COVID: Shot 9

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The hazmat suit theme dominates the opening shots of the film. This shot shows a huge crowd of people crushed together as they rushed to get back to the United States before borders were closed. The move to close the border happened far too late to stop any spread of the virus. The crowd in actuality was unmasked, and unaware they might be bringing the virus back home to family and friends. The airports did a horrible job of checking for the virus since the tests the United States had developed were faulty. This was just one of many absolute fiascos that lead to the United States becoming the most infected and deadly place on earth.

I executed the shot using landscape mode in VoluMax Pro. It is a rather fast pan down the crowded hallway and because of that movement some of the parallax depth is less noticeable but it is there. From this point forward all the shots incorporate a fast zoom transition which adds to the frantic pace of the film.

I have submitted the film to about 5 film festivals so far. Researching which festivals might be a good fit for the film is a full time job. The goal is to possible submit to about 100 festivals. My thought is that maybe 10% might accept the entry, which means I would travel to 10 different festivals. I will have to harden myself to a high rate of rejection. I know this is a film that no one wants to see as everyone wants to delude themselves that life has returned to “Normal.”

COVID Venom

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The COVID-19 contains a neurotoxin that has sequence similarities to the rabies virus and the HIV glycoproteins, as well as to snake venom. The virus enters into human cells  by attaching to target macromolecules located on host cells. The target cells at located in  the nose, lungs, central nervous system, and immune cells.

COVID is not the flu, it is a neurovascular disease that destroys and hardens the inner lining of blood vessels, it shrinks brain matter, and weakens the heart along with attacking every other organ of the body. Even if an initial case of COVID was “mild” reinfections are common. Reinfections can happen within 16 days and those reinfections can result in a higher incidence of Long COVID symptoms which can destroy your quality of life.

The virus is still circulating, but politicians and even health care workers seem to want to “let it rip.” The 3000 lives lost in the World Trade Center collapse triggered a 20 year “war on terror”, where we get frisked, and can’t take bottles on flights. But with over 1.1 million deaths from COVID so far the United States extinguished the Public Health emergency orders in under 4 years. It is a policy of mass infection. We lost the “war on COVID.”

Anyone can get long COVID. PhD Anthony J Leonardi, expressed the astonishing opinion based on simple math that ‘if omicron reinfections average six months, and long COVID rates for reinfections remain 10-20%, The rate of long COVID in the United States per lifetime will be over 99.9%.’

COVID is Airborne

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Did you ever enter a crowded room and immediately smell cigarette smoke? You look around and see that the person smoking is way across the room. That is how COVID spreads, it is airborne like smoke. If you can smell the cigarette or perfume, just remind yourself that stench could just as well be COVID. The six foot distance rule was a lie made on the assumption that COVID only spread in large droplets which would drop to the ground within six feet. Since the start of the pandemic I have always used a 22 foot rule of social distancing for myself. 22 feet is about the distance of 4 dead bodies lying head to toe on the ground. If people crowd inside the 22 foot perimeter a mask goes on if I am outside. The mask is always on when inside.

The United States ended the COVID Public Health Emergency on May 11, 2023. COVID however still spreads through the communities. The CDC held a conference to essentially pat themselves on the back for their handling of the COVID public health emergency. To date about 101 attendees to that conference have been infected so far because of the superspreader event. Of course CDC employees should be fully vaccinated so there will be few deaths. Should you want the next available COVID booster shot, that will now be an out of pocket expense. The last I heard those shots will cost $300. Cha Ching!

School children are the primary spreaders of the COVID virus. They infect one another in classrooms and then bring the virus home to infect parents and grand parents. After the COVID public health emergency  ended the CDC quietly added a few sentenced to their guidance for school kid on their website. They pointed out that children should mask in schools and at home if another child comes over to play. The health of children was never at the forefront of peoples minds as there was a rush to open in person learning. What was most important was getting the children out of the home so parents could go back to work. People used children’s mental health concerns as a smoke screen to force kids back into poorly ventilated crowded classrooms. There are affordable options to get HEPA filters in classrooms but few are really concerned about the health of the children.

Demonstrating blind contour

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At the Rocket Thrower statue outside the Rep Theater, I decided to do one more demonstration bu doing a sketch using blind contour. Blind contour is actually anything but blind. It is more of a state of constant starting and attention to detail. This sketch was done without ever looking at the page until I felt the sketch might be done. There is a faint sketch underneath this demonstration where I was laying out the composition for a sketch of a modern red sculpture outside OMA. My student finished his sketch of the same subject so fast that I had not time to add detail to that sketch. I therefor left it and drew right on top of it.

