Trash Cinema 101

Posted on by Thor

Trash Cinema 101 is a live, interactive experience, with bad films, good friends and ZERO class! Each month, Logan Donahoo guides you through his own cinematic wasteland, and brings you out the other side with drinking games and trivia – all wrapped in a campy, lewd, irreverent shell! For the month of December Logan promised to screen a 1964 holiday cult classic called “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” The screening was at The Venue, (511 Virginia Drive, Orlando).  The Venue is a new performance space that Blue Star established in the Ivanhoe Village district. She had to make some major renovations to satisfy the Orlando code enforcement including a huge wheel chair ramp onto the stage. The stage is rather small, so the ramp effectively takes up one third of the foot room.

I knew Logan had to paint on his signature magenta face mask prior to the screening, so I arrived early so I could sketch him doing him makeup.  I had never been to The Venue before. The front building, a steep A frame structure was used as the lobby where people can grab a drink and mingle.  There was a photo of Great Aunt Grace hanging on the wall. A couple arrived wearing tin foil beanies with a uni-horn. The Beatles were performing on a big flat screen TV.  Keyvan Acosta arrived and paid using a credit card. The ticket person had an iPhone with one of those square swipe devices. He signed his name with his finger on the iPhone screen. There was a 30 cent service charge but it must be worth if for the high tech cool factor.  Keyvan lamented the fact that every girl he dated ends up leaving town. Just as he starts to get to know a girl he has to meet someone else and start over. It is like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle where the image on the pieces keeps changing. Orlando is a rather transient city.

Logan was running late, and so the makeup was done quickly with the audience seated in the theater. He used two strips of masking tape to create a clean hard edge to his mask. A patchwork quilt covered the upstairs dressing room entrance. There was a candle on the table I sketched from in the theater. The film was every bit as strange and quirky as Logan promised. Children martians had thick face paint that looked like black face on film. Logan’s ongoing commentary on the low budget film made the screening laugh out loud funny. I’m a  newly converted Trash Cinema fan.

Citrus Bowl Parade

Posted on by Thor

On December 29th, I got up at 8AM to get downtown to sketch the Citrus Bowl Parade as it formed. The sky was grey, and as I drove downtown it started to rain. Walking from my suburban parking spot, I passed a church charging $5 to park in their lot. As I got near the Courthouse, it began to pour. My wind breaker stopped most of the rain but my jeans got soaked. Hundreds of girl scouts were huddled in the courthouse overhangs. I considered sketching some military vehicles, but by the time I got my sketchbook out of my bag, the rain stopped and the drivers jumped in the jeeps and drove off.

Far in the distance I saw the Citrus Floats parked down by the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center. I walked down to the corner of Hughey and sketched the floats. They were the exact same floats I sketched last year. I believe they rubber band the fruit to the floats in the parking lot of what used to be the Amway Arena. A Shriner in a tiny Model A buzzed past me on the way to the parade route. When the floats are not in use, they are stored by the Citrus Bowl. You can see their naked skeletons from the East West Expressway. Then added a bright splash of color being covered in yellow grapefruits and oranges. As I sketched, it started to rain again and I retreated under the I-4 overpass.

Someone asked me where the parade route was and I pointed him to Orange Avenue. I realized he must have considered me an authority since I was wearing a NYC police cap. Terry called to let me know she had come to the parade and she was parked at her office. I finished the sketch and walked to the parade route. It began to pour again. I huddled near the Bank of America building and then darted to an overhang near a pizzeria. A little boy splashed in a curbside puddle. Someone walking by under an umbrella said, “He’s got the right idea.” The boys mom shouted out, “Stop standing in the puddle, you’ll get sick!” Defiant, the boy shouted back, “I won’t get sick.” The parade started. Marching bands took formation and marched by. The color guard girls flags were soaked and heavy. The high winds made it close to impossible for them to spin the flags. They laughed as they tried. The girl scouts walked past with their clear ponchos billowing violently in the wind. A large gust caused all the girl scouts to scream.

