Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill

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Wow. this production blew the white socks right off my feet. Desiree Montes stars as the venerable lady day at Theater West End (115 West 1st. Street Sanford Florida.

From the moment I entered the lobby I felt like I was in an intimate smoke filled night club.

I had seen this production once before but Desiree’s performance was the most visceral and vulnerable depictions of the singer I have witnessed. She was hesitant to start the performance but when she sang, she melted into the music. The piano player tried to keep he on the play list but she could not be boxed in. Her life was too large to follow a single line of thought.

Since this was a dress rehearsal, the audience was small but Lady Day often left the stage to mingle with the audience. Some joking interactions drew out audience members who shouted back and laughed with gusto. This was pure theater magic. During one song, a small dog could be heard howling off stage like he wanted to also sing. Later Lady Day brought he pup out to cuddle and share with the audience.

She talked of loss and the challenge of performing as a star in a racist country. When she began singing Strange Fruit, it clearly resonated with the horrors of her own life. What she most wanted from life was a home and a family she could call her own, but the life of a singer never allowed that dream to come to life.

Desiree is Lady Day. Performances are September 13 – 29, 2024. You do not want to miss this show.

Defiant Requiem

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Rafael Schächter was a talented composer but the Nazi party would not let him perform. He struggled to survive but teaching piano lessons to young pupils.

Then he got new that he was being imprisoned at a work camp called Terezin. One of the few worldly possessions he took was the score to Verdi’s Requiem.

Conditions at the camp were horrible with prisoners having to work more that 10 hours a day for the Nazi party. There was never enough food. Hope was lost. Rafael realized that music is food for the soul and he began to recruit singers to join a chorus that sang each evening in a cold damp basement. Singers entered a new reality. One survivor remembered that her stomach didn’t seem to grumble when she sang. Music was a form of rebellion against imprisonment. Human dignity was regained if only for a moment.

The Verdi Reqium is a complex choral piece to perform. Rafael  molded the amateur chorus teaching them the Latin lyrics by rote. Three times Rafael had to reconstitute the choir as members were transported to Auschwitz. Then came the moment he had hoped for. The Red Cross was being shown the prison camp by the Nazi’s. The camp was scrubbed and made to look like new. Signs were made to a library, and post office, which did not exist. Swing sets and a soccer field were added.The sick and dying were shuttered behind closed doors. The sickest were sent to Auchwitz and murdered. Had the red cross veered from the tour and opened just one door they would have witnessed unimaginable horrors.

Rafael was going to  have his choir sing directly to the Nazi officers what they could never say. The requiem is a treat against the unjust. The words are in Latin but they could be interpreted to condemn the Nazis to one day face their punishment for their crimes.” that day will dissolve the world in ashes, as David and the Sibyl prophesied. How great will be the terror, when the Judge comes who will smash everything completely!”

Half or the chorus was carted off in cattle cars to Auschwitz right before the performance. The hope was that the red cross would see the performance as defiance against the Nazi captors. The red cross only saw what the Nazis wanted them to see.

After the red cross left, the swing sets vanished as did all the children. 15,000 children lived in the work camp, of whom about 90% perished after deportation. In the following weeks the entire chorus was shipped off the Auschwitz in cattle cars. Rafael survived Auschwitz and several other concentration camps but died on a death march just months before the Nazi’s surrendered at the end of the war.

If Terazin wasn’t pure hell then it was the waiting room for hell. The prisoners were surrounded by man’s worst but they were determined to demonstrate mans best through music.

Defiant Requiem is being performed at the Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. In Steinmetz Hall 445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando FL.

Saturday, September 14, 2024
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
Tickets from: $49
Age advisory: Recommended age 13+

The run time for the concert is 2 hours with no intermission.

Meredith Wilson House Iowa

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The Iowa Independent Film Festival is held in two cities, Clear Lake where my film was shown and Mason City which is known as the River City in the Music Man Musical. I had spent a solid day watching films in Clear Lake on day one. My favorite film on that day was Never Not Yours which was brilliantly written. It was about three grown siblings who visited their parents at a secluded cabin. When the parents announced that they were getting divorced all hell breaks loose. It won the award as the Best Feature film and that award was well earned.

