In the evening I arrived at the Afa Gallery where the Drawing Social was to be held. I helped Angelica put out some chairs and slowly artists began to arrive. The sketch shows Jason Smeltzer playing an instrument called the Theremin. You would have heard this instrument in any 1950’s science fiction film it had a haunting otherworldly sound. Chris Gratz is playing the piano. When Ted walked over to me and introduced me to the group of artists, Chris started playing an accompaniment and the introduction turned into something of a show tune. I joined in adding lyrics as they popped into my head. This was a fun start to the evening.
The point of the Drawing Social is that musicians are bought to the artists who have a front row seat to sketch at will. It is a fantastic idea that results in plenty of lively and spontaneous sketches. In the second half of the Social, Steve Kurilla showed up and set up his drum set. I never worked him into my sketch since he sat directly in front of me and would have blocked out some areas that were already established in my sketch. Steve began his performance playing the triangle and walking around the room. On the drums Steve threw himself into the performance like a man obsessed. As the energy built he would let symbols and cow bells fall to the floor. A musical earthquake. All this energy affected every line as it was thrown down. This was art inspiring art at it’s best.
During a break I walked around and looked at what other artists were working on. Ted can be seen in the sketch right behind Chris working away with his ink dropper. Everyone went out for dinner after the Social. There was plenty of laughter and ted continued drawing on his place mat catching the artists seated around him. I had decided that I would drive south as far as I could to make my way back home. As I got up to pay my bill, Angelica shouted out something complimentary and everyone clapped. I said my good byes and was soon back on the road. I wanted to get south of Washington DC to avoid any morning traffic and so I drove till 5AM. I finally pulled off the highway exhausted and found a quiet suburban street and parked my truck in front of someones home. I unfurled my sleeping bag and curled up in the back of the truck. I woke up several hours later and then drove the rest of the day till I got to Orlando that night.
Scranton PA – Mini Crawl
When I was in Honesdale, I checked my Facebook page at my sister in laws house and got a message from Ted Michalowvski. Ted is an amazing artist who like me is constantly observing and sketching life around him. He invited me to an art opening at Marywood University. It was about a forty five minute drive to Scranton and the final mile or so I called Ted and he talked me in to a friends house where they were having some wine before the opening. Teds friend is an art collector and had several of Teds drawings in a back room. Ted pointed out that he uses an eye dropper to drip paint on the drawings instead of using a pen. This is what gives his line work such unexpected vitality. At the opening Ted introduced me around to a bunch of people. He really knows how to work a room. By then end of the evening he had introduced me to several of his students (He teaches drawing) and they all convinced me that I should stay in Scranton for one more day to experience what Ted Calls a “Drawing Social”. I had studied pictures of past socials from Ted’s Facebook page and this was an idea that I want to bring to Orlando so I decided to stay.
The next day we met for a mini sketch crawl at Border’s. Ted scouted out several comfortable leather chairs and then went to talk to someone. As I got out my art supplies, a large man shuffled over and sat in Ted’s seat sitting on his sketch pad. I pipped in and said the seat was being saved for a friend. The man then moved over to the other chair ted was hoping to save and once again sat on the art supplies. At this point Ted was back and he grabbed his art supplies. Kelsey Winterbottom, a student of Ted’s joined us as did Angelica Cordero. I let Angelica use my tablet PC since I wasn’t using it and she took to it like a fish to water. She did a sketch of Kelsey and then e-mailed it to herself. Dominique Kozuck joined us later but she never did sketch.
I couldn’t resist sketching the rather rotund, crumples and rude man that had taken the seat next to Ted. My view of him was straight on and thus rather flat, but I rather enjoyed sketching him since he was clueless to everyone around him. He actually fell asleep behind the magazine he was holding so he stayed nice and still for the longest time. You can see Teds sketch pad over to the right in my sketch. Ted was just as infatuated with this man and was glad to get a sketch of him.
