Birkbeck, Duff and Ball

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On June 20th (Third Thursday), The Gallery at Avalon Island featured musicians Rick Birkbeck, Duff and Ball at the opening reception for The Imprint Show. A large fabric instillation grappled its way through the entry where the main exhibit was and where the musicians performed. Naomi Butterfield was there listening and Terry and I joined her. One of the musicians was related to Naomi, but I don’t recall the links on the family tree. The musicians had to perform over the ever louder conversations that erupted around the art.

The Imprint show featured all women artists including Dina Mack and Leslie Silvia. Dina and Leslie’s work are exact opposites visually. Dina had quiet abstracts that featured white on white while Leslie’s work had black paper cutouts that boldly featured folklore bordering on nightmares. Britty Metty aka Brittany Metz, had a complex installation that resembled an alter with an illuminated Virgin Mary that had her skull shattered. Stuffed animals and an intricate assortment of found objects were piled up at the Virgin’s feet.

This was the evening of the last game in the NBA Finals, so Terry wanted to go to Frank & Stein’s (150 South Magnolia Avenue Orlando, FL) for some hot dogs and watch the game. It was an exciting game, with the Miami Heat winning. Towards the end of the game, Frankie Messina, Naomi and several others stopped in to watch the climax of the game. Frankie gave several of us “Emblems of Power” necklaces made by Mo4us Da Heru. Mine was an all black bead necklace with a golden cross encased in a black cube.

Weekend Top 6 Picks

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Weekend Top 6 Picks

Saturday August 3, 2013

8AM to 5PM  Free Indie Bookfest 2013. Buena Vista Palace (1900 E Buena Vista Drive Lake Buena Vista). Meet and mingle with independent authors.

10AM to 4PM $5 A Special Demonstration Part II: Molding a Classical Sculpture. Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens (633 Osceola Avenue, Winter Park, FL). Watch and find out how to transition a clay model into a “waste mold,” and then into a plaster casting. www.polasek.org

3PM to 5PM $25 Master Class- Ballet with Katia Garza. Turning Pointe-A Dance Studio (470 E. Lake Brantley Dr, Longwood, Florida).

Sunday August 4, 2013

9PM to 11PM Free “Comedy Open Mic”. Austin’s Coffee (929 W Fairbanks Ave Winter Park, FL). Free comedy show! Come out and laugh, or give it a try yourself.

9PM to 11PM Free Solo Acoustic Spoken Word. Natura Coffee and Tea (12078 Collegiate Way). (407) 482-5000.

10:30PM to …Free Ancient Sun. Tanqueray’s (100 S.Orange Ave. Downtown Orlando).

BAERtoven and SchuBAERt

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Wendy Wallenberg informed me of free admission to the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando FL) if you are a Bank of America  or Merrill Lynch cardholder.  My wife works for Merrill Lynch, so on July 6th I went to try out the deal. I presented my Merrill Lynch Credit Card, at first the woman didn’t know what I was talking about, but her supervisor did. and sure enough I was offered free admission.

In partnership with Bank of America, the History Center offers free admission on the first full
weekend of every month for Bank of America and or Merrill Lynch cardholders. So, Mark your Calendar, if you have a Bank of America or Merrill Lynch card, you can get in the History Center free on August 3rd and 4th.

I just went to the museum to do one sketch. There are two Polar Bears under the stairwell that have always intrigued me. It turns out their names are BAERtoven and SchuBAERt. The names are spelled correctly. Bill Baer and his appliance store bears were a familiar sight to Winter Park and Altamonte Mall shoppers in the 1950’s and 60’s. BAERtoven actually held a baton, but I left it out of the sketch because it diminished his pride.

I executed this sketch a bit differently than I usually do. I worked strictly in watercolor and added ink line work as an after thought. I liked the process and I need to do that more often.

Best Individual B-Boy on the Planet

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On June 30, 2013, a lively crowd kept the energy up all evening at the Red Bull BC One Cypher Orlando at Full Sail Live, the university’s state-of-the-art performance venue located on the campus of Full Sail University. 
Terry and I got in as press to cover the event. We staked out a spot sitting at a corner of the Masonite mat on the floor.

