Jeff Atkisson invited me to climb to the top of the trees if I wanted but I had already started this sketch and I suspect I didn’t have the nerve. The trees have 15 tiers and the workers are working on tier 12 at this point. When this structure is complete railings are added to each row and then panels are hung from those railings which have many strands of Christmas tree lights. Jeff explained that there are about 111 miles of Christmas tree lights that are attached to the panels. All the lights were bought new this year along with tons of replacement bulbs. Previously lights were stripped in as strands died out and this resulted in bulbs of very different colors being mixed together over time. Now all the blue bulbs are very much the same color of blue throughout. Derrick Mckenzie was in charge of assembling all 270 of the new panels and getting all that wiring to work. He had the help of about 70 volunteers and it took them over a month to assemble all the panels. All the panels had colored lights arranged exactly the same so when Jeff programs then the lights can be triggered to that the tree become all one color or multiple colors can be lit at once creating stunning effects. Jeff will be able to make the tree for instance light up all green with those lights sweeping upward in a strong diagonal. This really has to be seen to be believed. I have only seen the effect on the small model tree but it is amazing.
Singing Christmas Trees Construction
The huge Singing Christmas Trees are under construction at the First Baptist Church. The structures are 45 feet high and will be used as bleachers for a chorus of 250 singing ornaments when all the work is complete. The steel girders of the structure fit together in an intricate pattern and the planning that goes into the construction is mind boggling. Scaffolding was put up first behind the trees which allows easy access for the workers. The vertical supports had to be wiggled into place by teams of men working in unison. I felt a little uneasy when I was on the stage. While the vertical steel girders were being fit in place they could conceivably fall forward. One worker shouted “If it falls be sure to push it towards the scaffolding.”
Bill Keller wanted to see what I was working on. He explained that he and his father had been working on the trees since they were first assembled in 1980. “Building these trees has been something of a family tradition.” He said. The trees had been on hiatus for 3 years but today they are back and better than ever. Bill and his father were bought back as consultants. His father can be seen in the sketch sitting on stage.
Jeff Atkisson took me to a back room where he has a miniature 6 foot high version of a tree setup and he is using an audio editing computer program to set up the lighting effects on the trees. This process is inspired and amazing!
Newly Dead Game
Beth Marshall and her husband Chris Foster host an annual Halloween party. We asked if we could bring along two guests from Miami. Beth who is the Producing Artistic Director of the Orlando International Fringe Theater Festival warned us that that things might get crazy. There might be nudity and who knows what else. Things did indeed get a bit crazy. Beth and Chris asked any couples to gather in the living room for a game they called The Newly Dead Game. It is exactly like the Newly Wed game seen on TV. One member of each couple had to leave the room while questions were asked which would show how well the couples knew each other. I figured I could play the game and sketch at the same time. I might have been mistaken. When a couple got a question right they were given a piece of candy. At the end of the game the couple with the most candy would be the winner. Our friends from Miami got every answer right with 34 pieces of candy, as did a lesbian couple on the couch. When the dust settled Terry and I only got 3 pieces of candy. People who had just met that night got more answers right. Terry was furious! She shouted, “We have been married longer than anyone here, 18 years, how is it that people who have just been dating for a few months know more about each other than we do?!” I tried to laugh it off and more importantly finish my sketch. Now I knew why it was called the newly dead game, I wasn’t sure I would survive the evening. On a positive note we have plenty of room for growth in our relationship.
Later a costume contest was held in the backyard. My wife competed. She got plenty of hoots and applause for her Zorro costume with a black bra but in the end a woman dressed as a cougar won. After the competition, we were all treated to a belly dancing display in the back yard. I watched for a while but then decided I needed a drink and I went inside. Every corner of Beth’s home is goth themed. The toilet had a dark Gothic dragon on the lid and photos around the house showed old Daguerreotypes which then converted into zombies. Walls were blood red or cougar patterned. With Halloween now past, the house must be waiting for next years festivities.
Carving Pumpkins
I went to a number of different parties on Halloween day. This sketch is of the back yard of Jared and Lesley Silvia. When I arrived they had just started carving pumpkins. Lesley was still reaching in and grabbing out the guts and seeds. No one was attempting a simple pumpkin face. Andrew Fritta was trying to carve his pumpkin to look like the Death Star from Star Wars. When I started this sketch he was in the foreground sitting at the table gutting his pumpkin. Unfortunately before I sketched him, he decided to carve his pumpkin on the lawn, that is why the center of interest, the table is strangely deserted. The intricate carving involved in the Death Star was mind boggling. Lesley was carving a hang man’s pumpkin which is really sinister when lit up.