This is also a good demo since it show that a sketch doesn’t have to be accurate to be interesting. This could easily be pushed to a finish by adding details in the head and adding a few watercolor washes to tie it all together. Having done several sketches of the statue however, my student wanted to move on and find another subject.

I noticed a grandmother walking with her grandchild as I finished this sketch. She looked at me with what looked to me like disapproval, probably because I was wearing an N-95 mask. Then again she might just have not liked my shirt or this sketch. Getting past the mass delusion and amnesia of the return to normal has been my goal ever since I started my pandemic series back in March of 2020.

Urban Sketching Class Notes

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This page is an example of the types of notes I jot down for students on our sketching excursions on location. We met at the Rep Theater and the first sketch opportunity was a large modern red statue outside OMA. My student works pretty fast, so I just offered a quick thumbnail sketch to give him ideas on how to think about the composition.

Next we sketched the Rocket Thrower sculpture which can be intimidating for a beginner. The last time I sketched the Rocket Thrower, he was wearing a Fringe Tee shirt. I used the sculpture for several different lessons. The small thumbnail sketch shows sweeping gesture lines with no detail. I then showed how to block in the three body masses, the head, rib cage and hips as three simple shapes. Then we did a separate exercise where we just looked at the negative shapes around the sculpture which I colored blue. The negative shape exercise allows the student to get away from the distractions of anatomy and just think about puzzle piece shapes.

I always fell the urge to want to cover the page with watercolor washes as well, but there isn’t always time. Honestly blocking things in extra quick like this for a student is good for me because it reminds me to avoid distracting detail at first and think about the big picture. I also find that being able to verbalize my thoughts help cement them in my own mind.

Rollins Dock

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I was sketching with an Urban Sketching student at the Rollins College campus.The student was just working with pencil so we ended up sketching about three different locations. I had to pick up my pace to get something resembling finished sketches for each. I am used to going to a location and spending all my time completing one sketch during the course of an event.

In this sketch I was pointing out the perspective in the scene. I put a lone house on the far shore where the vanishing point would be for the boats in the foreground. Since my student was seated to my right, his vanishing point would have been slightly different. We spent a moment figuring out the perspective from his vantage point.

I also pointed out that just the closest boat had to be rather accurate. If that boat read as dimensional then the other boats would seem dimensional even if they were just quickly sketched in.

I have taken sailing courses so I could probably handle one of these sail boats fairly well. I was discussing this with Pam this weekend and we came to the conclusion that the course I passes was over 20 years ago. I am not sure if sailing is like riding a bicycle and you never get rusty.

Sizzle: Corsets and Cuties

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Corsets and Cuties were performing at the Abbey for Fringe.Pam and I had arranged to see three shows in quick succession and Corsets and Curies was the last show of the evening. We arrives early and relaxed outside in the outdoor patio. When we did go inside people were crowded around the bar and we waited near a large black curtain that lines the back of the seating area. I could hear the occasional song inside the space and figured they must be doing some last minute rehearsals inside.

Pam and I were some of the first inside the theater and we decoded to sit house right one row back. Honestly we could have sat front row since the two seats in front of us never filled up. The theater did get tight. My right arm got pressed up against a metal balcony divider which meant I couldn’t draw using my whole arm. My elbow got locked against my rib cage.

The thing I love about Corsets and Cuties is that they combine humor with their performances. The audience was laughing as well a hooting and hollering. Once again Pam and I were the only ones in masks. For whatever reason this space was the one that made me most uncomfortable when it came to possible COVID infection. Thankfully we seem to have skirted getting symptoms once again.

Many of the performers walked up and down the aisle and once they did that I lost sight of them. There was no point in craning my neck and looking back since the audience was so thick that any sight of the performer was lost. I just focused on the stage or the guy in the baseball hat in front of me.

A row behind us there was a guy on the aisle and he had a cast and sling on his left arm. Every performer seemed to cozy up to him leaving strips of clothing around his neck. I tribute it to the notion that he couldn’t get very grabby as they performed. Apparently one tassel popped of because of the humidity but I missed it, I was looking elsewhere as I sketched.

 

Fringe Favorite: Bugged Lady

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This was my favorite show that I saw at Fringe this year. It was a site specific show held at Leu gardens. Sandi Linn played the part of Professor Levi instructing a class of Invertebrate Biology 101. Sandi actually works at Leu gardens teaching similar lasses to school children as her daytime job. She wanted to present a show that was a bit edgier than her day to day classes.

