Packer Backers

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Terry and I went to One Eyed Jacks to watch the Super Bowl along with hundreds of rabid Packer Backers. I had sketched this group before and they are a fun, boisterous crowd. Brian O’Halloran who organizes the crowd had asked me to come and sketch. A stone brick encased in a wooden box sat on a stool. Like everyone else, we rubbed the stone brick for luck. We got to the bar about an hour before kickoff and I immediately sat on the staging area and started to sketch. The fan that caught my eye had on jersey 52 and he had a flag that he would wave whenever the Packers scored. The little statue of a Packer player would do a happy dance at the press of a button. The tiny mechanized hips would thrust provocatively. There was a little boy seated next to me who was wound way too tight. He had tiny lights that he kept shining in my eyes and he kept jumping up and down off the stage. I ignored him. A very drunk fan got on stage next to the boy and stumbled sending the boy flying off the stage.

By the halftime show I was finished with my sketch. Terry had disappeared. I fired off 6 or so text messages but she didn’t respond. In the second half the Packers started making mistakes and giving up ground. Fans got quiet and serious as the score got dangerously close. One of the people in charge had to jump up on stage often as he tried to play audio clips with a failing remote control. The audio would fire up shouting, “Go Pack Go!” Everyone shouted along in unison. He then fired up a dance number that had everyone dancing with their hands in the air. Terry and I danced along.

The Packers won and the place went wild. Think of New Years Eve times one hundred. People were dancing on the bar and tables. A woman flashed her breasts. Two women were french kissing. Everyone was dancing and giving high fives. On the walk back to my truck, Terry gave a dollar to every homeless person she met. The drive home was strangely silent.

United Arts Grant Panel

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The Enzian Theater hosted the United Arts Grant Applications panel meeting for the 2011 Professional Development Grants. 29 Artists and 10 Arts Administrators were to be awarded a total of $33,579. Individual artists could be awarded up to $1000 towards their professional development. The meeting was open to the public.Artists applying for grants were each given a minute to give a brief update on their project and then panelists could ask questions soften adjusting their scores based on the artists response. I didn’t pay close attention to how the scoring was done. I know there was a total of 20 points available and different criteria were considered, like feasibility, assurance that the grant will encourage the artist to grow and assurance that the project will promote and strengthen the Orlando artist community. Attending the meeting was a great way to find out what artistic projects are being produced. I also had the added incentive that I applied for a grant this year.

After the morning session was over and my first sketch was done, I had lunch with performance artist Brian Feldman. He told me all about the 11 different performances he is planning for the Orlando Fringe Festival this year. I tried to figure out how to document so many performances by sketching. Sketching while walking is a new skill set I might have to develop.

The Visual Arts part of the meeting began with a slide show of all the artwork that had been submitted. I cringed when I saw some of my sketches blow up on the large move screen. I had selected sketches at random. A sketch of a haunted house made me think, ” Why did I send that sketch? Does it say anything about Orlando culture?” There was some amazing work and I hope to catch up with some of the artists during the year. Katherine Mathisen had wonderful ceramic busts of Shamans, Gregorii had bright self illuminated fractal art that was stunning. When R V. got up and started showing a stack of his Pinocchio paintings, he expressed that he always felt like he was behind, never ahead. He runs a gallery that has an international graffiti festival each year. I have to get there this year to draw. Anyway, I learned more about the Orlando Arts scene in an hour than I did over the past year.

Here are sample comments and questions about my grant application.
Quality and Integrity: One of a kind project!
Benefit: The applicant’s contribution to the community has already been outstanding. This can only increase the value of our city.
Quality and Integrity: This makes me feel or think of the artist as the “Norman Rockwell” of our time. Have you identified the venue? When may we expect to see this gallery open?
Quality and Integrity: The best!
Feasibility: No doubt is feasible since you have already been working on this project.
Benefit: Sharing your work is a benefit in itself.
Feasibility: I’m interested in knowing at which venue(s) these will be exhibited.

I thought I would be nervous when it came time for me to discuss me project. Anytime I discuss AADW however I become animated, fueled by the fact that I believe that what I am doing has valve to the Orlando community. I got to tell the panel about a new project called LifeSketch where I team up with local authors who conduct interviews while I sketch. Many Artists in the room were checking the tally sheets to be sure that they had the required score. When I sat down, Rick Jones, I an abstract painter, informed me that I had a perfect score. I had managed to navigate the daunting process and have fun the whole time. Very soon Analog Artist Digital World will be funded in part, thanks to a grant from United Arts. When the meeting was over, I was giddy. I called Terry and we went out for a fabulous Mediterranean dinner.