The Roadrunner Shriners in their tiny but very loud go-carts spun in circles on the rain soaked pavement. I was afraid they might spin out of control into the crowds on the sidewalk. They were having a blast in the rain. The marching band from the University of Nebraska marched past, with the brass and drums extra loud. The cheerleaders with their red and white pom-poms shouted out, “Go Huskers!” I ordered two slices of pizza and sat at an outdoor table to continue watching the parade. Terry met me at the Pizzeria. There was a large pile of Mardi Gras beads on the table I was sitting at. The pile of beads were all knotted together and Terry got to work trying to undo the knot. When the parade had passed, she continued working on the complex task. I watched the people migrating back to their cars. When the rain slowed to a drizzle, I made my way back to my car and she walked back to her office.

Full Sail’s Got Talent

Posted on by Thor

After class on November 29th, I went to the Full Sail Live venue to sketch the talent show. When I got there the place was pretty empty but it quickly filled up as I blocked in the stage on my sketch. The
Student Community Association presented “Full Sail’s Got Talent,” a
showcase featuring some of the school’s most talented performers.
Students competed on stage to be crowned the winner of this annual
event. Full Sail’s Got Talent was free and open to all students and
staff. Four faculty members sat in front of the stage to act as judges. One female judge was brutally honest in her judgements and the audience full of students at times booed her.

I spent my time watching the camera operator as  he danced around with the tripod on wheels. He never stopped moving and the student responsible for feeding the electrical cord had to keep up with him. Lighting also changed constantly which made for a challenge as I painted. Evan Frazer and Brandon Mirador (Replay &
Frazer) won the Annual Full Sail’s Talent Show. They performed as a dance team to many of the most popular dance songs. It was sort of a history of dance. 0ne dancer wore a blank faced mask which added to the edgy mystique of the act. Abruptly the music stopped and the two performers stood on the stage, not sure what to do. I’m not sure if that was part of the act or a mistake.

Allison Gammill was the Runner up. She had a sweet voice and sang from the soul. Most of the other acts were fast paced rap singers, whose words were garbled and often lost. When Allison performed, standing center stage in her elegant dress, her talent shone and her stillness stood in stark contrast to all the gesturing on stage. One of the judges said he had a crush on her. That is what happens when you sing from the heart.  I don’t understand this pop-cultural obsession about standing on a stage to be judged however. The caged birdsings of freedom.

Enzian’s Makeover For 2013

Posted on by Thor

For 28 years, the Enzian has shown thousands of great movies to millions of people in an environment that encourages friendship and community. The annual Florida Film Festival brings famous and infamous film directors, producers and actors to Central Florida. Between screenings, if you turn to your neighbor at the Eden Bar, there is a good chance they are in the business of making films. At the lavish parties at the Enzian, people have met, fallen in love and formed lasting friendships.

The theater is however showing its age. The curtains are torn, the chairs are worn and the carpets have certainly worn from thousands of feet and spilled drinks. The theater is getting a makeover. Everything that is worn out or broken will be replaced. New carpets and curtains have already been installed. New furniture will allow the service staff more room to take orders and serve food while also improving sight lines for the audience. Technological advances, already in place, have improved the movies picture and audio.

In 2013 the Enzian Theater will continue to renew, revive and refresh. The makeover will enhance the movie viewing experience without detracting from the unique character of place. The theater will still have a cozy feeling, where you can enjoy films with friends. Large semi circular seats will be replaced by lighter more streamlined seating. Circular tables will be replaced by more compact and ergonomic square tables saving space. Benches will be added to the back of section C again saving space.

I was hired to do a sketch of the theater as it will look after renovations. I sat up in the projection booth and sketched as the theater filled with patrons for a screening. The projectionist introduced herself and she reached over me to press a button. As the theater went black, I turned on my book light and continued to paint. I used a computer rendering from Raleigh Design to place new tables and chairs into my location sketch.

