Sleepwalk

Brian Feldman has devised another amazing performance piece. He plans to sleep for 50 hours while allowing people to walk over him. He is sleeping in a wooden box built with two by fours outside on the sidewalk . On top is a black metal grid and then a sheet of Plexiglas so people who walk over can get a good view of Brian sleeping. When I got to the site I really didn’t know how I would get a drawing. You can not really see Brian from the street or sidewalk. Only when You walk over him do you get a full view. I finally decided the only option was to walk right on top of Brian, sit down on my stool and sketch him from that vantage point. It was rather like sketching a corpse at a wake while sitting on the coffin. Two young women stopped by and wanted to walk over Brian. I got out of the way, and they started across. They hesitated however and asked, “He won’t peek will he?” They were concerned because they had dressed on. Brain however was wearing a mask, perhaps for exactly that reason. When they left I climbed back up and resumed my sketch.
A student from Valencia College named Dariel wandered by and we both recognized each other. He is a young tan fellow who could well be a surfer. During my visit at Valencia he really seemed to get the point I was stressing, which was to get out in the community and take art and academics outside the classroom. He related a story about a character he met who he thought was homeless who was taking pictures of graffiti. This fellow was actually an artist from Jamaica who was traveling the world on the cheap. The fact that he related this story was a real highlight for me. That meant he understood the idea of art as an adventure.
Feldman’s performance makes me wonder, am I truly living everyday fully? Am I fully awake? Do I let people walk over me? Brian will continue to sleep till 6PM on March 22nd. So if you want to walk over him, go to Frames Forever & Art Gallery at 941 Orange Avenue, Winter Park, FL. It is a half mile from the Winter Park Art Festival.