When Robert Rauschenberg first came to Captiva Island in the late 1960s, he had more than carved his mark on the art world. He'd long ago turned away from the traditions of European art. He'd blurred the lines between the arts' different disciplines. He'd combined music, dance and visuals, collaborating with the likes of composer John Cage, dancer Merce Cunningham and artist Jasper Johns. He'd experimented with everyday objects in his work, coining the word "combines" when he created three-dimensional collages of the stuff of urban life-newspapers, tires and a police barrier, for example. A stuffed Angora goat became the centerpiece of one of Rauschenberg's most famous combines, Monogram.

By the time the Pop Art movement caught up with him, Rauschenberg was off on another creative direction. He was back exploring the two-dimensional world, this time transferring magazine photography on to silk-screen prints on canvas. He used brush strokes of paint to connect seemingly disparate images.

By the 1960s, many art enthusiasts were ranking Rauschenberg among the most important living American artists. The Kennedys sought his work, as did other world figures and renowned collectors. He could've gone the route of his contemporaries, remaining in New York, hobnobbing in the Hamptons and resting on his laurels.

But that wasn't for Rauschenberg. He wanted a place that would soothe his spirit, stir his creativity and buffer him from the often overwhelming New York art scene, says Darryl Pottorf, the neighbor and fellow artist who began his own career in 1980 as one of Rauschenberg's assistants after the artist had settled in a small house on Captiva. Their relationship has become a close friendship over the years, with the pair collaborating on artistic endeavors and, lately, Pottorf looking after the ailing 78-year-old as he recovers from a stroke and copes with other health problems of recent years.

"He knew he wanted to be on the coast, on the beach," Pottorf says. "He liked the Gulf of Mexico."

So Rauschenberg got in his old Jaguar and followed the coastline south, stopping at various points along the way. When Rauschenberg finally reached Captiva, the sleepy island captivated him. It was on the Gulf, like his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. It was pristine and rustic, Old Florida at its best. At the time, the only way on and off Captiva and neighboring Sanibel was by ferry. There were so many coquinas nestled on the beach that the sugary white sand glowed with the colors of the tiny shells. Dense mangroves dotted the shoreline. Egrets and herons soared through the powdery blue sky and waded in the tannin-stained waters of the back bays.

The island's beauty entranced him. "Every time I got to Captiva, something magic happened," Rauschenberg said in a 2002 interview with the News-Press. "I just decided that was where I was supposed to be."

For more than 30 years now, the island has been Rauschenberg's base and muse. He's taken an active interest in Captiva's future and its residents, buying several acres of lush and valuable land to protect the few remaining slivers of old Captiva from development. "He feels this is home," Pottorf says.

Rauschenberg started his life on Captiva in a modest, three-bedroom beachfront house at the end of a street that's still paved with nothing but rocks and crushed seashells. He mingled with the locals, sometimes getting the letter carrier and others to help with his projects. In those days, Pottorf and Rauschenberg's other assistants and his dogs crammed into the tiny kitchen for late-night suppers of whatever Rauschenberg caught in the Gulf earlier that day.

"It was a neighborhood. It was old-timers," Pottorf says. "It was always a constant coming and going. ... It was always a constant flow of people and dogs."

It was also where Rauschenberg's collectors-the Kennedys, Norwegian royalty, New York aristocrats and the like-would come to peruse and buy his pieces.

Rauschenberg soon began buying more lots. One included an old concrete-block house Rauschenberg used as his print shop. As Captiva became more of a haven for the wealthy and for developers who built winter mansions and posh resorts, many of Rauschenberg's neighbors were forced off the island by skyrocketing property taxes and rising prices.

Rauschenberg's solution was simple: He'd buy their property and let them remain on it as if it were still theirs. "He'd work deals with people," Pottorf explains.