The Enzian is inviting patrons to be part of the enduring legacy by investing in the makeover. For as little as $25 you can “own a piece of the Enzian” and express your appreciation for this unique cultural icon.

$5,000 makes one booth a reality.

$3,000  makes a banquet seat and a table a reality.

$1,000 makes a chair or 4-top table a reality.

  $500 makes a 2-top table a reality.

  $250 makes a coffee table a reality.

    $25 makes one square foot of carpet a reality.

All donors of $250 or more will be recognized by name on a beautifully crafted commemorative plaque that will be permanently displayed at the Enzian.

Best Sketches of 2012

Posted on by Thor

Vote results are in for the best sketches of 2012.

1. July 18, (the Parentheticals),  nominated by, Mathew OGrady with 54% of the votes.

2. Oct 10, Blog Con, nominated by Bess Auer with 12% of the votes.

2. (Tie) Oct 24, Sunday in the Park with George, nominated by Zac Alfson with 12% of the votes.

3. Feb 21, Night of Fire. Analytics nominated post. With 4% of the votes.

3. (Tie) May 18, The Eighties Strike Back. Analytics nominated post. With 4% of the votes. 

3. (Tie) December 13th,

Last Tango in Paris. Nominated by Hengua, with 4% of the votes.

3. (Tie) June 6, NAMTA. Nominated by Analytics, with 4% of the votes.

 

3. (Tie) September 4, RAW: RADIATE. Nominated by Analytics, with 4% of the votes. 

 3. (Tie) January 5, We Buy Gold, Nominated by Analytics, with 4% of the votes.

To maintain the one a day posting schedule, here is a sketch of a Mall window display from the AADW Archives. The writing was on the window of a Saks Fifth Avenue store. The display was designed by Shepard Fairey of Studio Number One. Shepard was best known for doing the red white and blue Obama campaign poster.

A City Beautiful Christmas

Posted on by Thor

I got an invitation from choreographer Holly Harris to see a City Beautiful Christmas at the History Center downtown. A City Beautiful is a recently formed church that doesn’t have a permanent brick and mortar home yet. I witnessed a fabulous celebration at the Lake Eola band shell. Cole Nesmith welcomed me when I arrived at the History Center. Much of the service would be happening inside the Orlando Regional History Center. Then the congregation would walk out into the park for an arts performance. The performance is what I planned to sketch, so I leaned against one of the tall pine trees and started blocking in the stage. There was an hour to show time.

White gossamer fabric hung from pine boughs.  The fabric glowed yellow in the street lamp light. Two sculptures of alligators are permanent residents of the park and they overlooked the proceedings. A grey bearded man with a sleeping bag slung over his shoulder was talking to Holly for the longest time. He was invited inside but he preferred the outdoor air like me. He was to thin to be Santa Claus. He stood a short distance from me and watched me intently. He struck up a conversation, letting me know he was from Ohio. Distracted and lost in the sketch, I answered his questions but kept my hand and eyes busy. I’m a bit rude when working, and he soon wandered off.

A box sat at the center of the staging area. A tech tested it out. With the lid off, it erupted, sending up a large plum of fake snow lit from below. Dancers all dressed in black began to form themselves on the grid of the stage. They all held candles. White paper bags with candles inside illuminated the path from the History Center leading people to the staging area. I had assumed everyone would sit on the grass to watch the show. I had guessed wrong. Everyone stood, and I lost my view. I had only sketched half the dancers. I could see one or two dancers between peoples heads. A fellow in front of me apologized, I told him not to worry. I’ve learned to accept any staging difficulty. I decided to relax and start painting. Catching the magical candle light at night would be a challenge.

Music was playing that sounded like Danny Elfman‘s sound track to Edward Scissorhands. Since I couldn’t see the dancers, I imagined ice sculptures forming with the chips floating in the air like snow. The luminescent pillar of snow blew skyward up above the wall of backs. For a magical moment, it was snowing in Central Florida. Air and Cole spoke messages of love, acceptance and Christmas joy, as I presume the dancers performed. Everyone in the audience was issued a candle. One single flickering flame became two, then four then a sea of light. Everyone’s voice was raised in song. There would be a second performance, so  the lights were extinguished as the crowd dispersed, I continued to sketch. The sketch felt complete even without the full cast. The gator looked hungry enough. With another hour till the second performance, I decided to pack up and head home.

