Miami, as most everyone knows, is about much more than just beaches. As an arts destination it has hit the stratosphere. There are close to one hundred galleries, a dozen art museums and nearly a thousand arts groups both big and flashy and tiny and scrappy.

Each December one of the most important events for the international art scene, the prestigious Art Basel, rolls into town, bringing swarms of curators, collectors, dealers, artists and high wattage celebrities for four days of big art. But if you’re in Miami any of the other eleven months of the year, there’s still plenty of art to see and some rather unusual ways to see it. Here are a few.

Hotels-Turned-Galleries

Miami is so delightfully art saturated that even the hotels have gotten into the act. For most it means hosting special events during Art Basel, but a few act as galleries in their own right.

The Sagamore, built in 1948, has been a hotel-cum-art venue since 2001. “We’re about art twenty-four hours a day,” hotelier and visionary art collector, Cricket Taplin, says of the beachfront hotel she has made legendary. A Massimo Vitalimural-size color print takes up the entrance wall. Roxy Paine’sstrange sculptural mushrooms seem to be growing horizontally out of the wall over the reception desk and a glittering blue resin-block swing hangs from the ceiling. The art doesn’t stop in the lobby. Continue and you’ll pass a wall of historic and contemporary photographs including a rare 1964 photo of a young Andy Warhol clutching yellow daisies. Even the property’s stairwells burst with the riotous color of stained glass and street art collaborations.

Farther south along the beach isThe Betsy, an example of Florida-Georgian architecture built in 1942. The small white-shuttered hotel with a cozy front porch is newly incarnated as a haven for the arts. Primarily known as a literary hotel with a writer’s room, the hotel also gives visitors the opportunity to explore the visual arts. “The idea is that there is nothing more important than creativity. That’s how we were raised,” says Jonathan Plutzik who with his wife, Lesley Goldwasser and sister Deborah Briggs, are the drivers of this unique hotel/arts venue.

Wander through the lobby and you might see exhibitions featuring the prints of South African William Kentridge or the illuminated images of Trinidadian artist Christopher Cozier. Talk to this hotelier family about art (they are happy to chat with visitors) and it is apparent how deeply committed they are to the local community, from creating space for some of Miami’s less affluent school kids to come and draw, to mounting “Transart”, a recent showcase for Miami’s transgender artists. “Everything we do is free, ”Plutzik says “and everything is about art and community.”

Paint the Town in Wynwood

Wynwood, epicenter of Miami’s art scene, not only houses some fifty galleries, but the former industrial neighborhood’s walls are canvasses too. Wynwood Walls, as it is known, has close to 100,000 sq ft of street art, works such as Shepard Fairey’s images of the Dalai Lama and the bright abstract pieces of artist Futura.

The most unusual way to see the street art is on a bike tour (Wynwood Mural Tours) with artist and guide Ryan Ferrell or his colleague, street artist Atomik (Adam Vargas). They’ll take you behind abandoned buildings into overgrown warehouse parking lots, all for the sake of art. Though they have seen the pieces hundreds of times, their enthusiasm and expertise is endless. “Look at that technique! It’s like hieroglyphics!” exclaims Atomik as if seeing L.A. artist Retna’s work for the first time.  Passing the Wynwood Brewing Company he points out the bright orange mural from artist Kraveand then explains how Puerto Rico’s Bikismo achieved the hyperealistic quality of the metallic looking dog painted on the side of a Wynwood middle school. Between them, he and Ferrell make even the most skeptical anti-spray-paint visitor appreciate the genre.

Stand Collective

Almost three decades ago when the Wynwood area was still a scruffy neighborhood of warehouses, a group of young artists took over the empty American Bakeries building. They called it the Bakehouse Art Complex. Today it is home to sixty studios and two galleries. Artists often leave their doors open so visitors can peek in. Drop by fiber artist, Pamela Palma’s studio and watch her at her at the loom creating bold, one-of-a-kind tapestries. And if you can catch sculptor Mike Rivamonte in his studio you’ll have a million questions for him about his strange and playful “robots” constructed from found objects.

There are a number of other art collectives in Miami that host exhibitions and special events, such as Fountainhead Studios where more than thirty artists have studios, including street artist TYPOE, and painter Marco Beria. Another, the RAW collective, offers exposure to young upcoming artists (and musicians) and holds monthly showcases for the curious.

Go North

While Wynwood is the center of the scene, artists are also setting up studios farther north in Little Haiti, an area that is part of North America’s immigrant narrative. Haitian refugees fleeing unbearable political situations and natural disasters ended up living in the area, named “Little Haiti” by community activist, the late Viter Juste. His son, Miami Herald photographer, Carl Juste has his own studio in Little Haiti and also manages The Iris Photo Collective.  The gallery can be visited by appointment most days of the week and features the work of photographers documenting the lives of people of color around the world.

Juste’s next-door neighbor is Haitian-American Artist, Edouard Duval Carrié. Though a celebrity in the art world, he still opens his studio to visitors by appointment. Duval-Carrie welcomes the growth of Little Haiti as a center of the arts. “I came to Miami because there was a Little Haiti”, he says.

There are also some exciting, more recent, additions to the area. Laundromat Art Space is a gallery and collective where one might see the complex photomontages of artists such as Marina Gonella or the soft felt sculptures of German-born artist Bianca Pratorius. For those who are interested in purchasing the work of upcoming young artists, Yo Miami is the ticket. This art space (with its exterior painted by street artist Ruben Ubiera) holds monthly “Average Joe Art Sales”, where you might pick up a surreal oil landscape by Lorie Ofir or Claudio Picasso’s photorealistic panels.