It was May 1779 off the Connecticut coastline. Edward Conkling, the captain of the privateer sloop Eagle was cruising off Stonington, perhaps looking for another ship to capture to aid the rebel patriots’ war effort, when the Eagle was taken by a Loyalist ship.

     Miami Project, the southern arm of artMRKT Productions, which has brought the artMRKT Hamptons fair to Bridgehampton in July for the past three years, is new in its second year in Miami’s midtown district and reported on Tuesday that it was doing well after its opening.

     Eric Firestone, whose eponymous gallery on Newtown Lane shows local and international artists, is the sole East End dealer with a booth at the fair and appeared to be doing well after the first night of sales.

     The fair said in a press release that the gallery sold two large photographs by Tse

   This is the week lucky artists and dealers fly or drive south to attend the fairs and events of what has become Miami's official art week. The centerpiece is the Art Basel Miami Beach fair in the cavernous convention center, which always features the top artists who live or work here, such as Barbara Kruger, Richard Prince, Eric Fischl, and Cindy Sherman.

   Yet most of the action featuring South Fork galleries and artists happens elsewhere in the satellite fairs and associated events that also take over Miami, turning the city into a one-week, nonstop art factory.