Caroling

Posted on by Thor

Gailanne Amundsen sent out an invitation for her annual Christmas Caroling.
As she said, “This is how it works….we pick a place, bring cookies, apple cider, good shoes, a pal, a flashlight, and then we all mob up and sing house to house.

it’s always great so you should come!” I drove up to Mockingbird Lane in Altamonte Springs and parked behind a big yellow family van that had just parked. Gailanne piled out holding Maya, Julie Norris’s child. Everyone mingled in the driveway. It was Gailanne’s grandmothers house and her brother in law was working in the garage. He was busy planing and sanding a kitchen counter top.I figured it would be difficult to sketch carolers who would sing one song at each house and then move on, so I decided to sketch them as they mingled around the cookies and cider. The carolers soon left, but I decided to finish the sketch.

The motorcycle was a recent purchase and it was bought for a song. This family had a wild assortment of pets. Two tortoises were brought out so that their plastic wading pool could be cleaned. Holes were drilled into the bottom of a plastic garbage can and the water from the pool was poured in. The garbage can made a perfect sieve, catching all the solid detritus. White rats and some mice, were in glass aquariums. The rats were fed to a snake inside the house. The male rat understood his fate when he was put in with the snake. He jumped and struggled to find a way out. For some reason, the snake refused to eat the panicked rat.

With the sketch done, I walked the suburban streets in search of the carolers. I used my GPS to follow their most likely route. At several intersections, I just had to guess which way they went. I figured I had a 50% chance of finding them. When I got to Lemonwood Court, I was shocked to see that every house had an amazing assortment of Christmas lights. It was overwhelming. Although it was a dead end, I had to walk down this winter wonderland. Arches covered in lights invited me to down the sidewalk stroll. Soon enough, I found the carolers. Of course they were here. I joined them singing carols. Maya and another girl would go up to each door and ring the doorbell before we sang. Strangely although the house was covered in lights, no one came to the door. This happened repeatedly. Our luck changed when a bus driver stopped beside us and asked us directions to the lighting display. It was a bus from a retirement home, and we sang to the passengers parked curbside.

From that point on, people came to their doors and windows, grateful for the Christmas cheer. It was fun finding my voice in the harmonies. Cookies and hot cyder greeted us on the table in the driveway when we got back. This was a Christmas tradition well worth repeating.

The Nativity

Posted on by Thor

I went to the final dress rehearsal for the Nativity at
Pinocchio’s Marionette Theater in the Altamonte Mall. It was a few days before
Christmas and the Mall was overrun with shoppers. I had to drive up and down
about ten parking isles before I finally found a spot in the parking garage
next to the movie theater. There was panic and road rage among the cars
searching for spots. It was a freezing cold night and I added my windbreaker to
my arsenal of coats. The security gate was closed when I found Pinocchio’s. I
went to the backdoor entrance and started firing of texts to people I hoped
were inside. With no return texts, I decided I might have to sketch the theater
from the children’s play area. I set up my stool and was about to start
sketching when I saw Sean Keohane open the gate to get in the theater. I
scrambled, gathering my supplies and I ran to the theater just as he started
lowering the gate. He saw me and reversed the motor.

Puppeteers were given dark olive green long sleeved shirts
which would help blend them into the background as they worked the rod puppets
designed by Jane Henson. Sarah Lockhard who plays the Virgin Mary wasn’t at the
beginning of the rehearsal, so the smaller puppets used in the actual nativity
scene rehearsed several run-throughs of that scene. Sean boomed out his lines
as the voice of God from the back of the theater. God speaks in Latin, it turns
out. Herod hatched his evil plot to kill the new born King using the three
Kings as his henchmen. Joseph was shocked when he discovered Mary was pregnant
and he understandably doubts her story of divine birth. He still vows to
protect his young bride.