In this show professor Levi presented real live insects to the crowded Fringe audience. Invertebrates make up over 80% of life on earth. You could tell form her presentation that the professor had a true love of insects, particularly the most venomous and frightening. When in undergraduate studies she was the only woman in her class. She was teased and told she should pursue an occupation more suitable for a woman.

On a field trip with classmates and a professor, she wanted no part in the lewd campfire banter so she retired. She was startled awake with the drunken professor forcing himself on her. She got even when she discoverer a huge nest of these cockroaches and mistakenly dropped them all over her sleeping professor.  She had a terrarium full of hissing cockroaches that she massaged with her hands to make them hiss. She walked the room so we all could hear and flinch.

The moral that threads its way through her presentation is that insects only will attack if they are threatened. Though she was the best student in her class she was passed over for promotions. Strangely the unqualified student who was promoted over her also was attacked by thousands of insects. he swatted at then which only made then angry. Over time she had to settle on teaching for as she said those who can not do, teach.

We got so see glowing scorpions, tarantulas, venomous grasshoppers. centipedes tape worms and of course hissing cockroaches up close and personal. The show was educational and horrifying.

COVID: Premiere

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The film, COVID had it’s premiere at Fringe this year in the visual artists area. I had screened a film several years ago and that screening happened in the outdoor tent behind the Shakes. In my Facebook invite that is where I directed people. I got to the outdoor tent about half an hour before the screening began. It was surprisingly light outside but I started blocking in my sketch, thinking I would sketch the audience as they arrived.

I was still blocking in my sketch in pencil when I began to realize that the movie screen had not been set up yet. Pam and several friends arrived. And Pam decided to go in the shakes and figure out where the screening was happening. Andy Matchett, who wrote the amazing single that is the basis of the short, showed up and we went inside together to see if the screening was indeed inside.

The screening was actually in the round planetarium room which was being used for visual Fringe. There was a full crowd. I realized that I didn’t have the time to complete a sketch, so I sat and relaxed for the show. The pencil sketch I had started is under the sketch I have posted here. I didn’t have an erased so it can be seen faintly underneath this quickly executed sketch.

Most of the seats were taken so we sat at the kids table to watch which was separated from the main audience. Since chairs had run out a comfy recliner was pulled away from the wall and I offered it to Andy. He deserved it since his music is amazing and the show Key of E had premiered at Fringe 10 years prior. The singe I built the short around is “I just Can’t Wait (for the game to end)” and every word feels like it is about the COVID pandemic and a desire to return to normal. The song was written in 2013 but it feels like it was written in 2020 or today. I consider Andy a profit, though he hates for me to say that.

My film COVID was the only one that required a warning in case people wanted to shield themselves from the reality I was showcasing. After the screening we went to the outdoor beer tent. I was masked all night except for the moments I was downing a Hefferweisen beer. Being unmasked I was calculating wind directions and my distances from others. I usually insist on 22 feet of distance but that distance broke long enough for me to drink the beer and try the schnitzel. Pam went to order some schnitzel and in the time she was getting that I finished this sketch. I realized that I had left my pen at home, so this sketch was done with a colored pencil.

Before I finished the sketch, a singer in a captains cap and a uniform came over and asked if I was Thor. He thanked me for the work I had done for the opera in the past and he was glad I was out sketching theater on location again. It was nice to sketch live theater again but it is exhausting navigating in a world where people think the pandemic is over and I know the pandemic is far from over. A black N-95 is now a part of my everyday sketch uniform.

 

COVID: Shot 8

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Shot 8 shows Fun Spot which refused to close its doors when the pandemic hit hard. They put out some hand sanitizer stations and called it a day. For those who aren’t aware, COVID is airborne, it floats through the air like smoke waiting to be inhaled to infect a new host. Sanitizer is a nice gesture but it does not stop an airborne virus.

This shot was created with landscape mode of VoluMax Pro 7. I then re did the shot using a depth map for the background and separate layers of each group of hazmat workers. The challenge then became to keep the workers solidly placed on the ground. It took some work to get that right.

Things never got quite this bad in Orlando but with well over one million deaths in America, I wasn’t far off the mark in the paintings I produced in the first weeks. According to USA Facts,  Orlando Florida has had 88,288 COVID deaths so far and that number continues to grow. Where are they all buried? Someone dies about every three minutes from COVID.

Americans have been duped into accepting mass infection. They can accept the risk of infection as no worse than a possible auto accident. However with an auto, you at least can wear a seat belt and steer clear of oncoming traffic. There is no steering clear of COVID when literally no one masks.\

 

I am starting to enter this film in Film Festivals. I have come to realize that it is a film no one wants to see. I therefor have to pay festival entry fees to get an audience to see it.