The sizzling Latin American collecting crowd savored an evening in the swank sandbox at the Oasis of the Raleigh Hotel in South Beach for a party hosted by the Cruz-Diez Foundation, Tanya Brillembourg and Luis Benshimol during Art Basel Miami Beach.

The cocktail reception toasted the upcoming 2011 Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's "Latin American Experience" gala, which will highlight a decade of relentless collecting on behalf of the museum, and its bright future with the in-house International Center for the Arts of the Americas. SaludArte, a non-profit dedicated to developing artistic programs in the cultural and educational fields for Iberoamerican youth, also hosted the event.

Spanglish swirled in the air as Houston patrons mingled with South American heavyweight collectors. Spotted in the dunes were Melissa Grobmyer, Heidi Gerger, Rusty Wortham and Gail and Louis Adler.

No doubt, the Miami nights were rife with art parties. Houston-born/New York-based media master and contemporary artist Trey Speegle was coming off of an earlier party for his mural at the Townhouse Hotel, hosted by his New York gallery, Benrimon Contemporary.

He also marveled at the art to be had at a party hosted by Miami-based arts organization, FriendsWithYou, which built a "Rainbow City" of gigantic blowup sculptures, serving as a colorful background to a performance by Pharrell Williams.

"It's enormous. You can go inside of it and jump up and down," Speegle said of the installation.

As for his new text-paint-by-number piece at the Townhouse, Speegle reports that despite a hopping opening night at the hotel, the work was surreptitiously removed earlier than planned, and expectations of showing the mural at a party for Vogue fell through.

"That's one of the parts of being here as an artist," he said. "You can pretend to be an independent artist in your studio, but in Miami, you really see the rigidity of the art world hierarchy. It's hard not to feel slighted, but once you become cognizant of the rankings, and you start to understand it, then you can enjoy it."

Friday included a fête for the fresh-off-the-press Texas Artists Today on mainland Miami, entitled "Texas Positivism Project." It was book signing galore as guests, from Texas and abroad, swished through galleries featuring the work of such artists as Angelbert Metoyer, McKay Otto, Libbie Masterson and Harvey Bott. Other Houston artists on site included Dick Wray and Anthony Thompson Shumate (who's work is currently on view at B. Davis). Rounding out the artful display was interactive ink work by Zen artist Weihong and a "live collage" by Molly Gochman that featured projections of submitted memorabilia.

"All of these objects have meaning to us," Gochman said, pointing out particular stories behind such ephemera as airplane ticket stubs and matchboxes. Houston's Deborah Colton told CultureMap that she considers Gochman as the "chosen one" among her cadre of artists, and intends to exhibit her work in future years at the concurrent New Art Dealers Association fair in Miami.

"Her work has this conceptual layer to it that makes it really stand out," Colton said. "I could absolutely see her work at the Whitney or Venice biennials."

As for the gallery owner, Colton was busy orchestrating an ongoing performance at the NADA fair, with artists from her New York outpost performing at their booth at the fair's epicenter, and unexpectedly carrying the performance out to the beach. The crew took a break on Saturday evening for a party with the Houston crowd and Ultra Violet at Lincoln Road's Colony Theatre for a screening of Full Circle: Before They Were Famous. Colton hopes to bring this documentary about photographer William John Kennedy (who was part of Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana and Ultra Violets' circle before they made it big) to the MFAH.

Down the island at Basel, Allison Ayres of Sicardi Gallery reported a positive atmosphere as the fair drew to a close.

"It's been going really well," she said, "What I find most interesting is that we've placed several works with Brazilians. It's a big market these days, and one of the areas that's continuing to buy. We even had two Brazilian collectors walk into our booth and buy pieces on the spot."

This isn't a mindless money-dropping sort of collector that Ayres is describing though. They're informed about Sicardi's selection of Latin American art, and are dedicated to developing thoughtful collections.

"I've been amazed at how many people we met at the MFAH party that we'd never met before, but intend to fly to Houston for next year's MFAH gala," Ayres said. "We'll have people coming in from Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil — all over. One thing we've learned at Art Basel is that so many new faces from that area are now tapping into the Houston Latin American art scene."