One of them was with the reclusive printmaker Maybelle Stamper. Even by old Captiva standards, Stamper was an eccentric. She moved to the island more than 60 years ago, settling in a tiny bungalow where she lived on what she grew in her garden. She made do without modern conveniences. She had a penchant for wandering the beach without clothing. Her prints were whimsical, almost otherworldly, and she didn't make a living off them. Instead, she relied on a monthly $77 Social Security check, recalls her friend and Pottorf's assistant, Mark Pace.

When Rauschenberg heard of Stamper's situation, he bought her property. Stamper lived in the house until her death in the 1990s. Her bungalow is now one of ten buildings on Rauschenberg's nearly 40-acre compound. It radiates from his three-story house, which Pottorf designed for him in the 1990s, through a winding road that's canopied by sea-grape trees, cabbage palms, coco plums and other lush native vegetation. Raccoons scurry about for food. An osprey perches itself on one of the nesting platforms Rauschenberg had built in a clearing that separates a tennis court from one of the buildings. The structures are used as studio and storage space as well as guest and living quarters for some of his staff.

Pottorf says that Rauschenberg laments what the island has become-an enclave for the rich that's lined with mansions that seem out of place in a subtropical setting. "There isn't a sense of a neighborhood," Pottorf says.

In the News-Press interview, Rauschenberg recalled how he used to be able to walk down the street and wave and chat with the locals. All that seemed to change with each palatial house that was built. "It's people from all over. They think, 'What's wrong with you?' if you wave at them," Rauschenberg said. "It used to be such a sweet neighborhood."

Still, on and off the island, Rauschenberg is known for his dedication to local causes and for his philanthropic endeavors. For years, Rauschenberg, the son of hard-working Christian fundamentalist parents, has supported the Arts for ACT auction, which raises money for the women's shelter Abuse Counseling and Treatment. His name and connections have brought celebrities and the spotlight on the fund-raiser, attracting guest auctioneers like Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Lauren Hutton and Sharon Stone in recent years. Despite his weakened health, Rauschenberg still attends the auction each year, chatting with friends, posing for pictures. He also remains a fixture at other charitable events and social gatherings.

"Bob has got the biggest heart in the world," Pottorf says.

After all, this is the man who put his personal fortune on the line for what some considered a pipe dream. In 1984, he launched the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange, an experiment in world peace through art. He showed his work in places where Western art was off limits, such as China, the Soviet Union and Cuba. Each exhibition cost him about $1 million to mount.

"He has never set a limitation on himself," says Pottorf. "When he wanted something accomplished, there was no stopping him."

While his work is on display in some of the world's greatest museums, including the Guggenheim in New York and Spain, Rauschenberg has always worked with local galleries, including Edison Community College's Gallery of Fine Art.

His impact on the gallery is difficult to measure, according to curator Ron Bishop. "I don't even know if that is quantifiable. It's almost, like, what part of the community hasn't he touched," Bishop says.

Rauschenberg has had many exhibits at the gallery over the years, including some of his combines, Bishop says. For a show in 2000, Rauschenberg donated limited-edition prints that were sold along with signed posters of his work. Those sales and matching funds from the state totaled about $220,000, and were used to establish an endowment for the gallery's future exhibitions and other expenses.

"I was just overwhelmed. His energy, his perception, ... everything was on his cuff," Bishop recalls of his first meeting with Rauschenberg a few years ago on the island. "You could just tell he was totally honest, totally up front, a genuine person."

Bishop was soon working on exhibitions of Rauschen-berg's more recent works. The curator remains astounded by the breadth of the artist's work, by the influence he's had on the way people look at paintings, prints and other artwork. "He is a recorder of our time," Bishop says. "He is, by far, one of the most versatile artists that has ever lived."

These days, Rauschenberg can no longer take long walks along his beach. He can't fish the waters of the Gulf like he used to, either. Yet despite his health, he still goes to his studio every day, assisted by a staff member. And when he gets there, he's still absorbed and engaged by his work. There's another project to work on. There's another print to complete. There's still more to create.

"He gets around," Pottorf says.