Once we finished the first sketch, Ted and I agreed to have a sketch off where we sketched each other at the same time. Ted’s sketch is wonderfully expressive. He did a very rough watercolor to start and then used the eye dropper to lay down some thick lines. I worked faster than usual trying to catch Ted’s frenetic energy as he worked. Kelsey at the same time began to sketch us both as we faced off and worked. There was plenty of creative energy flowing.
Someone that Ted knew, a few seats away got a cell phone call and he started laughing. This man had a booming laugh and soon Ted started to imitate him. Kelsey angelica and myself then followed suite with out own bellowing laughs. The laughter was infectious and soon other people in the coffee shop were joining in. By the time I stopped laughing, I was in tears. A few minutes later the man laughed into his cell phone and the echoing laughter resounded once again.
Soon it was time to head out to the Drawing Social. Ted left first since he had some planning to do and then I followed Dominique and Angelica so I could find the place…
There Goes Swifty!
February 27th was the 26th Worldwide SketchCrawl and I put out an invitation on Facebook for artists to spend a day sketching the betting establishments in town. The first stop was the Dog Track in Longwood. The morning of the Crawl it was pouring outside and I wondered if the dogs would be allowed to run under such conditions but I had made the commitment, and so I packed my art supplies in the truck and headed out in the rain. I also realized that I was running a bit late and as I got closer to the track I worried that I might miss the post time. The entrance to the dog track has cheesy white dog sculptures perched above the doorways so I knew I was in the right spot.
The ground floor of the facility had large plate glass windows that all face out on the now muddy track. I wandered around trying to decide where to sketch. There were multiple areas where fans could watch a wall of televisions all broadcasting different races. I finally made my way back to the bar where I knew patrons would most likely perch for an extended period. As I worked a woman walked up to every person at the bar and offered them “The Luck of the Irish”. She was selling Irish themed candy to help raise funds to help find homes for retired greyhounds. When she approached me she became infatuated with the sketch and asked if I drew dogs. I of course said I have drawn dogs in the past. Mary LoBianco introduced herself to me and I offered her a seat. Her organization consists of 6 volunteers and they are responsible for helping the dogs find loving homes. She said 30 dogs were to be sent to Canada and each dog requires a $75 fee. Using any means possible these volunteers help raise the money needed. I gave Mary my card and told her to contact me so I can follow up and see more of the work they are doing for these dogs.
When I finished my sketch, I decided to go outside to watch one more race before heading back to the studio where I had work waiting. The dogs were walked out to the holding gate and then one of the handlers waved his hand in a circular motion and the announcer said, “There goes Swifty!” The yellow stuffed rabbit on the end of a metal pole accelerated and flew around the track. The metal wheels of the contraption were louder than I expected. When Swifty rounded the curve and went past the holding gate, there was a metallic thunk but the starting gate didn’t raise as expected. All of the spectators groaned. The dogs thrashed around inside in a frenzy yelping, screaming and crying out. The announcer let everyone know about the mechanical failure of the starting gate. Handlers started taking the dogs out of the starting gate enclosure while the rabbit decelerated around the far bend. One dog managed to shake free of his handler and in a moment of glory he dashed out onto the empty and muddy track. One spectator shouted out, “Hey that is my dog!” With no competition the dog ecstatically ran towards the rabbit, finally guaranteed to catch his elusive prize. When he rounded the bend, the rabbit was dead still. He leaped forward and went to snatch his prize. His head hit the metal support pole at over 40 miles an hour and his limp body splayed out in the mud spinning to a stop. A handler slowly walked out on the messy track and lifted the limp form. Inside at the bar, men were saying that the dog had been a real champion, cut down in his prime. A fallen gladiator.
My Truck gets New Tires
For my trip up north, I had to get a head lamp replaced since one had burned out. When I got to the Reed Nissan dealership, there was a long line of cars waiting to get into the repair shop, so I stepped out and walked up to a repair person to see if they had the parts and if so, how long it would take to repair. She was really nice, and had me pull my truck up to a third line which had no cars in it. When she drove my truck back to the shop, she told me that she had experienced a shudder and the truck lurched a bit. She also pointed out how bad the treads looked on my left front tire. I would be driving up into snow, and it was at this point that I decided I would have to get new tires for the trip.
