The Executive Director

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For a recent advertising illustration assignment I was asked to sketch an executive behind his desk. Rather than search for that executive online doing an image search, I decided to ask friends on Facebook if they knew of an executive who might not mind my stopping by to sketch him on location. Genevieve Bernard suggested Frank Holt, the executive director of the Mennello Museum of American Art. Frank was fine with me sitting in his office and sketching as he worked away on his computer.

His office is has colorful vibrant walls. The orange wall behind him ties in perfectly with an orange curtain featured in the painting that hangs on it. Gorgeous orchids were bursting into bloom. I like his desk which is simply a thick sheet of glass supported by saw horses. The room was simple and elegant much like the vibrant museum itself.

On display now at the Mennello is “Style & Grace” exhibition of American Impressionist paintings and sculptures collected by Michael and Marilyn Mennello. This really is an amazing collection of paintings by some of my favorite “Ash Can” artists, like Robert Henri and George Bellows. Sometimes I feel like that is the time when I should have been working as an artist. But hey, make the most of the time you have, right?

Friday March 30th there is a reception for IMPRINTS: 20 Years of Flying Horse Editions. A celebration of UCF’s limited-edition fine art book printing press, with a printmaking studio set up in the museum for workshops. 6-8 p.m. Admission $5, free to members. Continues through August 12.

Saturday, March 31st share a cup of coffee with the Artist: Mary Whyte. We are thrilled to have the teacher, author and “investigative watercolorist” from South Carolina discuss her book, Working South: Paintings and Sketchings by Mary Whyte , a series of interviews and portraits of blue-collar workers whose ways of life are diminishing. She is in town for the UCF Book Festival. The event is 10:30a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Reservations requested. Admission $5, free to members.

HoliFest

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Holi is a religious springtime Festival celebrated by Hindus. It is also known as the Festival of Colors. Holi is celebrated at the end of the winter season on the last full moon day of the lunar month. The main thing I know about the festival is that it is a whole lot of fun watching people throwing brightly colored pigments at each other and using super soakers and water pistols to squirt bright tinted water as well. In Orlando, a large soccer field next to the Citrus Bowl becomes home for this colorful carnage each year.

I parked on a side street on the opposite side of the stadium and walked toward the festival. The field is surrounded by a chain link fence with green mesh which blocked my view as I approached. The news had predicted a 50% chance of rain. The overcast sky meant I would be able to sit out in the open as I sketched. Last year there had been loud Indian music but this year the field was eerily silent. There was a tractor trailer bed parked at one end of the field and I assumed it would be used as a stage. I spoke to the event organizer and he said there had been a number of last minute setbacks. The DJ was running late and the truck bed was a last minute substitution for the main stage.

Only a few merchandise tents were set up. I decided the tent closest to the stage was my best bet to start sketching. Children were already soaking each other with pigments. I was wearing an old white T-shirt and old white pants that were paint rags. A teenage girl approached and hit me full force with her super soaker. I was surprised by the force of the stream. When I sat down and started blocking in the sketch, her little eight year old brother started squirting me with his small water pistol. I was able to block his shots with my hand. Once people saw what I was working on, I became Switzerland and there was a cease fire.

From the tent, they sold sodas, coconuts, colored pigments and colored water for pistols. I was surprised when the whole Psycho City Derby Girls roller derby team greeted me. Jeff Ferreeand Bucky Garrabrant were there with a group of friends. Jeff pointed towards his friends in the middle of the field. “Yeay, we are the ones who look out of place.” he said. But brightly splashed with pigments, they blended right in. I felt bad that they couldn’t experience the full brunt of the festival. Only 20 to 30 people were throwing pigments at any given moment. That didn’t stop people from having fun soaking each other in small groups. Children of the tent merchants crowded around me to see what I was drawing. Their mom stopped over and asked me the name of the blog. Rather than try to remember it all, she assigned each child a word to remember. She pointed to the oldest girl, her word was “Analog”, the next girl recited “Artist”, and the next girl recited “Digital”. A young boy walked up and said, “What?” “Not what!” They shouted back, “World”. The mom pointed to each child in quick succession and they had it down pat.

