Making Waves

Attorney Jane Lane is a master multitasker.

The petite blonde, 50, has worked full-time as a private mediator in family and civil law since retiring from her own medical malpractice and insurance practice in 1998. She assists part-time with the legal needs of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The single mother of two daughters even worked closely with the architect in designing and overseeing every aspect of her 3,000-square-foot, canal-front home.

"I'm a businessperson," Lane explains. "I'm very methodical and very organized."

So when the ever-assiduous Lane was asked to chair this year's Art Royale event for Fort Myers' Alliance for the Arts, she went about the task with customary energy and focus. Lane launched into creating a full-scale business plan-including mission statements, job descriptions and contact lists-and formed a volunteer staff of more than three dozen committee members to help put her plans in motion.

"This is a little more ambitious than [in] years past," Lane says. The eclectic evening will include interactive presentations in nearly every genre of art-visual, performing, culinary, fashion and more-in what Lane says will be "a total do-what-you-want-to event."

The evening is a fundraiser for the annual operating budget of the Alliance for the Arts-what Lane calls "the hub of the art wheel in Southwest Florida." The alliance is a nonprofit organization devoted to nurturing the arts in the region and serving as a liaison between artists, art groups and audiences.

"This area is so rich with artists," says Lane. "[Art] can be one thing that serves as a stimulus for so many different people in so many different ways."

-Tiffany Yates