Highland Games

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The Scottish Highland Games are always held the third weekend in January at Winter Springs. When I arrived, the parking both were packed. I pulled my SUV up over a curb and parked next to some woods. When I went to the press tent and asked for my pass, the man asked, “Are you that artist that sketches?” I thought to myself, don’t most artists sketch? But I said, “Yes?” He related that he follows the blog and he always wanted to meet me. We chatted for a while. I entered the event site feeling golden. Of course the first thing you hear upon entering the Highland Games is bagpipes. Bagpipers perform and compete for coveted prizes. I followed my ears and found a group of bagpipers standing in a circle rehearsing.

I wandered over to the playing fields which were surrounded by construction site orange mesh fencing. Women were throwing heavy metal weights. There really wasn’t much competition for Kate Burton, who threw that thing twice as far as any other woman on the field. Later at the caber toss it was the same story. A caber is a telephone pole sized log which is supposed to be tossed end over end. The competitor that tosses the caber closest to 12 o’clock wins. When it was Kate’s turns the announcer said, “Kate Burton is on the caber!” There was laughter from the crowd. I didn’t understand why at first. A man helped her get the caber up into position, though I think she could have done it herself. She stood up and took a step back to catch her balance. She ran forward and thrust her arms in the air achieving an 11 o’clock toss on her first try. The crowd went wild. No other woman was able to up end the caber that day.

The men’s caber toss competition was surprising in that the larger men were not the best caber tossers. Having a thick chest, legs as thick as barrels and thick beefy arms didn’t matter. It must all be about technique because the smallest man on the field, perhaps 5 foot tall and of medium build, was the clear champion.I sipped a delicious apricot ale as I sketched.

On another field, Scottish Sheep Dogs were demonstrating how to herd sheep. Four sheep were on the field and the dogs would circle around them to bring them back to the herder. Using just a series of whistle commands the dog could even get the sheep to follow an intricate course maze. It was an impressive sight. I ended the day listening to a Scottish Band called Albannach. Their high energy music had a large crowd of people dancing in front of the stage as the sun set and golden orange light filtered up to the treetops.

The Chalkboard Exercises

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It was six in the morning and I was standing in my driveway waiting for Brian Feldman to pick me up with a U-Haul he had rented. It was still pitch black outside and a deep wet fog made the orange glow of the streetlights quickly fade away as they marched away down the street toward the horizon. I heard the roar of the truck before I saw it. I pulled out my iPhone and flashed it at the oncoming headlights. I had my tablet to sketch with since it is the best option when sketching in low light. Brian had asked me to bring me video camera and tripod as well, so I piled them into the cab. In the back of the U-Haul was a large portable chalkboard. Brian had labored for days to find one since most classrooms have whileboards these days.

I directed Brian on how to get from my place to Universal Studios. There was going to be a Principal’s Appreciation Breakfast at Hard Rock Live. The event began at 7am and Brian wanted to be set up at the entrance writing “I WILL SUPPORT ARTS EDUCATION.” over and over again. When we arrived at the Universal Studios security gate the guards asked us both for our drivers licenses. Brian was asked to open the back of the truck. While he was doing that I was asked who our contact was since our names were not on the list. I told him to ask Brian. Britt Daley, who works for the Orange County Arts Education Center which was the host if the event, was our contact. Brian called her and she scrambled to find out why we were not on the list. It turns out Brian’s name was on a list, just not the one the guard looked at.

We parked behind Hard Rock Live and unloaded the chalkboard which was surprisingly heavy. We wheeled it around to the entrance and set up. CityWalk across the lagoon looked gorgeous in the misty morning fog. I set up the tripod and asked Brian if he had the tapes. He had forgotten to get them. The event guests slowly arrived. Brian started writing and I began sketching. I rather liked the clacking sound the chalk made as it struck the board. Some teachers laughed out loud. But mostly there was the clacking of the chalk and the tapping of my stylus on the tablet. The moist air was making my hand stick to the tablet making it hard to let long lines flow.