Red Bull BC One is the only event of its kind. Sixteen B-Boys are paired
into eight, one-on-one battles and are then judged by three B-Boy
veterans. From those eight battles, the winners go on to face each other
in four new battles, and so forth, until it comes down to two
finalists.

The Red Bull BC One Cypher Orlando is one of 50 local qualification
events that are being hosted in the U.S. and around the globe.  Even before the competition began, people gathered in groups performing incredible dance moves, at times spinning on their heads. The competition was fierce with plenty of mocking street swagger. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I must say, it was a blast. It was very much like gladiators facing off and the crowd stoked the energy levels. 
It was of course a major battle to try and sketch dancers as they went through gravity defying moves.

MC Supernatural kept the crowd fired up. He gave a rap performance where he had everyone hold up items which he would grab in turn and work into the rap. He said he’s been doing this fast paced rap act since 1980. Beads of sweat dripped from MC’s brow as the rap flowed and the crowd cheered and laughed. Fists and peace signs waved in the air as everyone bobbed to the beat. At one point a white guy held up a credit card and MC Supernatural snapped it up, I don’t recall the rhyme, but he said, “This is the only place where you’d see a white guy hand his credit card to a black guy!” He gave the credit card back and moved on to the next item as everyone laughed and whooped.

DRIP Fairy Body Paint Jam

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Mark your calendar, on August 1st there will be a Fairy Body Painting Jam after the Drip show. Drip is located at (8747 International Dr. Suite 102, Orlando, Florida, Behind Denny’s). Come see the show and stay for the body painting or just come for the after party body painting jam.

Small Body or Face Painting will be available for guests.

Admission for after party is $5.
Tickets for the show available at www.ilovedrip.com.

Celebrate Mandi’s Birthday in style with a paint slinging dance show, some colored beer and body paint!!

DRIP is an in-your-face explosion of color and movement backed by a live rock band, all in an industrial dive bar. You may get wet … you may get messy … you WILL have an awesome time.

Painters start time is 7pm, All other guests should arrive at around 10 pm.

Painters include:

Mandi Ilene 

Lori Babson Jessup 

Tanisha Morgan 

Tracy Purple 

Cody Saults

Plein Air Paint demonstration Frank Ferrante

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On Saturday June 15th there was a free Plein Air Paint demonstration by Frank Ferrante at the Cottage, located on beautiful Lake Lily Park in Maitland. I walked all the way around the lake, figuring a plein air painting demonstration would be outside. “En Plein Air” after all is a French phrase meaning “in the open air”. I finally discovered a small sign that pointed to the cottage. Perhaps ten to fifteen artists had gathered to watch Frank work.

Frank is originally from New Jersey and three other artists were from the Garden State as well, myself included. He now lives in Port Orange, Florida. Frank studied painting with John Osborne at the Ridgewood Art Institute. He painted every Sunday with John Osborne outside for many years. The methods he learned were handed down through several generations of artists having begun with American Impressionist Frank Vincent Dumond who taught at the Art Student’s League in NYC. Dumond died in 1961, the year I was born.In 1966 Frank Ferrante was stationed at Paris Island and he joined the Beaufort Painting Association.

The demonstration focused on the formal elements of painting composition, color values, structure and form. Emphasis was placed on composition, capturing light and dark shapes, atmosphere and mood while using strong color harmony. Frank utilizes what he calls the prismatic palette which mimics the prismatic effects seen outside. The ROYGBIV colors of the rainbow were arranged across the top of the palette. Anything upright in a landscape would catch the sunlight to become orange. The sky is like a big blue lamp and water reflects the blue of the sky. Frank began with a very rough valve study in which he scumbled blue grey paints onto the canvas to find the darks of the scene. He was painting a path that lead back into a palm tree filled grove.

