Emma Witmer

Tallahassee

Senior Editor at Gulfshore Life

Masochist rejoining the Twitter - Senior Staff Writer @ Rowland Publishing - UF J-School c/o 2019. #NotTheEnemy

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Articles

The Women Behind the Work: A Naples Art Legacy

6 days ago | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

At Newman Art Gallery, near Naples’ Third Street South, three generations of women carry forward the work of the artist, husband, father and grandfather who chronicled their lives. Great names in art live on through analysis of their work, the letters they left behind, the moments they chose to document. It’s a partial portrait, a half-rendered version of a life told by those who knew the art but not the person.
Inside the High-Performance Life of the Chomps Family

1 week ago | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

It's 11 a.m., and Pete Maldonado is running behind. Easter week brought a house full of guests, heavy holiday food and, to top it off, three sick kids under the age of 9. It was chaos. “He just finished up his morning workout, so he should be out in just a minute,” Pete’s wife, Stephanie, says while picking up a few toys scattered around their bright, high-ceilinged Naples home. She knocked out her gym time hours ago while he wrangled the kids.
The Elite Trainers Behind SWFL's Power Players

2 months ago | gulfshorelife.com | Annamarie Simoldoni |Addison Pezoldt |Emma Witmer

BEST TRAINING GROUNDS For our Community Advisory Board members—leaders who juggle demanding careers, philanthropic commitments and social engagements—physical wellbeing isn’t optional. Workouts provide the foundation that sustains their demanding lives, giving them the energy to show up fully for the causes they champion and the stamina to stay sharp long-term. When every minute counts, the right personal trainer becomes a secret weapon.
School of Rock Fort Myers-Southwest Florida's Most Popular Live Act

2 months ago | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

BEST LOCAL SOUND My First Street loft, with its main drag-facing windows slung open to let in the breeze, makes the perfect vantage point for Downtown Fort Myers happenings. When we hear a heartfelt rendition of Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” drift through the window on a first Friday, my partner and I know to grab our shoes and head to the cordoned-off street below for a taste of River District talent—it’s time for Music Walk.
Marie Daâge: The French Porcelain Artist Bringing Hand-Painted Luxury to Naples Tables

2 months ago | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

BEST TABLE ART The table is set for breakfast. A pricked egg yolk, lush and warm, spills gently over a porcelain plate, the soft viscosity swimming across delicate green and gold floral brushstrokes. Scone crumbs scatter across a dish encircled in cerulean waves. Amid Marie Daâge’s curated tablescapes, precision and spontaneity dance in careful harmony. The Parisian’s eponymous haute porcelain maison exalts the art of hosting by holding steadfast to France’s 18th-century traditions.
Juilliard Trio Brings New Energy to Fort Myers’ Jazz Scene

2 months ago | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

The way Sebastian Rios talks about jazz feels as reminiscent of linguistics as musical theory. The 28-year-old bassist and composer for New Jazz Underground—the Juilliard-trained trio bringing its talents to Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center (SBDAC) on April 18—is intimately familiar with the genre’s syntactical history but by no means averse to peppering contemporary slang into his compositions. “Even before the Great American Songbook, there was the blues. Those rhythms are so universal.
BTS Exclusive: Inside Gulfshore Playhouse’s Historic Naples Debut

Feb 6, 2025 | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

Sequined hemlines and pocket squares lift and flutter as throngs of well-heeled guests gather around the promenade at Gulfshore Playhouse’s new Baker Theatre & Education Center. The windows are darkened, and the doors of the sleek, bowing construction, which evokes a lapping tide or the flow of a musical score, are cordoned off by a cobalt ribbon tied in a bow. It’s a cool, windy October evening, the year’s first true fall day, and the crowd is buzzing with excitement.
Naples Fashion Brand Pelerine Turns Italian Silk into Wearable Art

Feb 4, 2025 | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

A silk scarf is perhaps the most adaptable canvas in fashion—at once sophisticated and playful, equally at home wrapped at the neck or waist or displayed in a frame. For Naples-based Pelerine’s founder, Allison Pezzuti, Italian silk serves as the ideal medium for translating global artistic inspirations—Mexican art, centuries-old embroidery patterns, bold color studies—into everyday elegance. The brand emerged in 2021 as a quest for sophisticated versatility.
Jay Leno loves cars, and he’s coming to the right city for them

Jan 17, 2025 | naplespress.com | Harriet Howard Heithaus |Emma Witmer

Cover Story By Harriet Howard Heithaus and Emma Witmer Residential Subscriptions One copy mailed weekly Commercial Subscriptions Multiple copies mailed weekly to the same address CITY COUNCIL Seventy-four years after it began the practice, the city of Naples will stop fluoridating public wat... THEATER ARTS Once is not a traditional love story Under duress, Ms. Wrong can be Ms. Right. But perhaps she should have been Ms. Right all along? It’s... 2024 was a year of change, good and bad 2024...
The Fort Myers Artist Challenging our Innate Biases

Dec 16, 2024 | gulfshorelife.com | Emma Witmer

From the exterior, Carol Coates’ home studio appears little different from its neighbors, with its Spanish-tiled roof, stucco walls and palm-laden yard. Inside, though, canvases burst with color at every turn, wood and bovine bone sculptures from her Markmaking series fill the corners of her living room, and plaster monkeys dangle from walls, clinging to Edison bulbs. The small-framed, soft-spoken artist greets me with fresh cookies and peach-pear iced tea.