Mark your calendar, the 58th Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival will be in Central Park and along Park Avenue in Winter Park, FL on March 17, 18 and 19th between 9am and 5pm. It offers a wide variety of fine art from
225 artists from across the country, a Children’s Workshop Village, Leon
Theodore Schools Exhibit, and live entertainment throughout the weekend.
This sketch was done at last year’s festival. There is a new law in Winter Park that makes it illegal to create art on Park Avenue and Hannibal Square. Anyone found guilty must face 30 days in jail, and a $500 fine. Central Park is considered exempt from the law, allowing for freedom of expression. Artists can create in the Park but only in the Park. Because of that law, I decided to sketch the police who were serving and protecting at the Art Festival. It was a fairly relaxing day for them and none of them flinched because I was sketching. Hopefully this means this absurd law will go unenforced forever. Perhaps it will never be enforced like the Florida state constitution that allows for freedom of speech, a trial by jury, and pregnant pigs to not be confined in cages. Pregnant pigs roam free, but artists are banished.
I did this sketch while waiting for a Winter Park friend who wanted to see the festival. The friend never showed. When the sketch was done, I reached for my cell phone to text and find out what was wrong. My darn phone was dead. Should I stick around or go back to my car and charge the phone? I decided to walk to the car which was parked about 1 mile away since parking is a nightmare during the art festival. When I got back to my car, I discovered that the charging chord which was wrapped in multiple layers of black electrical tape had finally decided it’s charging days were over. Wires must have severed and it was dead. Rather than hike back, I decided to call it a day. I didn’t feel like returning to a stretch of road that outlaws the creation of art. Winter Park is no longer home and the Winter Park friend is no longer a friend.