The waiting area of the repair shop had a large plate glass window overlooking the garage where the work is done. In this sketch the mechanics are doing oil changes on the vehicles on the lifts. I never saw my truck, so it must have been in another garage. When the service advisor, Ellie Diaz, came back, she admired what I was working on. She said, “Now that is a nice way to pass the time.” I gave her my card and told her to check out my blog. She asked if I did portraits and I showed her the sketch I had just recently done of Hannah Miller. She wanted to know how much I would charge to do a sketch of her daughters and her. I gave her an affordable price and she seemed pleased, saying, “This would be a nice birthday present for myself.”
My next stop was the four wheel parts off road shop where I got my new tires. At this shop the mechanic was unable to figure out how to get at the spare tire so I had to go back and lower it myself. As I was sitting in the waiting area, I got a text from Hannah. She told me some stranger had asked to shoot a photo of her feet in her hip new shoes. He wanted to brag to friends that he had taken a photo of Cinderella’s sister’s feet. Hannah pointed out that my truck was getting new shoes, so it was a red letter day for shoes.
Adventures in Baby Sitting
I kept my first visit with Ruth short since I knew my sister, Carol, was waiting downstairs to come up. When I found myself alone with her two very energetic kids, ten and eight years old, I asked them if they would pose for a portrait. They agreed and then fought each other as they climbed into the same chair. They posed for maybe five minutes. Anna tried to keep a wide-mouthed smile on her face the whole time. She soon lost patience and decided she wanted to paint as well. I let her use my palette and one of my brushes and soon all three of us were busy painting. I continued to work on my painting as they worked. Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of their eyes or the gentle curl of their hair and I would add it. Kristen did a silly drawing of me with an oval head and a big hooked nose.
Perhaps an hour later, Carol came back down thinking I would be at my wits’ end. Anna said, “Don’t worry mom, we are having fun. Why don’t you go back up?” Babysitting my nieces turned out to be quite fun, perhaps parenting isn’t the distracting challenge I always thought it would be.
The next day I watched my nieces at my stepmom’s place while Carol drove to the hospital to visit mom a second time. Once again, they took to painting like fish to water. I sketched Anna as she worked on a painting of Reeses, the family dog. She also did a painting of me, and from her sketch, I am one scary looking uncle.
We later decided to go for a hike around the small frozen lake my stepmom’s house is next to. I devised a way to keep Kristen’s sneakers from getting wet using grocery bags and two bungee cords from the back of my truck. The bungee chords acted as suspenders for the bags. I think she got a kick out of wearing them. The kids ran the whole time through the three inches of snow. Anna kept falling every time she ran. I kept warning her to slow down, but she just kept falling. I finally gave up telling her, since she never seemed to get hurt, and just got back up and started running again. Anna then did the one thing Carol had warned me not to let her so, she ran out onto the frozen lake. My heart stopped. I had no idea how thick the ice was, and it was warm out, with small puddles of slush all around her. I screamed for her to stop and walk right back the way she had gone out. I couldn’t go out after her since we might both crash through. She just giggled willfully, but then I told her we would have to all go back in the house if she didn’t get off the ice. I also told her that if the ice broke, I might not be able to get her out before she froze to death. She finally came back to the shore.
I decided we could continue the hike, but when we came to a small frozen stream that fed the lake, Anna once again stomped out onto the ice. Just as I caught up to her, and started to demand that she get off, her foot crashed through and her leg got wet up to her mid-calf. I think this lesson might stay with her. This time we all went straight back to the house, where I had Anna change out of her wet pants and we placed them near a radiator to dry off. Our walk ended with a rousing snowball fight. I don’t think I won since it was always two against one. I also think I will leave parenting to parents.
