Construction Site

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I was biking every day when I was renting an Air B&B for a week in Azalia Park Florida. The trail head was maybe a mile away and the trail followed a winding river. It was a great day to get up every morning.

I don’t know why but twice I stopped to sketch a construction site along the trail. I suppose I like seeing the way man stripes the landscape especially in a place as beautiful as the Little Econ Trail. Black plastic sheets hanging from wooden stakes marked the perimeter of the site. This haphazard fencing didn’t block any view and made he site appear more like a garbage dump than some sort of improvement project.

The Greenway Trail that I was riding on followed the river for several miles. Only once was it necessary to cross a roadway. I considered looking for homes along this Greenway trail, but the area was also plagued by the sounds of airplanes landing at the Orlando International Airport. I printed out a map and circled areas that suffered from loud airplane engines.

In other air B&B’s I stayed in I was plagued by the sounds of gas powered leaf blowers. It seems every weekend warrior has to use as loud a leaf blower as possible to announce to their neighbors that they are going through the motions to keep up appearances. Some day I would like to host a leaf blower parade where hundreds of people walk around Lake Eola in Orlando Florida with their leaf blowers on full blast.

Jay Blanchard Park

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While staying in a one room air B&B in Azalea Park, I used to bike every morning along the Jay Blanchard Trail. It is a nice trail that is free of road traffic and runs along a winding river. I got to know who worked out every morning on the trail and we would acknowledge each other with a simple nod of the head. Azalea Park was nice enough but the sounds of airplanes landing made it unbearable each morning.

It is on this trail that I met artist James Chonody. He sets up a painting studio in one of the picnic gazebos and works on a painting while showing several dozen of his other works. I sketched him at work and saw him make a sale on the spot. He is a natural born salesman with a captivating story that elicits sympathy.  He wanted to meet at FAVO last week, but his schedule fell apart.

I did this sketch of a quiet stream along the JAY Blanchard trail. I was captivated by the cypress knees which stick up in a crowded cluster. The trail itself can be seen to the left with a view of the railing which separated most bikers and runners from getting too close to the water. I slipped through a gap in the fence and hiked down with my bicycle. It was a beautiful peaceful day and I relaxed to study the unique shape of each of he knees.

Cypress knees are vertical growths from horizontal roots underground. They are believed to supply air to the plant structure. Since the trees are close to the water’s edge they can often be found under water and the knees grow upward to get air above the water’s surface.

A World Without Art

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I went to the Valentina College East Campus to see Student directed one act plays. John DiDonna introduced the very full theater audience to the evening. I was intrigued because all the plays related to one another with the theme of art. Local writers were invited to write the plays. I knew that Tracy Jane had written one of the plays and I am always amazed by her writing. The evening featured a series of five‑minute original one‑act plays exploring the role of art in life, with some works set in worlds where art is absent. the event aimed to show that “taking the art out of humanity may be harder than it sounds” and to highlight art’s role in human connection and identity.

The show I sketched was Art and a World Without Art. a female artist was working away in her studio. All of the plays were related to the theme of a world without art. I was seated in the back row sketching. A little girl was seated next to me and she was so curious about what I was making. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her struggling to see around my big hand as I moved it across the sketch in the darkness.

The shows were sweet. Some were romantic and many idealized views of what it means to be an artist. Some questioned the role of AI in the future of art. Not many considered the idea of artists being viewed as enemies of the state. As the dramas played themselves out on stage. Another drama ignited back stage in the school halls. A Valentia security guard physically assaulted one of the  organizers of the evening. I do not know what sparked the attack, but some of the injuries were permanent. Despite the physical injuries sustained, the show went on. The show must always go on.

 

Enzian: Eden Bar

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I went to the Enzian Theater (1300 South Orlando Ave, Maitland, FL ) which hosts the Florida Film Festival. My goal was to sketch an event called Sip and Savor. It was a free festival tasting at Eden Bar with drinks provided by Breakthru Beverage. The outdoor bar is a great place for people to stop by before or after festival films. On this night there were tastings including Bahnaz Mezcal, and Misunderstood Whiskey.

The Eden Bar has a large mural designed by independent animation Bill Plimpton. Plimpton is a legend and a god in the independent animation realm. At a past screening of one of his animated films I purchased s single frame of his hand drawn animation for $5. I treasure that sketch although I need to find it in the chaos of my ever shifting life.