The next morning there was a complimentary breakfast at 7 Stars Family Restaurant. I had ordered breakfast here before and ate it at the lakeside hotel overlooking the lake. It was my go to place for a solid western omelet breakfast. At the breakfast, I met Casey Schaffer who directed a short student film called Brothers: A Civil War Story. One of the organizers was beaming and said it was his favorite film. I decided I need to see it so on day two I watched films in Mason City where Brothers was being shown. It was indeed an amazing film especially since it was a student film that had to be produced on a tight budget. I hope one day this is expanded to a feature film.

After the first film block, I decided I needed some air, so I wandered the neighborhood looking for the Meredith Wilson House. The house is the childhood home of the author of the Music Man. It was a beautiful day so I stood leaning against a sign pose and sketched the home. Gnats were the one distraction swarming in front of my failing eyes. My fountain pen was also choosing to not always put down lines. Periodically people would pose for selfies in front of the Music Man sculpture next door.

I also found a rally nice foot bridge that went over the river that flows through town. All the homes on this street were gorgeous Victorian homes that were meticulously renovated. After the sketch was done I returned to the theater to spend the afternoon watching more films. The theater was pitch black when I tried to slip in to watch a documentary about local legend Hob Mason who was a famous jazz pianist. My eyes didn’t adjust to the dark , so I slipped into a front row seat to watch.

Iowa Independent Film Festival

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COVID Dystopia screened of the first day of the Iowa Independent Film Festival. That evening there was a party for filmmakers at The Boulevard (1311 Bayou Road Clear Lake Iowa).

After COVID Dystopia screened I was approached by a crew of 5 filmmakers who had a music video in the festival. Their music video Infinite Battleground was about two men struggling to balance work with their passion for music. The production is as dark and sinister as my own film, so we hit it off. Director Kristopher J. Gathercoal is in my sketch holding a beer. He wasn’t actually playing pool but I put him in as the second player to fill out the scene. The drummer hooked me up to the groups Through the Darkness youtube page. One of their music videos featured a sketch of a classroom and he wanted me to check it out.

Most of the filmmakers crowded into a back room consuming flat bread and drinks while chatting. The seating arrangement made it so that you would stay with on click the whole time. Since I had to plan to eat indoors, I decided instead to sketch the music video filmmakers as they played pool. The pool table I drew had a definite slant to is so that the balls always rolled to one corner. After two games at that table they switched to the table to my right. I had to get up a couple of times to allow for clean shots. One played became unbeatable once he had a few drinks. He explained that the buzz made him focus extra hard. It was a fascinating use of beer to promote zen.

The bar owner came up to me while I was sketching to talk. He was also a graphic designer and had designed the blue and gold mural on the wall. He was quite pleased that I was sketching it. He took a few pictures as I sketched.

At the awards ceremony, the filmmakers from Infinite Battleground sat next to me in the back row. Their film was nominated for best music video and my film COVID Dystopia was nominated for best animated film. I had no expectations, but they had been at this festival multiple times before and were looking forward to their first win. I was pleased that a good chunk of the intro to my film was played. That was the most eyeballs to view my film in Iowa. I think there were about 22 people in the theater when the film first screened, but this theater was packed for the awards ceremony, so there were hundreds of eyeballs. I paused my sketching when the winner for best animated film award was about to be announced. My fountain pen snapped in half and a big blob of ink splashed on to the sketch. I got distracted and tried to clean up the mess.

COVID Dystopia: Iowa Independent Film Festival

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Mums are in season in Clear Lake Iowa. I stood in front of a flower shot tha t had so many mums on sale that they wrapped around the block. I had. Arrived at the Lake Theater in Clear Lake Iowa early to sketch.
People I’m Iowa are so nice. I dropped a few of the movie marketing cards while I was setting up to sketch. A woman’s driving by stopped to shout out her window to let me know I had dropped the cards. While I was sketching the film festival organizers showed up with a card table, and some banners. One of the. Stopped in the middle of the street to shoot a cell phone photo of then marquee.

i picked up my filmmaker lanyard and spent the day watching films. There were some stinkers and some real gems.

Ben Riggin, one of the festival organizers told me a bit about the history of the theater. It used to be an opera house. Opera singers used to travel from city to city to, perform opera. It was like vaudeville bit with a touch more class. This  traveling opera tradition ended around the 1920s. The the building res converted into a movie house which is still is today.

