Coconut Dan, the Flip Flop Man

"Coconut Dan" Harder displays his found object beach art on a tree in his yard.

Early Sunday morning, Dan Harder was hard at work as runners raced by his house at 78th and Blind Pass. Hanging from one tree, a coconut painted with blue dolphins.

“Coconut Dan”, a commercial painter by trade, brings color to beachy objects like coconuts and sand dollars that he finds near his St. Pete Beach home. When he finds a lone flip flop by the side of the road, he takes his cerulean and amber acrylics to that, too, giving a found object new life as art.

“I like bright things,” Coconut Dan says.