I didn’t notice any offerings by Breakthru Beverage when I arrived, so I ordered a beer to be polite as I sketched. The Eden Bar tends to pack full as people arrive to see a film and then they filter out when the film starts. A dear friend I had not seen for a while was at the table next to mine and we chatted as I sketched. My friend had moved out of Orlando to Brooklyn and then Austin Texas but ultimately returned to Orlando. I understand the enticing liberal pull that Orlando provides. I was in the process of looking to move close to downtown Orlando, so it felt good to reconnect.

Orlando is a small enough city where you can bump into friends at any time if you have an interest in events around town.

The film being shown on this night was If I Go Will They Miss Me a 92-minute film written and directed by Walter Thompson-Hernández. In the film, a twelve-year-old Lil Ant was a sensitive artist, enamored with the legends of Greek mythology and yearning to impress his emotionally distant father, Big Ant). Big Ant just got out of prison and struggled to connect with his wife and is embarrassed by the pictures his son draws of him looking heroic.

The feature film was adapted from his award winning Sundance film. The film was a tender, lyrical portrait of a strained father-son relationship against the backdrop of Watts, Los Angeles. Lil Ant’s working-class neighborhood was transformed by his adolescent visions of Greek gods and neighborhood boys wanting take off, like the LAX airplanes overhead. The film encapsulated the intersection between masculinity, legacy, and vulnerability. It was a mesmerizing film about the power to transform at any age.

SECAC: Breaking Stereotypes: Recontextualizing Underrepresented Voices and Communities

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The SECAC chair for Breaking Stereotypes: Recontextualizing Underrepresented Voices and Communities was Alexander Alvarez from the University of Central Florida. Alexander is an Orlando, Florida–based multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work blends iconography, mythology, and contemporary issues to explore memory, identity, and the human condition.

The first speaker was Jason Burrell who is an Assistant Director and Senior Lecturer at the University of Central Florida’s School of Visual Arts and Design, where he also serves as the Graduate Coordinator for Studio Art. His talk was titled, Office Supplies Disruptions: Rethinking Studio Art Practice Through Radical Material Accessibility. Jason is often rushing from meeting to meeting and began to sketch on post it notes which are readily available in any office setting. This easy access to materials lead to ongoing practice of using post it notes in his work. Jason had colorful post its on a side table during his talk, and encouraged the audience to take some. I decided to just place the post its on my sketch replacing what I had sketched on the screen.

Jason pointed out that many beginning artists feel that becoming an artist is inaccessible since art supplies are so expensive. Jason makes that idea mute since he embraces supplies that are often available but overlooked. His presentation showed many artists who use office supplies in their work. One image showed an artist recreating a scale model of NYC on his hands and knees using nothing but staples to make skyscrapers. Another artist used push pins to make pointillist portraits. The wide variety of artists using found and repurposed office supplies was fascinating and made me want to rethink how art is made.

I immediately started thinking I should have my travel sketching students do thumbnail sketches on office post it notes. Stella Arbeláez Tascón also started thinking about using office supplies for a class project. Jason offered a straightforward presentation that flipped the expectations of what supplies should be used to make art. I have always thought that a pencil and a small slip of paper are all that is needed to document life with a sketch. Creative sparks come from the simplest of supplies.

 

SECAC: Life Disruptions as Opportunities for Artistic Growth, Session II

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The SECAC Chair for Life Disruptions as Opportunities for Artistic Growth, Session II was Stella Arbeláez Tascón who earned her Masters degree in Studio Art from the University of Central Florida. I attended the first session the previous day and learned so much about how artists live through seismic life changes and use that change to fuel their art.

Steven Pearson from McDaniel College gave a talk titled, Pandemic Pivot: Teaching, Practice, and a Return to Representation. My own art had gone through a huge pivot during the worst of the COVID pandemic, so this talk was high on my list of sessions I needed to attend.

Steven’s early work representational with splashes of abstraction mixed in. Someone reviewing his work wondered when the artist would take the dive and work purely in abstraction. That comment lead Steve to venture into the world of abstraction.

Then the Pandemic hit and he found himself isolated in the studio. He read a book that said and artist should focus on their environment. He started doing detailed depictions of his studio and domestic life. He did a detailed sketch of an interior wall and then would go outside and do a view of the same wall from outside. Abstraction was abandoned as he worked to truly document his surroundings.

