Orlando City Artworks

On Thursday night Mayor Buddy Dyer and the Orlando City Commissioners hosted an art show of works by City Employees and their families. I met Terry in the City Hall Rotunda and she told me an award ceremony was going on upstairs on the second floor. She had just bumped into the Mayor who looked a bit lost and she was asking him if he had seem my painting which was supposed to be hanging in City Hall somewhere. The mayor became uncomfortable and his handlers ushered him away.
Terry had seen enough so we said good by and I headed toward the ceremonies. I had to go through a metal detector in order to get upstairs and I was given an orange visitors badge. When I walked in the last award was being presented and everyone headed back downstairs. I decided to stay upstairs and watch the reception from a balcony overlooking the Rotunda. There was wine and cheese, beers and sodas. Children were encouraged to paint patterns on the insides of ceramic hearts at craft tables that had been set up. On poor fellow knocked over a whole bottle of beer that shattered on the granite floor and caused the whole room to go silent. The art show itself is pretty much what you would expect to see if you went to a county fair and entered the 4H art pavilion.
I left City Hall and wandered up Orange Avenue to two other shows that were opening in galleys that night. The first was at the City Arts Factory and was called B-Side. It was a show if hip urban artists many of whom incorporated graffiti into their art. I then wandered to Avalon Island Gallery. This space had a nice staging area where a guitarist was performing. It would have made a great sketch but I had to get off to an evening class at Full Sail. It turns out that every third Thursday these gallery’s have openings and this is the first time I wandered into this ongoing art scene. Every gallery I entered, I bumped into friends. The Orlando Art scene is starting to feel like home.