He then put up a canvas of the same scene that was much more developed. He talked about folding darks into lights and lights into darks. His brush strokes were X’s and he worked moist oils into moist. His brush gets plenty of abuse and it’s flat shape becomes warn into a point by the time he is done with it. Studies that he does on location are usually smaller and only one in thirty ever becomes a studio painting. He stressed that the darks in a painting are very important.  I discovered that I didn’t have my brushes in my bag to finish my sketch! I started putting in some darks using graphite. Then I took everything out of my bag and discovered one abandoned brush in the bottom of the bag. My sketch was saved. The demonstration was much shorter than I expected. After the demonstration, I joked with Frank that his demonstration was like one of those cooking shows in which the finished cake was already baked and under the counter. We both laughed.

Marriage Equality Rally

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On June 27th, members of the LGBT community and supporters came together for the Marriage Equality Rally in Orlando Florida. The “Paint It Red Orlando” event pulled in thousands of supporters, for speeches from community and political figures. There was for food, drinks, music which made for a fun filled night at the band shell at Lake Eola, in Downtown Orlando.

Volunteers helped create the red paper bag luminaries and distribute them around the lake. Each bag had an electric candle and a tag that listed a gay couple that had been married. The wind kept knocking over bags so small sticks were added inside the bags to add weight. It was an impressive sight to see the bags surrounding the whole lake. They symbolically “Painted the Town Red”. It was a visually stunning
moment to celebrate Marriage Equality, the work that has taken place to
get to the Supreme Court, and to reflect on all of the struggles thus
far, as well as the work yet to be done.

 Speakers included representatives from Federal, State, and Local Government, local clergy,
activists, entertainers, a celebrity or two, and community members! Blue Starr was the Master of Ceremonies. This was a pep rally and celebration of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave federal benefits to legally married gays.While praising the decision, celebrants also expressed hope that same-sex marriage will one day be legal in Florida.

There were food trucks, a beer garden and a full bar. Signs on barricades listed “Rules of Conduct.” I didn’t quite understand the need for barricades but I suppose officials felt the need to limit beer consumption to the designated area around the band shell, much like the Fringe green lawn of fabulousness. Several buildings downtown and around the lake had red spotlights. The town was literally illuminated red. I had on my bright red shirt just by luck. I’m seldom one for preplanning when it comes to fashion. The huge crowd was fun and festive, partying late into the night. I walked around the lake reading all the names on the bags that celebrated love and life.

Paul Joachim chocolate sculpt

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On April 15th I went to Bar Harbor (2000 Premier Row, Orlando FL), to sketch Paul Joachim as he worked on a life sized chocolate sculpture. Bar Harbor turned out to be a seafood restaurant and I found the sculptor hard at work after I made my way through a maze of hallways and plastic covered entries. Paul’s assistant was Jennifer Mendez. She was spray painting food ties onto the sculpt. A paper sign taped to an electrical cord said, “No Pictures Please! Secret Project.” It didn’t say “No Sketching” so I was good to go.

This top secret project was being done for two giants in the confections industry, Zane Beg, was carrying Norman R. Davis on his back. Zane was just named one of the top 10 cake decorators in the country. It was Norms birthday and it was the Mother of Cake’s 1st Anniversary. Zane and Norm have been working together for over 16
years. Norm is small, around 5’2 and Zane is well over 6 feet. The
owner of Mother of Cake’s and Paul, the sculptor, thought it would be a lot of fun to have a
life-size cake of Norm on Zane’s back piggy backing, all just for fun and to celebrate their friendship and cake business partnership.

On top of all that, the sculpture was filmed for A&E’s Shipping Wars TV show. Paul confided as I was leaving that he was concerned about transporting the sculpt in an unrefrigerated truck. I know from one photo, of the cake decorators viewing the sculpt, that it did arrive in one piece.The episode is called “Punch Drunk Love” and it just recently aired allowing me to finally share this sketch. I was going to see an premiere screening of the show at a Universal Studios Hotel but changed my mind when I discovered I would have to pay $8 to self park. I had already done my sketch for the day, so I left. If anyone has seen the Shipping Wars episode, let me know what happened!

