up Gallery, worked over a week in splashing her vision of colorful love on our repurposed sails and taking us on of a journey of awareness to use art and design as a catalyst for ocean conservation, while sailing and pursuing a better quality of life for people with disabilities and their families. She used over 80 cans of spray paint, numerous assistants and over ten gallons of paint.

Our first journey started at the docks of Shake A Leg Miami, a 26 year organization founded by Harry Horgan, that has been teaching people with disabilities and the wider community that the unique calm and healing that comes from exploring our waters need not be accessible for all.

This year the Impossible Dream mission has taken us on a five month summer voyage from Miami to Quebec. We visited twelve cities, over 6000 miles, partnering with numerous rehabilitation hospitals along the way. We took more than 600 people living with disabilities to sail with us.

Captain Will Rey, has been sailing the Impossible Dream expressed his excitement for this new Art Quest , “Sailing the Impossible Dream with the freshly painted sails by Magda bring our message of dignity and accessibility to the international art community” Sad that you missed out on the maiden voyage? Don’t be! Visitors can experience for themselves the magic that happens at the intersection of art, compassion and a deep seated sense of community - just contact us and join our mission!