The organizer told me that they had expanded the festival to run over both days on the weekend. With this sketch done, a family got on stage and began singing a Hindu chant with drums as accompaniment. It started to rain and I decided to come back the next day. The next day it rained however and the festival was canceled.

Sexual Harassment

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All the Full Sail staff were required to take a seminar which outlined Full Sail’s policies on Sexual Harassment. Kathy Blackmore invited her crack team of instructors from 2D Animation to meet for lunch at Mellow Mushroom on Aloma before the seminar. It’s always nice to get together as a crew to laugh, gossip and discuss ways the course might be improved over time. My Hawaiian pizza was delicious. As a crew we then arrived at Full Sail live before anyone else showed up. The back rows were the first to fill up. There was plenty of uncomfortable joking about harassment and slowly the room filled. I left the 2DA crew, thinking I might sketch from the front row. Kathy informed me that much of the presentation would be a video, so I changed my focus and decided to sketch the growing crowd.

Sexual Harassment is bad. It was defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors or verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. A lawyer went through his 29 power point slides being sure to read each of the bullet points. About 70% of women and 20% of men have experienced sexual harassment. About 15,000 charges are filed each year. The bottom line was that Full Sail employees must report all harassment if they are aware of it to the Human Resources department or a quick call to the Full Sail president.

The video showed a fictitious court case in which a female employee was filing a sexual harassment charge. She met a guy at a company picnic and they talked. She let slip that she used to work for a 900 number. The audience murmured. The guy kept asking her out and she declined. He parked outside her home one night for several hours. She contacted HR and they suggested the guy stop. He didn’t. Eventually the guy was fired, but the woman got cat calls from the rest of the shipping department. She decided she had to leave.

The Full Sail staff were asked to break up into groups of six to act as juries. The interesting thing about the video is that the case left room for interpretation about weather HR had done enough to stop the harassment. The juries all agreed that she was the victim of sexual harassment. They varied widely in the matter of how much to offer in damages. One jury offered $300 in compensatory damages, $300 in punitive damages and $300 in back pay. The video jury offered $75,000 in damages. Larry Lauria on the 2DA jury offered 10 million dollars in damages, but it was a hung jury because no one could agree on the final amount.

Red!

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“Red” is a Tony Award winning play written by John Logan the screenwriter for “Hugo” and “Sweeney Todd.” It is supposed to be “an electrifying drama that spans the spectrum of human emotion, centering around the life of abstract expressionist Mark Rothko.” Rothko was a Russian-American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an “abstract painter”. Jeff Ferree told me about the production and he let me know which day that the completed set would be getting a spattering of paint. Set designer is Bob Phillips was there dressed in an old Hawaiian shirt. He supervised as Robbin Watts, the head scenic arts and scenic apprentice is Ashley Gilbert flung paint all over the walls and stage. Everyone padded around the stage in their socks. He couldn’t resist flinging paint himself. “It’s cathartic.” he said.

The first three rows in the theater were covered with drop cloths and I sat in an aisle seat just behind the “spatter zone.” I started the sketch by catching Ashley as she spattered the walls from high up on the ladder. This seems to be a recurring theme for me, sketching creative women on ladders. Everyone’s shoes were gathered up and placed at the back stage door. All three artists started spattering the floor, trying to avoid painting themselves into a corner. Spattering is a fast paced dance with wide sweeping strokes of the arms and constant pivoting. This was a delicate dance that was well worth the price of admission.

Red is running now through April 22 at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. Get your tickets now!

Justice 4 Trayvon

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An estimated 8,000 people gathered in Sanford’s Fort Mellon park to rally for justice in the Trayvon Martin shooting. Reverand Al Sharpton had flown to Sanford to support the cause. Originally the rally was going to be held at the First Iconium Baptist church, but organizers realized that the church couldn’t support the expected crowds. With such a huge crowd, I realized I couldn’t get close to the stage. Instead as community leaders spoke, I wandered inside the crowd that filled the stadium sized field of grass. I didn’t look towards the stage, instead I looked back at the crowd of people behind me.