ReThinking the City: Main Streets and Town Halls

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ReThinking the City is a monthly symposium on new ideas and updates in urban ism held at Urban ReThink ( 625 E. Central Ave, Orlando, Florida). The June 25th meeting featured a remote presentation by Hesse McGraw, curator of the innovative Carver Bank Town Hall Project in Omaha Nebraska, which seeks to create a space for public participation and creativity. Also presenting was Pauline Eaton, curator of Orlando’s Main Street USA program, on how the program is developing and helping local communities. Eliza Harris tried to get the Skype hook up working but there were several tech issues that kept us from connecting to Omaha.

Pauline Eaton stepped in and told us about the Main street USA program while folks struggled with the computer. Founded in 1980, there are now 2000 Main Street programs nation wide.  There are about 5 different neighborhoods that are a part of the Main Street USA Program, like, Ivanhoe Village, Mills 50 District etc. The Milk District is spearheading its own neighborhood initiatives, learning from the developments in other neighborhoods. The point of the program is to improve the urban feel of the neighborhoods. It can be as simple as adding a bike rack to painting utility boxes pretty colors. The “BAT Team” is the mayor’s better assistance team. The dream of pie in the sky ideal initiatives and then settle for what can be done with the present politics. Pauline joked that the “R&D” department, (Rip off and Duplicate) will take ideas that work in other cities and hope to duplicate them in Orlando. Orlando is a urban area designed for keeping automobiles moving quickly. The primary concerns are usually automotive sight lines. There was some lamenting that sometimes the only way to make improvements is to wait for incumbent politicians to die or leave office. Scottie Campbell who works for Ivanhoe Village was surprised to find that there are Main Street groupies who admire the work that is done. He felt like a rock star for the night.

The computer link to Omaha started working and Hesse McGraw showed us a slide show of the renovation to the first African American Bank in Omaha. Volunteer labor was leveraged to bring the building back as an active creative community hub. Old high school gym flooring was used to cover all the floorboards.. Slate from chalk boards was also used throughout the 100,000 square foot space. The building now offers residencies for artists. There are 15,000 applicants a year for 35 spots. The residency challenges artists to think of how their work effects and engages the community. Lamont Hamilton took 75 photo portraits of living artists he considers iconic. There is a sandwich shop inside and a mix of gallery and office space. I couldn’t help but think of how similar the place sounds to the Urban ReThink ideal. Eliza spoke to me about her hope that someday local artist’s work would welcome people arriving to Orlando in the airport. It would be awesome to get work in front of so many new fresh eyes. Now the work starts researching how to make that vision a reality.

Blue Moon Artfully Crafted Box Party

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The Blue Moon Artfully Crafted Box Party was held at The Hammered Lamb (1235 N. Orange Avenue Orlando, Florida in Ivanhoe Village) on June 26th. Orlando Weekly and Blue Moon Brewing selected 3 local artists to turn once nondescript street boxes into awesome works of art! I put on a Blue Moon T-shirt and went to sketch.

Austin James Art, Wolfrich and Kittens Of Industry were competing and painting LIVE at the Grand Finale Party. I cased the event trying to decide which artist to sketch working. Austin James’ box was outside on the patio and it was essentially done already. I never actually saw him at work. Kittens of Industry was also outside. She didn’t know where the finished boxes would end up.

Wolfrich was the only artist working inside with the crisp cool air conditioning running. The AC swung my vote. I was sketching inside. Wolfrich had all the large areas of color blocked in and the night of the event he used Krink markers to add black outlines to eyes and brows. He had a tiny blue garbage can which I thought was for tips, but now I think it was votes. Austin James Art won the voting when all the ballots were counted at the end of the evening along with votes from a panel . In case there is a recount due to hanging chads or unclear votes, I hope judges will count my sketch as a vote for Wolfrich. He worked his ass off that night. There was free Blue Moon beer, free Hors d’oeuvre and crazy Happy Hour specials. Anytime a train passed by, everyone would get a free shot. The Hammered Lam gets my vote for a great place for Happy Hour.