"Aren't my bromeliads fabulous?" Leoma Lovegrove, the growing-more-famous-every-day Matlacha artist, points to the collection of spiky, leathery plants she has spray-painted in Day-Glo colors. surreal pinks and greens and yellows and oranges that appear to be radioactive. Indeed, it is a good thing she has pointed them out; colorful as they are, I would have walked right past them. In her Matlacha Art Gallery and this adjacent garden she has aptly named Oz of Matlacha, no object is safe from Lovegrove's spray cans or whimsy. Painted bromeliads? That's nothing compared to other wondrous sights: a large turquoise boat, half buried in the sand, overflowing with colored coconuts like bubbles from a bathtub. inside, over the mango-juice-and-coffee bar, an army of plastic Disney figurines hanging upside-down from the ceiling like stalactites. her huge, colorful, trademark portraits of Gulfshore wildlife, rendered in her unique style, part Warhol, part Monet, part Audubon. and underfoot everywhere, her mosaics of the region's flora and fauna so unique and well rendered I have dreamed of returning at night with a jackhammer.

"If Monet had had fluorescent paints, he would have used them," she says.

I note her large, white, plastic-frame glasses, her hot-pink toenails, her hand-painted jeans, her gallery painted the colors of watermelon and mango flesh, the white, faceless, futuristic mannequins in the parking lot who constantly change positions and clothes (for Christmas they wore faux evergreen-garland tube tops with sparkly, red-garland straps) . and I realize what we have here is a rare bird in the art world: A reputable artist who understands promotion. And, after years of being one of Matlacha's few artistic eccentrics, she is no longer alone in this historic fishermen's village.

As the cost of living has risen on Sanibel and Naples and other former artists' haunts, Matlacha (say it: Matt-luh-SHAY) and neighboring Pine Island have slowly but colorfully evolved into Southwest Florida's Final Bohemia, where the likes of Lovegrove co-exist with multigenerational fishing families and tropical fruit farmers who migrated west, from Homestead, after getting leveled by Hurricane Andrew.

Pine Island is still Old Florida, with a Dairy Queen and True Value hardware store, which sits across the street from the Elks Lodge. The island has no traffic light. It is home to the novelist Randy Wayne White and artist Mel Meo, known for painting her colorful, curvaceous fruit on just about anything that will sit still. And be sure to take binoculars: I encountered flocks of wood storks and roseate spoonbills, and a nest of American bald eagles, off Stringfellow Road, just south of Cobb Road. (Most locals can point this out if you forget the location.)

Crossed Palms Gallery in Bokeelia is perhaps the island's toniest place. No need to be intimidated, though; this is, after all, Pine Island, and Jeffrey David Cowdrey, the resident host and comedian of the gallery, will quickly make you feel at home. With red plastic-frame glasses and a droopy mustache that hangs at least six inches down his face dangling like fish in a smoke house, he stands behind his desk on which sits a sign with his name and impressive credentials: CEO, CFO, COO and UFO. With the demeanor of Cheech or Chong, he will tell you all about the artists represented within, some from as far away as the West Coast and many from the area. The gallery sells landscape watercolors from local artist Dave Belling as well as a large collection of tropical-island-motif, hand-painted furniture by Teri Causey, who, Jeff points out, brandishing a magazine clipping, was recently featured in Coastal Living. Other cool things in the gallery are copper fish ornaments by Katrina Miller and wooden pelican sculptures by John Davis, aka The Wood Butcher, a sheriff's deputy from neighboring Charlotte County who is handy with a chainsaw and chisel.

At Koucky Gallery and Gardens, Chuck Koucky-who sports just as impressive a collection of anti-establishment facial hair as does Jeff-will most likely be out back at his kiln. His wife, Nancy, however, can tell you everything about Fish TV 26 by Sue Henshaw. It is an aquarium built inside a '70s-era TV set (the kind surrounded with wood so it resembles a piece of furniture-remember the doilies on top?) so that the aquarium is the TV screen. And instead of using some plastic plants and a treasure chest and gravel, Henshaw sculpted a Barbie-size kitchen, with air bubbles emanating from the kitchen sink and a fish cooking in a frying pan on the stove.

At Sistarz, next door to Leoma Lovegrove's, we walk through the garage-door entrance to find hand-painted women's boots and shoes, and a pair of retro, plastic-molded chairs that have been painted to be a man's and woman's torso. The latter has cushy, three-dimensional, bikini-clad breasts; the former has a hairy chest, à la Austin Powers, that you can pet like a dog.

The gallery list continues, among them: Trader's Hitching Post, which features art from Native Americans, and Wild Child Art Gallery, where I find an ominous, black-painted hammerhead shark sculpture made of tiny bits of scrap metal fused together. In all, there are about a dozen places to buy art on Pine Island, and if I were to boil down the galleries and describe the essence in the bottom of the pan, I would say this: The art here is affordable, nautical, environmental (lots of birds and fish), cautiously unconventional, tasteful, Pier One-ish (in the old days), whimsical, and often painted on wood. I'm not sure what it is about Pine Island and painted wood, but there is lots of it, and I would be remiss not to mention it. Even many of the telephone poles on Pine Island Road have been covered in brightly colored, innocent tropical scenes.

A closing note: I will declare you a sinner if you do not stop for a meal at The Lobster Shack in St. James City, on the southern tip of the island. My companion for the day, the anonymous food critic for The News-Press, says it is the island's first and only four-star restaurant. I ate a lobster roll that rivals anything I've had in the Maritimes of Canada. The crab cakes had lumps of meat the size of marbles. Also, Pine Bay Seafood in Matlacha, bright yellow and difficult to miss, attracts the serious gourmands of Lee County who venture there to buy their seafood. In the unlikely event they sell you shrimp that is blue or green, take it down the street to Leoma Lovegrove. She'll most likely find a home for it in her ever-changing Oz of Matlacha.

Ad Hudler is a Fort Myers novelist whose latest book is Southern Living. He can be reached through his Web site at www.adhudler.com.