When everyone was inside, I went in and stood at the back of the room to listen. The keynote speaker, John Ceschini, spoke about the importance of arts in education. He began with a quote from Yeats, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the building of a fire.” On the table in front of me there were boxes of crayons and a single tile mosaic with gorgeous blue tiles and several clear spherical tiles. I thought back to a mosaic I had made for my mothers when I was 10 years old. On stage John quoted some more famous minds like Einstein who said,”Imagination is more important than knowledge.” A video was shown of a little girl talking about an abstract painting by Wassily Kandinsky. In it she saw birds, a bridge, a plane, rainbow and a black hole which was beginning to suck all light and color from the imaginary world. Here was a mind ignited by limitless possibilities of the imagination.

Rising Star

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It was Jeremy Seghers birthday. A group of his friends gathered at Ethos Kitchen, a vegan restaurant, to celebrate. We all pushed some tables together and everyone ordered dinner from the front counter. There was plenty of playful conversation. Someone had ordered a huge birthday cake from Rhapsodic Bakery. It was tasty but a little too sweet. After dinner a group of us went to Theater Downtown where Chicago had just begun it’s run. The cast of the show was gathered in the lobby. The room was converted into a makeshift karaoke bar. Amenda Chadwick insisted I join her singing, “Somewhere Out There”. I don’t know why I can’t just say no. She is persuasive.

Amanda did a soft shoe routine waiting for the piano introduction to finish up. We sang a bit timid at first then shouting till our voices cracked. Terry, who claimed she had never seen me sing, shot video on her iPhone which I hope was properly destroyed. To round out the festivities we went to Rising Start at Universal’s City walk. Terry and I were driving separate cars so I followed her there. When we got to the parking garage Terry realized she didn’t have her cell phone. She used my phone to call her number. Someone at the Theater Downtown, picked up and described the phone to Terry. She had to go back. I pushed on to City Walk. “The guard at the entrance to the parking garage told me that if I wanted one minute, I wouldn’t have to pay. I think there was a $5 admission for the club. I got a wristband.

Our table was populated with talented actors, actresses and musicians. Mathew Mendel got up to sing and he really bought the roof down. A table full of women were sitting at the table behind us and they were swooning and screaming. Brian Feldman looked around comically for effect. After finishing his song, Mathew took the longest time, finding his way back to our table. He must have been shanghied. This place offered karaoke with a boost. There were sexy backup singers and talented band members. Jeremy and an actress I had never met before sang, “How do I get you Alone” and the crowd loved it. Terry finally stopped in as I was finishing my sketch. She was tired and I wanted to get away before someone insisted I get up to sing.

5 Course Love

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Mark Baratelli,the producer of The Daily City, invited me to attend a performance of Five Course Love at the Winter Park Playhouse (711-C Orange Ave., Winter Park). In this play, three actors each got to play five different parts. The music was fun and the action comical as mismatched couples met at restaurants. Mark was hilarious as a waiter at each of the restaurants and each scene would invariable be punctuated by the sound dishes crashing to the floor in the off stage kitchen and Mark world offer the comic refrain, ” Oops, there is trouble in the kitchen!”

Michelle Knight was absolutely fantastic as the female lead. Her singing voice is amazing. I had sketched her once before when she performed in “My Fair Lady“. As Barbie she played a Saucy Texas gal who would do anything to woo her man, a blind date named Matt played by Christopher Alan Norton. Unfortunately her date was actually at the next table which left Matt frustratingly alone.

I sketched Christopher Leavy on piano and Sam Forrest on drums since I knew the action on stage was going to change often. When Mark came out on stage in lederhosen, I laughed out loud. Michelle, playing Gretchen, was in a hot tight red leather outfit and she had a whip. She climbed up on the piano and sang her lament. Stricken, I stopped sketching and listened. In the final scene, she played kitty who spent all her time reading about love yet never experienced life. It turns out she was perfect for Matt, a young man who was also unlucky in love. When they meet each other, Mark Bartelli came out on stage as cupid with large white angels wings pirouetting like a ballet dancer. It turns out Mark is classically trained in ballet but I was laughing too loud to care.

Five Course Love is playing through February 13th 7:30 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $35 evenings, $33 seniors, $26 matinees, $20 students and entertainment-industry professionals. Bring your love right before Valentines Day. You will laugh so hard it hurts and y0u might fall in love all over again.