The representational work grew larger and he used historical allegories to depict domestic life when his family moved to the suburbs. He noticed a neighbor obsessively mowed his lawn several times a week and so he depicted himself in battle as a weekend warrior. One painting depicted him going up a staircase on a mission with a vacuum to clean his son’s room. He loved the humor in the allegorical painting but his son didn’t appreciate it.

Steve had a triptych of three very large painting in the SECAC Juried Exhibition.  All three depicted on scene of an above ground pool with a deck around it. In the first panel on the left the artist depicted himself blowing up an inner tube with a pile of inflated inner tubes beside him. The center panel depicted his daughter sitting on the deck with her legs out over the pool which was now covered. An inner tube which was inflated in the first panel came into this scene deflated. The right panel depicted his wife standing in a swimsuit straining leaves from the pool surface. This painting was done as the family was being pulled apart by divorce. The center panel felt lonely and desolate as the parents worked their separate chores far from each other.

Anna Vic Webb from the University of Central Florida gave a talk titled, Growing from Myself: Abstracting Self Portraiture as a New Framework of Visual Language for Abject Experiences and Ingrained Emotions. He talk was about what it is like to live with ADHD as an artist and how that framed her view of herself and the world. Many of her works are self portraits in a world that is distorted wit a fish eye perspective and vibrant colors. The eyes are often very expressive and piercing. In one she depicted herself seated on the floor holding her legs in a fetal position. Her concerned eyes were huge staring straight at the viewer. The hair on her legs became a vibrant expressive tangle. Creating with ADHD could feel fractured but it could also be a superpower as hyper focus leads to very productive periods of creation.

Having ADHD lead to periods of self-harm with chain smoking and putting herself in harmful situations. On painting showed her walking alone on a beach with blood red waves crashing on the shore. A full moon illuminated the scene and a shadow hinted that someone was about to block her way. There was a quiet menace to the scene.

What was most inspiring was how her art grew as she found new ways to live with and harness the power of having ADHD. The final piece that she showed was a huge departure from the other work. It still had vibrant colors, but the portrait was less warped and more polished. There are exciting possibilities as she continues to explore.

The final speaker was Kayla Lehman from Georgia Southern University, with her talk titled, Obsessive Compulsive Disruption: How OCD Has Impacted My Creative Practice. Kayla created a video game that depicted what it is like to get up pin the morning and find it impossible to get out the door while experiencing OCD.In the game the character went to the bathroom, and every task had to be obsessively scrutinized. The character would reach for a doorknob and then stop as multiple choices flashed up to once again wash hands or consider another task. Every task would have multiple choices about what should be done but ultimately there was no escape the character would never leave the room.

Her life impacted by OCD also lead to her creating a short CGI animated film. In the film people other than the lead character were depicted as having heads that were just an eyeball encased in black eye lids. The character had a dark cloud always on her shoulder which caused self doubt and an inability to find friends. Only when she realized that everyone else also had dark clouds did she begin to find friends. The clouds slowly became less opaque as she socialized.

The entire Life Disruptions as Opportunities for Artistic Growth session was so inspiring. All artists have their demons and need to find ways to silence doubts and create.

SECAC: Art of the Gilded Age in America

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On my second day at SECAC, I arrived a bit late and grabbed a quick bite in the central social room before heading downstairs. Stella P. Alberaéz Tascón was the chair of a session that would be happening n several hours. She had to sit down and write up an introduction. As she did that, I wandered across the hall and poked my head into a session in progress. I had done no research to pick the topic, and I simply sat in the back row and started to sketch.

In the row in front of me an attendee was working on a portrait drawing in his sketchbook. I immediately felt at home. I was at a conference where everyone was an artist in one form or another. The only other time I felt this at home was in Paris where I would sketch at events and always see another artist at work in the room.

The session I found myself in was about Art of the Gilded Age in America. The chair was Willaim R. Levin from Centre College (emeritus). The speaker at the front podium was Virginia Raguin from the College of the Holy Cross (emeritus). Her talk was about Stained Glass in the Gilded Age. I was immediately drawn in and fascinated. She mentioned that Lewis Comfort Tiffany got his start at a Worlds Fair. She seemed to downplay Tiffany’s artistry and focused on his marketing ability, business acumen and ability to surround himself with very talented artists.