Visiting Ruth
When I arrived in Honesdale. Pennsylvania, my younger sister, Carol, texted me directions until I arrived at my mother’s home. Carol and her two children, Kristin and Anna, had been waiting all day for my arrival. They all had cabin fever. Since it took me much longer than expected to get up north, we all immediately piled into Carol’s SUV and headed to the Honesdale Hospital where Ruth was in the intensive care recovery ward. I went up first while Carol watched her kids in the waiting area downstairs.
Ruth was surprised to see me, and I was shocked to see how frail she looked. Her spirits were down, so we weren’t demonstratively affectionate. We spoke for some time about her health and then I told her about life in Orlando. She has never seen my blog. She has never even owned a computer. Her health had deteriorated since the last time I saw her several years ago. Her breast cancer had spread and she had undergone intensive chemo therapy to try and stop the spread of the disease. Most family members feel that the chemotherapy was the cause of so many of her new symptoms. Ruth’s Oncologist, Dr. Scholi, seemed to feel that Ruth was something of a miracle in that she should have died three years ago, but she responded so well to the chemotherapy at the time that she got three more years of quality living. The doctor said, “Her present condition is the result of the combination of her cancer, her age, and the chemotherapy. It’s all caught up to her and has taken a pretty heavy toll.” On the afternoon of my second visit, a doctor came in and told my stepmom that she was being discharged from the hospital. Her next stop would be Ellen Memorial Health Care Center.
FRESH – Creation
Much of FRESH is all about the process of creating art. In this sketch, Christie Miga is on her knees as she creates a drip painting during the event. All of the paints are diluted just the right amount so they can flow and blend into each other freely. At times Cristie used gravity to let the paint flow and other times she would lay the painting flat and blow the paint into areas of the canvas where she wanted it to spread. She had the painting done within an hour and at the end of the night it was auctioned off. I had to work extra fast to catch Christie since she was in constant motion. The FRESH performance space also had other areas where guests could play and interact. For instance there was a small Zen dirt garden where people could rake the dirt and arrange delicate stones and sticks in any way they likes. I created a big Z and then with some twine wrote orro so the garden had the mark of Zorro. I have a pet Cockatoo named Zorro so I leave his mark whenever I can.
Besides the drip painting, we all helped create a mural each night by using an overhead projector hung from the ceiling. I was asked to make a hand shadow puppet and then Evan Miga traced the shadow I made onto the large sheets of white paper hung on the wall. He asked me to finish it up, so I added an eye and other details to bring it to life.
After each evening’s performance, the real fun would start. The music would build and then all the dancers would come out and dance. I joined them every night and it was always fun. Once in a while we could get an audience member out on the dance floor and then things really got large. It turns out Evan is quite a dancing fool and on occasion he would jump up on the dirt mound and play king of the mountain while dancing. On the final night, Evan pulled Jessica Mariko, the troupe’s founder and choreographer, up onto the mound and they had a blast while everyone else clapped. Being on the floor and sketching every night I was no longer just reporting on the event, I was a part of the event itself. This was a creative and inspiring environment and it is a shame it is only in town around Valentine’s Day. Every day should be Valentine’s day.
Physical Therapy
When I got an e-mail from my sister, Juanita, saying that my stepmothers cancer had gotten to the point where she could no longer walk, I immediately decided I would have to take a trip to Honesdale, Pennsylvania to see for myself how Ruth was doing. I jumped in my truck and started driving north. I thought I could do the drive in one day, but with construction and traffic, it took me two days. The drive itself was an emotional roller coaster. When I first started driving over rolling hills, I felt exhilaration. One song played on the radio again and again, “Against the Wind.” This song ran through my head many years ago when I rode a bicycle across the country. Then, I felt like the wind was always literally blowing against me as I struggled to climb rolling mountains. Now, I was older, once again wandering the open roads of a cold indifferent world. Snow started to appear on the roadside.