COVID Dystopia was shown in the third block of films. There was applause after the credits rolled which is rewarding. I never know how an audience will react. After the screening a group of young filmmakers asked me more questions outside. They wanted to know about the music by Any Matchett and I got to tell them about Key of E the post apocalyptic rock musical.

I am really amazed COVID Dystopia screened in Iowa. Iowa is a very deep red state that embraced Trump. This short has many scenes denigrating Trumps failed COVID policies. Granted I am the only one masked at all the film festival screenings and after parties but no one has given me a hard time about it.

Crealde Urban Sketching Class

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This is a quick sketch done of my students working on the patio behind the Crealde Urban Sketching classroom. This was a demo to show how to do a thumbnail sketch to plan out the composition of a scene.

I do these sketches with no intention of pushing them to a finish to show the early stages of planning a scene. When I work on location on my own, I tent to just jump in and do a sketch that fills the page. The early stages of one of those large sketches would also look a bit like this, with detail pushed aside to block in the big shapes. This sketch really only has one major shape and that is the students on several benches. The general shape is a backwards letter L.

This thumbnail could be pushed further if I went back in and refined shapes using my fountain pen. Instead, I spent my time working with each student to show each how to analyze and sketch their own thumbnails, based on their chosen view.

COVID Dystopia: Semi Finalist at Serbest International Film Festival

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COVID Dystopia was a Semi – Finalist at the Serbest International Film Festival. That means the jury liked the film but would not dare to show it to an audience.

The festival was to be held in Moldova which borders on Ukraine. The festival provides accommodations for film makers who make the trip to the country.

However at the last minute they sent out an e-mail informing everyone that the festival would have to be virtual this year because to the war in Ukraine. They did not want to put filmmakers lives at risk. I was excited for the virtual option since it also reduces the risks of infection in a crowded theater.

I am not adding laurels for runner up festivals. I need to focus on the festivals who will screen the film. Tonight I will be packing up to get ready to go to Iowa where I will be taking a rather insane  six hour road trip to the Iowa Independent Film festival.

Crealde Student on Sculptural Bench

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In the Urban Sketching class I teach at Crealde, we have one solid day devoted to sketching each other. Poses are fast and the goal isn’t to produce a detailed portrait, but to create a scene.

I keep stressing the importance of grounding the figures. In this scen the base of the sculptural bench is critical to seeing the ground plane. The bench itself unfortunately is seen straight on. Seeing another plane of the sculpture would have made it more three dimensional.

Another point of the demo however was to treat the person and the bench as one single bold shape. With just two large washes the page was covered and the sketch felt complete although it could use plenty of loving care adding details if time allowed. For instance there is a hint of the shape of the shoes but I haven’t gone back in to add the detail to describe the shoes shape and make.

Crealde Student

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In my Crealde Urban Sketching class, we take one class to do fast five or ten minute poses with each student taking a turn.

As a demo I sketch each student in turn and try and encourage the students to capture more that the person but the entire scene.

There is a frantic energy to working so fast and the goal to get the students to work just as fast and frenetic. Sketches become less detail oriented and more simplified. Detail is only added where it is needed.

I am always pushing students to look for the curve of the back so in this sketch there is one curve drawn behind the figure to show that curve. It was the first line to go on the page.

Tiny Home Orlando

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This sketch was done as a demo for a student. Sketches done for students are usually done much faster and with full knowledge that I will not have time to put the usual amount of detail into the sketch.

Most students want to do many sketches with little detail. This is a rare example therefor of how one of my sketches start before I put in detail and layers washes of color. Color is applied in large washes that gradually get smaller with each pass.

The simple building is a tiny house outside of the Orlando Science Center. It has solar panels on the roof. I have looked at tiny homes as a studio option. I would have to get my giant Disney animation desk inside somehow. Part of me thinks the tiny home might topple over once the desk throws off the balance.

I am looking around for a place to live and I look at homes in just about every state to get a feel for what I need in a home studio. One priority is large windows with northern light. For some reason I am finding myself drawn to homes with red metal roofs. I am also finding I like rustic cabins with either mountain views of a creek nearby. What I seem to want is a fortress of solitude, but within driving distance of a community with a thriving arts scene.