A Fated Flow

Serendipitous encounters led sculpture artist Elise Gilbert to 60-foot depths

Born and raised in Bentonville, Arkansas, artist Elise Gilbert recalls a childhood removed from the type of artist districts and downtown galleries common to Emerald Coast communities.

A first visit to 30A in January 2021 left Gilbert drawn to the area for reasons beyond the beach. The community of local artists called to her, and two fated encounters unwittingly set her story in motion.

“It’s cool to look back because it did just flow so seamlessly,” Gilbert reflected.

At the time, Gilbert was finishing her degree in sculpture art at the University of Arkansas and working an art teaching internship.

Meanwhile, between semesters, she returned to Florida on frequent trips and quickly bonded with Mylan Brewer and Erica Wilson-Pappas, who she met on that first visit. A relationship formed with Brewer, and Wilson-Pappas became a close friend, too.

In 2022, Gilbert and Wilson-Pappas connected over respective recent achievements, and Wilson-Pappas commissioned a piece by Gilbert to celebrate.

“It was kind of a moment for both of us, making that piece,” Gilbert said. “She had just graduated from her yoga teacher training … and for me, it was the first commissioned sculpture that I made.”

Gilbert designed a small-scale clay sculpture, drawing inspiration from yoga mudras and styles of Buddhist and Hindu art that incorporate elongated fingers, hands, and arms.

Soon after, Gilbert decided to make a permanent move to the coast to be with her now fiance Brewer and connect with the support system she had begun to build here.

“I was like, ‘Why not move down here where I already knew some people,’” she said, “and there’s the beach.”

Gilbert worked for a year as a studio assistant for established local artist Allison Wickey, soaking in everything she could.

“Allison was such a mentor to me because she was already established, and I got to see what an actual working artist does,” Gilbert said.

In 2023, she landed a full-time position with the Cultural Arts Alliance (CAA) of Walton County as the program manager. In her role, Gilbert coordinates events, teaches a weekly Boys & Girls Club art program, and sources volunteers and art teachers.

“Everybody is so supportive and down to earth,” she said of the CAA work culture. “It’s helpful being around other people who are interested in art.”

And being close to the action keeps Gilbert vigilant to artist calls like the one for the 2024 Underwater Museum of Art (UMA). “I didn’t tell anyone I was going to apply,” she said, referring to her coworkers.

“I didn’t want any of my relationships with them to interfere with that.”

A committee of CAA staff and members of the South Walton Reef Association annually review artist applications and plans. Details ranging from design and creativity to structural integrity and reef suitability determine the juried selections.

In Gilbert’s first year applying, she made the cut.

Her UMA debut piece is a large-scale replication of the original clay work she designed for Wilson-Pappas as her first-ever commission. When selecting the design for her UMA debut, the yogi hands stood out as a conceptual parallel to underwater themes.

“I feel like it was kind of a subconscious thing,” Gilbert said of the original design, which turned out to be conducive to the needs of the artificial reef. The elongated fingers similarly mimic ocean anemones. The sculpture, titled Sea How We Flow, offers a nod to both themes of yoga and sea life.

Gilbert worked on the large-scale Sea How We Flow sculpture over several weeks in Arkansas and Florida. Her public sculpture professor from UA, Jon Cromer, offered her mentorship, assistance, and space at his studio in Arkansas.

“He was a huge mentor to me in choosing to do public sculpture,” she said. “I wanted to have him there to ask questions.”

At Cromer’s Arkansas studio, he used 3D software to scale up the measurements of the original clay design. From there, Gilbert started on the metal work required for structural integrity before shipping it home to Walton County to finish the concrete work.

Sea How We Flow debuted at the UMA exhibit on Aug. 8, becoming one of 47 sculptures on display at the underwater museum, located 60 feet deep, 1 mile offshore from Grayton Beach State Park.

Now, Gilbert is looking forward to new sculpture projects.

“I’m really interested in things related to female archetypes and what it means to be a woman,” she said. “I have always been interested in that. The periods that females go through are so different—stuff that people don’t talk about, like women’s health. We’re not studied like men are. With all the different phases you go through in life, there are a lot of unspoken things.”

Currently, Gilbert and Brewer are in the midst of planning an intimate wedding with close friends and family. Gilbert is also working on creating a studio space and establishing an equipment base.

And when the next artist call pops up, she plans to be the first in line.

THE PROCESS

For her UMA debut piece, Sea How We Flow, Gilbert sought guidance from her UA professor, Jon Cromer, and spent a week in Arkansas, working out of his studio for part of the sculpture’s construction.

The large-scale work required steel-rod reinforcements to meet UMA requirements for structural integrity, which Gilbert completed at Cromer’s studio before shipping the unfinished work back to Florida.

At her Santa Rosa Beach home driveway, Gilbert completed the remainder of metal work, which involved molding sheets of metal mesh, called lath, into the sculpture’s shape.

“Putting that lath on the outside took probably 2½ weeks,” Gilbert said. “Once the lath is on it, it’s strong enough that I could stand on the tip of the fingers.”

Gilbert then poured a concrete and gravel mixture into the metal shaping, then covered the outer lath layer with a final layer of smoothed concrete. The concrete phases took four days each.

“Once you start working with concrete, you can’t really stop; it will dry in pieces, and it can chip off,” Gilbert explained. “I would spray it with water as I was working to keep it moist, and I covered it with plastic during the night.

“I was working just trying to get it as smooth as possible,” she continued. “Then I would come back to … sand little areas.”

Gilbert enjoys perfecting those finer details.