My favorite part of the play is when a banner is waved
majestically over the manger. The puppeteer looks up at the banner making it
wave in slow motion as if in a breeze using two rods. It is the puppeteer’s
concentration and complete absorption in the process that I admire, and this
was one moment where the puppeteer was in plain sight. Three musicians
performed live, playing medieval music. The rest of the puppeteers remained
hidden behind the stage front and faux rock work. They  had knee pads on, yet several times I heard
loud thumps back stage. Edna Bland iced her leg from one of those bumps
during a break. There were two weeks of these back breaking rehearsals for two
performances. Art isn’t easy.

The Art of Public Space

Posted on by Thor

On November 27th, I went to Urban ReThink for one of their “ReThinking the City” presentations. Award winning artist Gillian Christy and her husband, urbanest Russell Preston discuss the art of creating great public space. Russell showed slides of empty public spaces in Boston that became vibrant community meeting places thanks to simple inexpensive urban design and public art. Gillian does large scale public art, so together they make a great team. Public space design should be about creating authentic community’s with people being the first consideration. An active public space inspires art to be in it. Gillian and Russell were the first resident artists at the steelyards in Boston. Huge industrial smoke stacks were modified by adding art to them. Gillian said that her work is about connectors, things that connect people. The redesigning of vacant spaces was referred to as “Tactical Urban-ism” by Russell. Design was done lighter, quicker and cheaper. Short term action resulted in long term change.

 Ed Green from “Rebuilding Together Orlando” and its program, A Door to a Good Night’s Sleep, that helps needy children in our community.The organization offers hope to people in hopeless situations. The last Saturday in April will be a construction day in which people come together and help rebuild home in desperate need of repair. To raise money for this effort,
Rebuilding Together Orlando partnered with Home Builder’s Institute, The Mustard Seed, and
a major pharmaceutical company to build bunk beds for children in
Orange County. The bunk beds were built with recycled wood doors and
“upcycled” materials such as bed frames. They then created “A Door to a Good Night’s Sleep” by embracing the talent of local artists to create works of art on the headboards.

They have been beautifully painted and are showcased in an online auction. So far 11 headboards have been painted. Anyone can bid on these works of art.

The Nativity Rehearsal

Posted on by Thor

I went to the Henson’s Pineloch warehouse on December 12th to sketch a rehearsal of The Nativity. Rehearsals were held most weeknights for two weeks from about 7:30 to 10pm. All of those rehearsals were for two performances on December 22 at Pinocchio’s Marionette Theater in the Altimonte Mall. The oldest story in Christian history was made new in this retelling with live music, and the gorgeous puppets from IBEX Puppetry and the Jim Henson Company. This puppet production was spearheaded by Jane Henson, the wife of Jim Henson of Muppet’s fame.  Jane helped Jim in the early days of television production but then abandoned puppetry to raise her family. He youngest daughter, Heather Henson helped her bring this production to life.

The warehouse was cavernous, filled with boxes and bins full of foam, fabric and assorted puppet parts.  There were woodworking benches and large kites suspended from the ceiling. If you were to imagine Santa’s toy factory, this would fit the bill. I decided to sit behind the table where the performing puppets were stored. Gabriel with his gossamer wings dominated the table. A dark sinister and conniving Herod stood beside him, visible through his transparent wings. Mary, Joseph and the three kings also waited to begin their performances. A train rumbled by adding an industrial edge to this period piece.

From this angle, I could see the puppeteers who had to crouch down behind the stage setting to stay out of the future audience’s view. Sean Keohane, the director corralled the cast and explained how important the telling of the story would be. It was something parents could share with there children. Sarah Lockhard worked with the Virgin Mary rod puppet. Her face expressed every emotion as she moved the puppet. It was fascinating watching actors become lost in the subtle performers.  The word, marionette, 
means “tiny Mary” and  was derived from the puppets used in medieval mystery
and miracle plays.