I decided to sit down and sketch these three teens holding signs for Trayvon. The Hollister T-shirt was similar to the one worn by Trayvon in the photo seen everywhere. They were about his age and probably went to the same school. Grief counselors have yet to advise students on how to handle the events surrounding the shooting and death of their classmate. A teacher calling roll, called out Trayvon’s name having forgot he wouldn’t be coming back. She broke down and cried. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain followed and shot the unarmed teen when he was walking home from a convenience store carrying iced tea and skittles. A witness heard Treyvon crying for help just before he was shot.

On March 23rd thousands of students from roughly 50 schools in Florida staged walkouts to protest the killing. Meanwhile, the Change.org petition demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, Martin’s shooter, surpassed 1.5 million signatures, making it all time fastest-growing petition in Change.org’s history, according to the group. Supporters of Martin’s family organized a “Million Hoodie March” last Wednesday in New York City. Hundreds of participants wore hoodies to the march which sought to protest both the police handling of the shooting and racial profiling in general.

Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother, stood on stage with Al Sharpton and tearfully said, “I stand before you today not knowing how I’m walking right now, because my heart hurts for my son. Trayvon is my son. Trayvon is your son. Thanks so much for your support.” “This is not about black and white. This is about right and wrong.”

Treyvon Martin Justice Rally

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27 days ago George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain, shot and killed, the unarmed, 17 year old Trayvon Martin. Trayvon was returning to a gated Sanford community in the city after buying candy at a convenience store. He was unarmed and was wearing a hoodie. Zimmerman called 911 and was told by the dispatcher that he shouldn’t follow the youth. He followed anyway and shot Trayvon in the chest, killing him with his 9mm pistol. Zimmerman has said the teen attacked him and he shot him in self-defense. Trayvon was unarmed, only carrying Skittles and iced tea. A witness heard someone yelling for help. A shot followed and the yelling stopped. Trayvon was on the phone with a girl from Miami as he was being followed, the girl stated Martin said, “I think this dude is following me,” and then ran to get away from him. She said she heard Martin ask Zimmerman why he was being followed, and shortly afterwards the called ended. When she tried to call him back, there was no answer. Zimmerman has not been charged with any crime.

The day before the Rally, City commissioners voted “No Confidence” in police chief Bill Lee who did not arrest Zimmerman. The police chief said that he is temporarily leaving his job to let passions cool.
Reverand Al Sharpton came to Fort Mellon Park in Sanford to address the crowd. His mother had died that morning. He said, “My mother raised me to stand up and fight. She would have been ashamed of me if I wasn’t here tonight. This mother has to bury her son. Mothers are not supposed to bury their sons. We love our children. We may not have as much as others, but we have each other!” The estimated crowd of 8,000 people cheered.

He continued, “Some people said to me in the media — ‘Let me get this straight,’ they said. ‘Reverend, it seems like there’s a lot of people who are angry — are you afraid of violence?’” Sharpton preached to the Central Floridian crowd. “I said, ‘No. I’m afraid of the violence you already had.’”

“Violence is killing Tray Martin,” Sharpton continued. “Don’t act like we are the ones [who are] violent. We didn’t shoot nobody.” Al began a loud chant that swept through the crowd, yelling “No Justice!” The crowd responded “No Peace!” The chant continued, growing louder as more people joined in. “Enough is enough!” he shouted. Zimmerman should have been arrested that night!”

Young at Heart Chorale

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Directed by Jodi Tassos, the Young at Heart Chorale is a dynamic group of seniors ages 55 and over who love to sing. Their repertoire covers many styles and genres but specializes in favorite standards and show tunes. This group presents programs for a variety of community organizations throughout Central Florida.

Young at Heart rehearses at the First Congregational Church of Winter Park (225 S. Interlachen Avenue) in the Fellowship Hall, an easily accessible room on the first floor. I wasn’t sure where Fellowship hall was, so I wandered into the church office and a secretary guided me down the hall to the singing rehearsal. I could hear the harmonious voices echo down the hall. Rehearsals are on Tuesday afternoons from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuition is $50.00 per semester and best of all, there’s no audition necessary! The Young at Heart Chorale maintains a busy performance schedule throughout the year, as well as a busy social calendar.

