Manatee Fest

South Miami "downtown" is ready for the 2011 Christmas season. Here and there along the streets, intermingled with decorated Christmas trees, you can see statues of a large manatee cradling a baby manatee. This is one such statue in front of a very fine Italian restaurant, the Trattoria Sole. All the manatee statues have the same size and basically the same mother-son manatees (I am merely repeating local news reports to say that this is a mother and a baby manatee... in fact, who is to say that it is not a father and daughter, or other possible combinations?) except they are all different in artistic details. These are the work by local pop artist Alex Yanes sponsored by the various local merchants. This particular statue sponsored by the Mile High Karate martial art school is named "Zen." These statues are the objects showcasing the South Miami Manatee Fest for 2011 - 2012.