At the opposite end of the backyard there was an above ground pool. Some people started to gather around it and I wandered over. It was half full and after looking in the greenish murky water for a while I noticed movement. There were tadpoles swimming around everywhere. One guest was scooping them up with a skimmer net. Someone else shouted out “Leave them alone!” I wondered if they all were doomed. How would they get out once they turned into frogs? I am thinking the Silvia’s need some water lilies for their new Eco-system.
As the sun started to set I got ready to head to my next destination. The little girls in costume were excited because they were going to trick or treat in two neighborhoods and they expected some sweet pickings. I thanked my hosts and hit the road to get to another Halloween party I needed to sketch.
Pinocchio’s Marionette Theater
In August of this year Pinocchio’s Theater was relocated to this spot on the ground floor of the Altamonte Mall. To celebrate Halloween they hosted a costume party for the kids with performances of Hansel and Gretel throughout the day. Slowly people began to arrive in costumes. My favorite was a father son team where the son was dressed as the young Indiana Jones and the father was the elder Jones. The evil queen from Snow White was selling candied apples and there was a table with apple cider and free cookies. Before the theater opened there was a performance of “Mad Scientist Throws a Party”. In this show kids were asked to feel in a box to try and guess what the mad scientist had created. When asked the kids always jumped up excited to volunteer.
The Theater is located right next to a kids play area in the mall and there was constant screaming and shouting as I worked. It took nerves of steel to focus and not get distracted. A woman walked up to me and asked me if I had seem her child. She went into the Theater lobby and started asking others if they had seen a boy. When she came out again I could see the pure fear in her eyes. She began shouting his name frantically. Sean Keohane the theater owner immediately took charge and went to find Mall security. By the time the officers came back the distraught mother had disappeared in her search for her son. Maybe 15 minutes later she came back with her son in her arms. She put her son down and thanked the puppeteers who had offered to help. As she was thanking everyone her son darted off after something that caught his eye. Her reflexes were quicker this time and she caught up with him before he got to far.
Haunted Mardi Gras
Evan and Chrsitie Miga, DRIP dance groups art directors, hosted a Haunted MardiGras party at their home. When I arrived there was no mistaking the house which had a huge WELCOME sign above the entry lit with a black light. Dry ice mist was billowing out of the entry and I had to duck in behind a blanket to get to the front door. Visibility was zero but through the mist I could just make out some disembodied masks floating in space. The front door had some satanic symbol painted on it with day glow paint. When I entered the home Strobe lights blinded me once again and I wandered narrow corridors framed loosely with black drip clothes. At times the passage was so narrow that I thought I had made a mistake entering and I considered going back out. At the next turn however I found myself in the kitchen where a small group was assembled. A 6 foot high voodoo doll greeted me and then I recognized Christie as a voodoo priestess.
I was dressed as “Jack the Dripper” better known ad Jackson Pollock. My wife arrived later as Zorro and her friend from Miami was dressed as a cat lady. The party eventually moved outside to the back yard where there was a graveyard with a storage shed that resembled a church. A zombie movie was being projected on the back wall of the house and it was hard to ignore. Periodically a zombie would bite open someones throat or feast on their intestines. This movie used buckets of blood. Then the karaoke began and the highlight for me was when Evan the voodoo doll began making up his own lyrics to songs, looking pitiful and lost in his voodoo doll costume. It was a surreal and unexpected moment.
Much later in the evening the DRIP dancers began to arrive and for a short time I stood behind the singers at the karaoke machine offering my off key renditions of the songs being sung. Theater folks sure know how to party! My wife and her friend left early and I followed soon after, but I knew this party had many more hours in it.
Macabre Vignettes
At the historic Cameo Theater at 1013 East Colonial Drive, Tamara Marke–Lares set up an astounding, mysterious and strange collection of life sized Marionettes. I went to see Macabre Vignettes on Halloween day to see the “Lights Up” family friendly version of the show. Playful kid friendly puppet shows were going on all day while the sinister large marionettes watched and waited. One puppet show was about trying to find a Pumpkin. It is fun to watch the kids who are totally engrossed in the performances. When the kids realized that the puppet wasn’t holding a pumpkin but instead had an orange they stood up and shouted waving their hands. The puppet would insist it looked like a pumpkin but the kids would shout “No. No! That’s an Orange!” When the puppet asked for the orange back, a boy hurled it back hitting the puppet. All the kids laughed with delight.