I have sketched at the Tiffany Museum in Winter Park multiple times so many of the slides of stained-glass works were familiar. The Tiffany Museum is home for the Tiffany Chapel which was created by Tiffany’s newly founded firm, Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, to demonstrate its artistry and craftsmanship in producing ecclesiastical goods ranging from clerical vestments and furnishings to mosaics and leaded-glass windows. It was put on display in the World’s Fair, it so moved visitors that men doffed their hats in response.

The Chapel won many awards at the World’s Fair and based on it’s reputation the Tiffany brand became highly sought after worldwide. The chapel itself went into a basement crypt at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine which was under construction in NYC. The chapel was stunted and suffered from water damage in the crypt from 1899 to 1911. Tiffany offered to buy it back from the church so he could restore it. Tiffany had the chapel removed and installed it, with substantial repairs by his workmen, in a free-standing building at Laurelton Hall, his Long Island country estate. There it remained his pride and joy up until his death in 1949.

16 years after his death, the Tiffany Foundation began dismantling the chapel, selling off portions to institutions in the region. In 1957 the Tiffany estate suffered from a huge fire which gutted many of the buildings. A daughter of Tiffany’s informed several collectors from Winter Park that much of the leaded glass was still intact after the fire. The collectors went to the burnt-out shell of the Tiffany estate to buy all of the mansion’s then-unwanted windows and architectural fragments. I love the story of the chapel which was gorgeous in it’s youth then abandoned and destitute and finally rising from the ashes like a phoenix.

SECAC: Con/Texture: Surface and Sense

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There were two chairs for this session, Con/Texture: Surface and Sense, which was about texture in art. One chair was Roja Najafi from Chandler-Gilbert Community College and the other was Catherine Ingersoll from Virginia Military School.

In the first talk, Carolyn Hauk from the University of Delaware spoke about the history of mosquito nets. The history dated back to slave trade days where slaves tended to the nets around their owners beds but seldom did they have nets for themselves. The nets morphed from a practical way to keep from being eaten alive by mosquitoes to a status symbol in the age of air conditioners where outdoor air was kept out of the home.

Antje Gamble from Murray State University then presented Chiseling Bronze: Surface Textures in the Sculpture of Marino Marini. The sculpture she was referencing was of a naked man riding a horse and the man in many cases had a large erection. It was interesting how the elephant in the room remained unmentioned until she talked about one of the sculptures having a removable phallus which kept getting stolen. She picked apart the unique textures to each of the castings of the sculpture. The artist didn’t accept the texture of the cast but would then take a hammer and chisel to each surface and carve away metal.

I decided to sketch Tara Kohn from the University of Southern Maine who presented Soil and Skin: The Texture of Grief in Ben Altman’s The More That is Taken Away. She went to Altman’s studio as he was working on a huge environmental sculpture which was a nine‑year solo earthwork, performance, and memorial exploring mass violence, historical trauma, and the act of inheriting such histories. Altman’s work was inspired by a 2005 visit to a mass grave in Belarus, near the birthplace of his Jewish grandfather, which marked the start of his focus on violent turning points in modern history. I identified with the angst inherent in Altman’s work. He dug a trench on his property and lined it with castings of his form. He expressed his grief by cutting his hair and creating a trench which was reminiscent of the cast bodies found at Pompeii. The body forms laying in the trench later grew grass so the raw earth and human forms lying in anguish nourished new growth.

Little Econ Trail

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When I was jumping between Air B&Bs, I kept my bicycle in the back of my Prius. When I was staying in Azalea Park, I went for a bike ride every morning on the Little Econ Trail as a way to start each day. The Little Econ trail is really nice and winds along waterways for miles. Each morning I would see the same man doing tai chi and I would often pass others I had seen on previous bike rides.

While riding on this trail I met James Chonody who is an artist who sets up in one of the picnic shelters as he paints a picture in acrylics and shows off a whole bunch of his paintings. I stopped to sketch him once and we had a pleasant chat. We have been friends ever since.

This area of construction caught my eye. The machinery isn’t right on the trail but in a clearing. I suspect that paring is being improved in the area. There are tennis courts nearby and multiple bathrooms along the river. Perhaps more parking was needed near this trailhead. This isn’t a beautiful scene but it shows that the trail is a work in progress.

In the distance I heard two guys talking about their cars and all the work they put into them. That conversation is what leads me to think this area is for parking the metal machines that dominate the roadways. A local artist and podcaster named Chris Fioravantti used to promote the idea of safe roadways for bicyclists. He was hit by a car in June of 2021 and died. Killer Roads.

