After running her car into one too many Colorado snowbanks, Susann D’Antonio packed up her belongings and — with young son Dylan — fled winter and headed for the Florida Keys. And while her motive for moving might be a common one, her life since arriving in the island chain has been anything but.
Since that 1979 relocation, the multitalented D’Antonio has become a prolific artist, award-winning costume creator and notable force in the local arts community. In recent years she has added “art show organizer” to her roster of credits, successfully coordinating the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Key West Art Center’s beloved Key West Art and Craft Festival.
Today D’Antonio’s creative specializations include two- and three-dimensional paintings using encaustic mixed media, in which pigmented beeswax is melted and manipulated on a hot surface. The wax design is then pressed into paper to create a one-of-a-kind monotype in two and three dimensions. Equally compelling are her multidimensional assemblages, ranging from vivid weavings and seedpod creations to whimsical abstract figures.
“I’ve never been focused on just wanting to paint landscapes, because I’m too interested in too many things,” said D’Antonio. “You’re constantly pulling from your environment, from new things you learn, and integrating new things into your practice.”
Her work can be found at the Key West Art Center and Big Pine Key’s Artists in Paradise gallery. Behind the Big Pine gallery is the Framing in Paradise shop that she owns with husband Bobby D’Antonio, a sculptor and musician.
Susann’s migration from Colorado to the Keys, where she eventually settled in Big Pine and met Bobby, sparked the start of her professional art career. Her most successful early creations were intriguing gourds, colorfully painted, wood-burned and embellished with three-dimensional elements.
“I moved away from those once I discovered encaustic because of the tactile nature of the wax and how you can build up the layers and the luminosity with it,” D’Antonio said. “You can carve it, paint with it, collage with it — so many things you can’t do with traditional painting.”
But it was her large-scale “living art” costumes, fabricated with Bobby for Key West’s flamboyant Fantasy Fest, that drew the most widespread attention.
For decades, the 10-day Fantasy Fest costuming and masking celebration has offered a showcase for artists’ elaborate costumes, headdresses and floats designed for its masquerade competitions and grand parade.
The D’Antonios’ creations began as simple “pet and person” costumes for the annual Fantasy Fest Pet Masquerade. They evolved into elaborate combinations of gigantic costumes and small floats that Susann wore and/or propelled each year during the parade — including a “Ben Her” ensemble in which she was clad as a gladiator in a chariot pulled by five seahorses.
While “Ben Her” wowed festival crowds many years ago, its female-centric emphasis is echoed in D’Antonio’s current creative direction.
“I really want to focus on women and paying homage to the women who came before us,” she said. “I want to take those skills that women had — hand stitching, weaving — and elevate them.”
Her recent work includes abstract female figures embellished with mahogany pods and handmade lace from her personal collection, as well as layered and woven pieces framed in quilt hoops with images crafted from encaustic monoprints.
Some feature suggestions of a horizon, an element that infuses much of her artistry. Viewed as a metaphor for what lies beyond and things yet to come, the horizon has fascinated her throughout her long Keys residence. Her work is also influenced by the unique colors of life in the island chain.
“The rest of the world is not as colorful as we are, and I mean that literally and figuratively, because our lives here are full of color,” said D’Antonio.
Her own days are a tapestry of colorful elements — exploring and refining her artistry; enjoying the blended family of adult children and three grandchildren she shares with Bobby; walking “mixed breed Key West shelter dog” Bruno; and tending to black cat Serafina, who approached Bobby as a tiny stray kitten and demanded he adopt her.
She’s also a longtime board member of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts and Monroe County Art in Public Places, and regularly displays new work in exhibits and shows.
In life as in her art, D’Antonio embraces learning and constantly discovers new passions and directions. Following a recent class experience, she started making felt fabric by hand — cutting it and crafting it into quirky sculpted “houses” that explore the concept of shelter.
While her work has taken many forms over the years, the underlying response D’Antonio seeks from viewers has remained remarkably constant.
“They need to have a visceral response — to read their own experience into it,” she said. “Whatever the image is, I want people to see themselves in it.”