I sat in the evil animatronics lab doing this sketch. One woman walked up to me and said “Oh, I thought you were part of the display.” Periodically a puppeteer would go up to one of the giant marionettes and start manipulating the strings. Children were invited to try working the puppets. The walls were covered with dark sinister paintings and scattered about were strange and unexpected sculptures. I suspect this cheerful environment must become a very scary place once the lights go down. This is without a doubt the most creative and exciting Halloween display in town.
Drip at the Art Lounge
I went to the final rehearsal before the opening performance of Drip at Blank Space. Blank Space is an experimental art and coffee house located at 201 East Central Avenue right across the street from the Public Library. Linda Eve Elchack, the choreographer, pulled up in front of the performance space and through the store front windows blue and red lights began to flash. It turns out Linda had been “speeding” going 30 MPH in a 25MPH zone. She was pulled over just inches from where she would have parked. The performers stood by as they waited for the officers to go through the long process of getting the license and registration and issuing a ticket. Sam tried to distract the police by spinning and dancing. It didn’t work. Tin Tin who was shirtless from a previous rehearsal was told by Dave that he might want to get a shirt on. All the dancers had on flesh colored tights and Dave felt that Tin Tin showing some nipple might result in trouble with the police. The fact that Tin Tin then put on a shirt is an indication of the type of repressed city Orlando remains.
Lights were being set up and drop clothes were being hung everywhere. The “room” in the sketch was constructed of large sheets of black plastic and one wall of clear plastic. In the center were 2 ladders with a pole duck taped between them. Hanging from the pole was a large paint can. The performance which was filmed by Meriko involved the dancers interacting with the paint bucket which was filled with thin paint which dripped and poured out of the holes punched in the can’s bottom. The performance was called “Paint by Rain”.
Getting into and out of the room was a challenge all on it’s own. The doorway flaps were covered with wet paint from the dancers hands. I wore a white shirt and I was sure it would be covered by the time the evening was over. I ducked back into the furthest corner I could and started to sketch as the performance began. I had to get out of the way as Tin Tin made his way up the ladder and then I resumed sketching. By the time the performance was over, both dancers were covered head to toe in paint. I splattered paint over the page at random often along with the music trying to convey the messy and fun dance. I had no doubt this performance would be a show stopper. You can see DRIP perform every 3rd Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Get tickets at www.ILoveDRIP.com
Casa Feliz
Casa Feliz at 656 Park Avenue in Winter Park, offers free music in this intimate historic setting. When I stopped in Christine MacPhail was playing the harp.
The setting was peaceful and serene. The young family on the left spoke Spanish to Christine and she responded in kind making me feel like I was visiting a Spanish Hacienda.
Later another young couple with a 10 year old daughter entered and sat in front of me. During a break they approached Christine and they explained that they had asked the harpist to play during their wedding. Christine was overjoyed and remembered them immediately. The couple asked if Christine could play one of the songs from the wedding but the harpist could not remember the tune. She offered to burn a copy of the song when she got home and looked up the sheet music.
As I was leaving someone asked if they could see the sketch I had done. He asked if I was the artist who was on display upstairs. I said no but the question raised my curiosity so I wandered upstairs. The walls were lined with paintings by Don Sontag who painted the men involved in moving Casa Feliz. In 2001 the home was moved to its present site to save it from demolition. Moving the 750 ton home was a major engineering challenge. The renovated structure now functions as a home museum.
This free music series seems to be one of Orlando’s best kept secrets. If you want a great way to wind down after a crazy week you should look up the music schedule on the Casa Feliz web site and enjoy this great music series.
Audubon Market
The Audubon Market has returned to the parking lot at Stardust Video and Coffee 1842 East Winter Park Road. This market opens every Wednesday night and runs from 5 PM to 9 PM. This is a small local market with live music, a massage station, a fortune teller, a table of delectables like candied apples and other sweets, hand crafted jewelry and clothing, plants, the list is endless. Most importantly it is a place where friends can mingle and talk.
I bumped into Karrie Brown who was selling some of her hand made feather hair pieces. Karrie introduced me to the caricature artist at the event named Marie Bolton – Joubert. Marie is a whirlwind of constant activity. She introduced me to a cause she is backing which involves the shooting of 2 dogs here in sunny Central Florida. She showed me a courtroom sketch she did of an early hearing in this case and now I am planning to go to the court to see if the shooter is acquitted. I should post about this hearing in early November. Then she insisted I sit down and she whipped out a caricature of me in a matter of minutes while talking the whole time. The caricature is great!
I neglected to mention that the reason I went to Stardust Video and Coffee was to attend Dr. Sketchy’s but once I discovered all the activity in the nighttime market I had to sketch the market and I never went inside. It was boiling hot outside as well and I had to wipe the sweat off my hands several times to keep from smearing the watercolors.