I always seen to be attracted to sketching mans need to alter and rip away natures beauty.

Haunted Livingston Studio

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The Livingston Street Studio was decorated for Halloween. I worked at the Shakespeare Theater as stagehands for Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors and Corduroy. When set for the play, Come From Away, was broken down a bunch of long foam pieces from that set were re proposed as tombstones. The foam already had wooden backing and supports on the back which could be used as stakes to get the tombstones to stand in front of the haunted house. There is a nice, abandoned planter that runs in front of the Livingston Street Studio. The planter area is overgrown with weeds, but for an abandoned cemetery, that was a great look.  My hope eventually it to turn that area into a food garden. In one night, dozens of tombstones were painted.

My roommate was the master designer of the display, and the initial theme was going to be Dogula, which would have depicted the adorable pup Boo-Boo as Dracula. My roommate had an entire box filled with magical Halloween themed decorations and lighting. We started by taping up some plastic sheets with black cats printed on them for bedroom windows. When the room light was turned on the cats became visible from outside.

Next, a spiderweb was added to the center window and a sheet was hung behind it with a nebula pattern projected for some mystical lighting effects. For my studio office on the corner, hand crafted red and yellow window decorations were crafted using a Cricut machine which was used to cut bats and pumpkins from black vinyl. I cut out a Dracula castle by hand with scissors and vinyl scraps were used by my roommate to make tree branches.

On Halloween day giant pumpkins were printed out. The display needed refinement right up until sunset when ghouls started to roam the streets.

In front of the entry door under the carport, a rusty old cauldron was moved that was found in the backyard. In the cauldron, a fog machine was placed along with some witch’s legs. Fog would rise from the cauldron which was lit by a demonic red spotlight making it look like a witch was being cooked. A dilapidated wooden fence which was probably destroyed from a recent hurricane added to the horrific effect of an abandoned haunted house.

A giant stainless-steel bowl was put on a small table for the candy.

Halloween morning candy was purchased from Aldi. I have purchased candy in the past to hand out in other neighborhoods I had lived in, but no children ever showed up. The Eola Heights studio is just 2 blocks north of Lake Eola, so there was some chance that children might show. I decided to get one big bag of candy. My roommate was more hopeful and got about 5 bags of candy.

While I was sketching, I had my back to the street. Any trick or treaters would have to approach me from behind. That might have been unnerving for some. One little girl creeped up on me and shouted Boo! I acted frightened and surprised and offered her candy which was still in the Aldi shopping bag. I rushed inside to let my roommate know that we were getting trick or treaters. One of the solar lights from the cemetery was used to illuminate the candy in the bowl.

At first the plan was to sit back under the carport, but I was already out in the driveway since I was sketching so we set up there. My roommate then set up a radio which played Halloween themed music like Thriller and Ghost Busters. The music brought in multiple hordes of trick or. My roommate was great at guessing who the costumed guests were dressed as. There was so much delight in the simple act of sharing candy and complimenting the handsome and beautiful costumes.

At first my roommate was very strict about insisting that the trick or treaters only take on piece of candy. As the crowds thinned, we started asking them to take 3 pieces of candy. The young ones started arriving zonked out like zombies since they were overstimulated and experiencing a sugar crash. A car parked in front of the house and a crew of ghouls piled out and swooped in for candy and then rushed back to the car.

Then silence. We could see crowds of ghouls walking towards Lake Eola but they were not walking down our street. Joy started to turn to disappointment. There was still plenty of candy left over. There was one Kit Kat in amongst all the fruit gummies. I snitched that last Kit Kat but blamed a tiny, adorable superman in a muscle shirt for taking it.

At 10pm we packed up. Boo-Boo, who was dressed in a black cape like Dracula was getting antsy. He needed to go for a walk. We both heard loud music coming from Lake Eola so we decided to walk towards the sound. Walking around the lake we passed to many killer clowns and girls dressed in tight costumes would coo at how adorable Boo looked. His high collar made him look like a dignified aristocrat who might suck your blood.

We followed the music to it’s source. Washington Street in Thornton Park was closed for a ticketed bar crawl. Everyone was in costume and festivities were just getting under way as crowds of killer clowns and sexy video game characters lined up to get through security. It was a golden sketch opportunity but I had already done my sketch for the night.

On the walk back to the Livingston Haunted House, BooBoola got even more attention. Overall, it was such a pleasant Halloween night.