Miami Herald - March 17, 2005
Kevin Dean, kdean@herald.com

Booming construction in Coconut Grove means that Trina Collins has plenty to paint on.

Digging through dumpsters on construction sites, she salvages slabs of scrap wood, studded with nails and streaked with cement.

Then, she paints off-kilter nude women on the wood -- the bodies moving across the weathered surface like dancers on a stage.

Standing next to her artwork in her home, Collins bends and moves like the women she paints, showing off some of the choreographed steps that she perfected while running a modern dance company in Philadelphia for 25 years.

She has performed on stages all over the world, from San Francisco to Moscow, but she gets just as excited about dancing in front of her Coconut Grove home, right in the middle of Gifford Lane, surrounded by artists.

Over the years, her block on Gifford Lane has been home to a sculptor, a cellist, an actress and a few painters. Some packed up and left, but new faces replaced them.

This Sunday, the block's artists -- and dozens of others -- will display and sell their work in front of their homes as part of the annual Gifford Lane Art Stroll.

"Every year, I always dance in the street, and I'm never alone," said Collins, laughing while she slid through the front door of her home with a painting tucked under her arm.

She was mimicking the people who will be dancing along Gifford Lane this Sunday, their hands filled with art as they move to the music of Outta da Blues, the block's blues band.

"There is just some kind of magic about this place. This block is a magnet for artists."

Collins has helped organize the roaming art show for the past six years, most recently with the help of fellow Gifford Lane artists Bill Pintzow and Dolores Colichon.

A portion of the art sales are donated to the St. Stephens AIDS ministry, as well as the St. Albans Child Enrichment Center.

The cause seems fitting for Collins.

When the AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s, Collins decided that it was the perfect time to tell the story through dance.

Having just moved to Philadelphia with her dance company "Danceteller," she began to choreograph a live performance called "Before Forever."

In the show, dancers strutted and careened across the stage, moving to music and taped dialogue from interviews with AIDS patients living in Philadelphia.

It was such a hit that Collins traveled with her company to Russia, where she teamed up with Russian dancers and actors. The performance was designed to dispel myths about the disease, and the shows were packed with young Russian adults who had been ostracized because they were suffering from what was considered a taboo illness at the time.

Most of the artwork she creates is inspired from those performances, she said while seated in her kitchen next to Pintzow and Colichon.

The three neighbors were gathered around some of their artwork, picking out pieces to sell this weekend. Pintzow, a photographer, sorted through a few landscapes that he snapped in Colorado, while Colichon held up a painting that she had just finished.

Colichon said that the block plans to raise thousands for the local charities this year.

"Some people think that there's so little that can be done, but at least we can go to an art fair and buy some artwork to contribute to these causes," Collins said.

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