The first day’s drive brought me as far north as Virginia. Exhausted, I spent the night at a Holiday Inn. When I resumed the drive the next morning, I was driving past vast fields blanketed in snow. At times, I felt small. At other times, expansive and elated. The radio played, “I say miracles just happen, silent prayers get answered.” I felt hope and peace for once, surrendering and accepting what I was driving to face. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of dark tree trunks rising up out of the pure white snow. The radio blared, “Live like we’re dying!” I vowed not to waste a minute of the time I spent in Honesdale Pennsylvania. I would be visiting family I hadn’t seen in years. I had been out of touch with my stepmom for years. I planned to change that.
My little sister, Carol, guided me the final miles with a series of text messages. As soon as I arrived, at my step mothers house, we headed down to the hospital to see Ruth. Carol had her two daughters, Kristin and Anna, and hospital rules forbid them to go upstairs. I agreed to watch my nieces while Carol visited and then we traded off. I found Ruth in the physical therapy room. A young tan nurse’s aid had Ruth lift a two pound weight over her head for three repetitions of twelve. My stepmom has always been resistant to the idea of being sketched, so I started just drawing all the other patients working out. Some would squeeze medicine balls between their legs, while others would pedal a stationary bike set up for wheelchair patients. My stepmom did good with all her arm exercises, but when she was asked to stand, she collapsed. Chemotherapy had sapped all her energy. She was tired of being treated like a child and when we got back to her room, I joked with her about the experience in the cynical way that she was used to. It was good to see her laugh.
Nude Nite – Body Paint
My second trip to Nude Nite, I decided I wanted to sketch the body painters at work. A large crowd of photographers and lookers stood around them creating a phalanx that I marched around seeking an opening where I could stand and draw. I finally decided to push closer and sit on my portable stool. Some people still stood in front of me, but many ducked out of the way just as they would for a photographer. As I worked, several burlesque dancers sashayed in front of me and started vouguing in front of the bar suddenly I was surrounded by a locust swarm of photographers. My line of sight to the body painters was lost so I started drawing the posters on the wall. I knew the posturing for the cameras would be short lived and sure enough the crowd of photographers soon melted back into the crowd.
This evening I bumped into KC and Bob. They were standing a short distance from the two nude sketches KC had on exhibit. A young couple was discussing her work and KC desperately wanted to know what they were saying. I pushed up as close as I could to the couple to try and listen in. KC pushed up beside me. With all the ambient noise I could still not pick out what they were saying. KC finally said, “Should I talk to them?” I said,”Of course.” Then, as they started discussing art, I wandered off to do another sketch.
I am sitting in the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, PA for a second morning drinking a Serious Blend Latte and using the only free wifi in town to write this post. A costumer walks in and starts a conversation with the proprietor. He said,”My biggest self defeat is taking myself to seriously. I can never meet my own expectations.” Billy Holiday is softly singing, “God Bless the Child who’s got his own.”
FRESH-The Coffee Mound
Rather than staying with my exhibit of sketchbooks at FRESH, I returned again and again to the main show space to sketch the performers. In this performance, TinTin danced on the mound becoming more and more a part of the earth. He then dug into the earth, essentially resurrecting his dancing partner, Ashley Kroft. She gracefully rose up, spreading her arms towards the sky. Their dance then became an erotically charged dance of embraces, painful separations and joyful reunions. They both embrace the earth, and share it with each other. They rub the coffee scented earth into each other’s skin. It would be awesome if Starbucks would embrace this celebration of coffee by bringing this dance to the center of its coffee shops. I am certain they would sell more coffee.
I am writing this post from the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Gentle new age music is playing as I enjoy my morning coffee. The music perfectly brings back impressions and feelings I had while watching the FRESH performance. I feel at peace although I am here, to do one last portrait of my stepmother who is losing her battle with cancer. I visited her yesterday and she is a frail fraction of the woman she was. This portrait is the most important sketch I will do in some time. It is time to pack up my supplies and get to the hospital. I approach this new found day buzzing with hope and faith. I do not want to waste a minute.