Seed Alliance Show

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The Seed Orlando Art Alliance sponsored a group show. Ten Analog Artist Digital World sketchbooks are now on display at the downtown Orlando Public Library (101 East Central Boulevard). The books are framed in black shadow box style frames. I transported the work to the library using an old shopping cart. It wasn’t an elegant solution but it worked. The exhibit is on the ground floor right next to where the security officer sits. After I leaned the sketchbooks up against a wall, I settled back to watch and sketch as the exhibit was hung. Karie Brown was super organized with her laptop showing how she planned to hang the exhibit. As a matter of fact Karie was moving around so much that I ended up placing her in the sketch twice. Stephanie Matos was busy organizing all the items in the cart. Bonnie Sprung was there, but somehow I managed not to sketch her. I hope she was kidding when she said she was ticked about my oversight. Marcile Powers showed me her work which was done in the computer and involved intertwining repetitive patterns.If was a fun afternoon getting to meet some local Orlando artists I hadn’t met before.

The opening was January 15th starting at 4 pm and closing the library down at 6pm. After 6 pm the party moved to Blank Space right across the street. Odin’s Den was setting up it’s sound system and Karie arranged for a bottle of champagne. The sound check for Odin’s Den took forever and even after they started performing they had to stop and re-adjust the sound. Terry and I had to rush off to the opening of a new club downtown called Heat, so we slipped out.The Seed Alliance Art Show at the Library will be hanging through February 28th so stop down and take a look.

Caitlin Doyle at Infusion Tea

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“Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.” Flannery Oconnor.

I went to a reading by the Kerouac House resident author, Caitlin Doyle. I had spent a wonderful evening sketching Caitlin as she worked on her poetry. I came to realize that poetry like art takes plenty of hard work. I was pleased and relieved that Caitlin had been able to relax and made major headway towards finishing the poem she was working on called “The Ship.” I felt a warm glow of satisfaction when she announced that she planned to read the poem at Infusion. I had been witness to the birth of its creation.

To give you a flavor of the poem, you can read an excerpt of it below with the first two stanzas and the beginning of the third stanza. Caitlin plans to include the poem in her book manuscript, the project on which she is working while at the Kerouac House, so if you look for Caitlin’s book in the future you will be able to read the complete piece.

The Ship

The August I was grounded for sneaking out
at night, so stuck indoors I was homesick
for anywhere but home, my dad showed me how
to make a ship fit in a bottle – the trick,
string-rigged masts pulled full sail only once the hull
had been inserted through the bottle’s neck.
If wrongly put together, the ship could wreck

halfway inside, a tangle of strings and shards.
Mine cracked in two before the stern made it through,
as if to say: ‘better broken than contained’.
But my dad answered it with a tube of glue.
The parts seemed to come back in place by choice.
He raised the sails and corked the bottle to seal
the ship inside the glass. I watched the keel

rise on invisible waves day after day…

The poem then goes on to continue its exploration of freedom and containment in the speaker’s coming-of-age experience, as embodied by the metaphor of the ship and enacted in the tension between looseness and restriction within the poem’s rhythm and form.

To satiate my need for a suger rush, I ordered a banana split vegan cupcake and the iced tea of the day. Rachel Kapitan showed me some poems she is crafting which take the form of architecture. For the open mic that followed Caitlin’s reading, Rachel first recited from memory a Robert Frost poem titled “Stopping be Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Hearing the familiar poems lines was comforting. She faltered for a moment and the poets in the audience were on the verge of shouting out the familiar lines…

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep

She then read her own poem that involved a Kafkaesque form of sexual performance art. It had an anger and vehemence that caused the audience to howl. The evenings endless variety was exhilarating.

Flash! At Parliament House

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On the day of the FLASH MOB at the Mall at Millenia, dancers were invited to give an encore performance of their dance moves at the Parliament House. Admission is usual $10 but Flash Mob participants could get in free for the night. Terry had danced in the Flash Mob and she was excited to have this second “gig”. It was 80’s night. The place was filled with images from 1980’s early video games. The bartender I decided to draw was wearing a Super Mario Brothers style hot as he checked out Facebook on his iPhone. This back room bar was probably the quietest spot in the club. The throbbing 80’s beat still set me cokes surface to vibrate. Lightning kept changing from green to red and back making color choices in the painting a challenge.

Terry had remained behind near the dance floor waiting for her moment to once again strut her stuff. with all that was going on, no one noticed me sketching. Two other bartenders were dressed as big blue Smurfs. Pac Man images were everywhere.This was my first time at the Parliament House in the evening and it was a wild eye opening experience. There was such a cross section of humanity, from cross dressers, gays, lesbians, straight, young and old you name it. It was a sketch artists paradise.

The Flash Mob was reenacted right on cue. Everyone went wild and joined in the on the dance floor. It was like an electroshock jolt that set the dance floor ablaze. The disco ball spun and neon rippled out from the ceilings center. Smoke filled the space making shafts of light visible as they cut through the air. When the dance was complete, I was just finishing up my sketch. Terry and I both decided to head home. There was a huge line of people waiting to get in as we left. The evening was just getting started and I suspect things were about to get unhinged. I have heard that the Parliament House is having financial troubles and might close soon. That is hard to believe since there was such an amazing crowd. It would be a real shame if the place closed since it is the closest thing to the Moulin Rouge that Orlando has.

82 Hours on Pine and Orange

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Peter Murphy the host of Orlando Live, an internet video podcast, set himself a mission to raise awareness regarding homelessness in Orlando by spending 82 hours on the corner of East Pine Street and South Orange Avenue downtown. I arrived on day four of his sojourn. At first I didn’t notice him, but then I spotted him across the street from City Arts Factory. He had some stubble on his face and his hair was matted. In his pocket was a tiny stuffed toy dog which a little girl had given him for good luck. He was happy to see me and he quickly related everything that had transpired over the last four days. He was about to film another short segment for his show, and I used that time to drop off the food items I had brought inside the City Arts Factory. He confided in me that his notion that food was a top priority had been false. There are a number of spots all within walking distance where homeless are given meals. He discovered that plastic garbage bags to keep things dry and blankets were priorities. He quickly realized sleeping in the empty lot across from the Cite Arts Factory would be a frightening proposition. A homeless man related how he had been awakened with a knife blade planted between his eyes and robbed. He had the scar to prove it.

Peter ended up sleeping in an empty alleyway across from Mad Cow Theater. He said one evening he tried sleeping near a church but a policeman told him to move along. He was also told he could not stand in the empty lot where he began his mission since it was private property and he was blocking pedestrian right of ways. He had a cardboard sign which asked for donations of food for the homeless. Since this is considered panhandling rather than charity, he was told he would have to stand in one of two blue boxes which have been painted on sidewalks for panhandlers. I have never noticed these blue boxes. I’ll have to look for them.

Weather had been terrible every night. There was torrential rain and freezing cold temperatures. Peter said he only really got perhaps six hours of sleep total. As I sketched him in front of the City Arts Factory, he would shout out any time he spotted someone who might be homeless. “Hey! Where you headed?” Invariably they would walk over and he would offer them bottled water or some snack food. Everyone was grateful. Within minutes of starting my sketch, a policeman on a bicycle stopped to look at what I was doing. I said hello, but in the back of my mind I imagined him forcing me to stop sketching. He soon left. Peter shouted to me, “Your lucky your good!” I shouted back, speaking for the officer, ” Yeah, ‘That drawing sucks, move along!” I comically wiped my brow. Large fork lifts laden with kegs and bottled beers kept rolling past me on the sidewalk. One particularly tall stack of beers wobbled threatening to topple over on me.

Two homeless men in particular had helped Peter adjust to life on the streets. Science Dave, wore a pith helmet decorated with silver studs. He once worked for the Science Center but he had been fired. A series of unfortunate incidents landed him on the streets. When he saw I was an artist he started telling me the life story of Toulouse Lautrec. Toulouse is one of my favorite artists, yet Dave knew more about his life story than I did. Pete, in a wheel chair, rolled up to talk to Peter Murphy. He was very soft spoken so to hear him speak, you had to lean in close. When he saw the sketch I had done of him he whispered, ” You are blessed.” I admired the quick camaraderie that was shown by these people who happen to live on the streets of Orlando.

I only spent maybe four hours watching Peter Murphy greet and share food with people on the street. For him this must have felt like the home stretch in a very long marathon. Between the winds and the constant shadows of the tall buildings it was cold. Peter often blew his breath into his cupped hands. I did the same with my drawing hand. I couldn’t imagine trying to sleep on the pavement in the dropping temperatures. Yet some people do that every night. More important than any food offered, Peter bought respect and an honest concern to every homeless person he met. I was moved and humbled. For Peter, this must have been a life changing experience.