On the day I went by to sketch, George Sumrall was playing piano. He was filling in for Gail Fote who usually played, but she was on vacation. Chere Force had given me the tip about this singing group and when I entered the hall, I saw her and waved. She came over before I started to sketch and welcomed me. Jodi noticed me and asked, “Do you intend to sing.” Flustered, I said, “No, I don’t want to throw anyone off, I’m here to sketch.” Jodi was delighted. She shouted out, “Remember everyone, smile and look like your having fun, because you’re being sketched!”

The group began by singing “Alexander’s Rag Time Band.” When they started singing “Putting on the Ritz”, I couldn’t help myself and I sang along. I figured, singing off key with “putting on the Ritz” was kind of expected. My monstrous singing put the Young Frankenstein to shame. Other show tunes included, “I dream of Genie” and “Beautiful Dreamer.” The singer seated directly in front of me was very serious and he often offered advice when he felt a harmony was off pitch. Jodi would run the group through that section again till it felt right. What she stressed more than anything, was, “Have fun!”

Beyond Fear and Desire

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The Deland Sculpture Walk is a really nice partnership between Stetson University, the Museum of Florida Art and the City of DeLand. Linda Brant responded to the call for artists and was selected with her bronze and steel piece called “Beyond Fear and Desire.” Her sculpture, created in 2011, was installed last October in Pioneer Park on the corner of North Woodland Boulevard and East Rich Avenue and was supposed to be there two years. Rich and Lilis George sponsored the sculpture. An inverted rusty automotive leaf spring sat at the top of a thick steel base support, looking a bit like an oxes yoke. Above that a circular disk with a large central hole and many smaller holes framed the bronze which looked a bit like a female crucifix with two snakes.

Last week, the bronze centerpiece of her sculpture was stolen. Officer Wise of the Deland police was notified and a report was filed. He was supplied with close up pictures of what the centerpiece looked like. Ray Johnson of the Museum of Florida Art said that the museum carries insurance for such instances. The beautiful bronze centerpiece was obviously not “beyond desire.” I went to the location the day I heard about the theft. It looked to me like the 1/4 inch thick rod that held the bronze had been cut with a hack saw. Linda thinks they might have used a torch to cut the metal, either way this was a brazen theft done right in a public park.

Linda said, “I’m not sure what I plan to do about the damage – replace or rework it somehow, I guess. It was a one of a kind bronze, so no mold to fall back on!” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of art being vandalized and stolen in Central Florida. This sort of stuff seems to happen all too often in the Sunshine State. I wonder why so many artists are leaving to go to larger cities?

Lindy Exchange

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The Orlando Lindy Exchange is a yearly Swing Dancer’s dream marathon. For close to a week, swing dancers from all over the country converge on Orlando to shake their hips and kick up their feet. Damon Natch Burke is my tech guru and he helps organize the event. I found out there would be a free dance in the Lake Eola band shell and I had to go down to sketch. Walking around the lake, I could hear the energetic retro beat and soon I saw flashes of color as people twisted and turned on stage. There were up to 50 dancers on stage and boy did they know how to dance! When the song changed, people would switch partners to add some variety to their steps.

It had been boiling hot all week, but on the day of the dance, the temperature dropped drastically. An ice cream vendor stood at the foot of the stage offering his ice cold treats. I had a sweatshirt on and when I slipped into the shade, I started to shiver. Still, when couples strolled past me away from the stage, they were glowing with sweat. It was getting towards sunset, yet when Damon walked by with his dance partner, he said they had forgotten to eat since the night before. They were heading out to find some breakfast. A couple saw that I was sketching, and they stood directly in front of me and “vogued“. He said, “Check out this move!” and he leaned his dance partner back, arching her back over his arm. I laughed, and said, “That’s great, now hold that for about 15 minuted!”

A young woman liked the sketch. She asked if I was cold and I shivered dramatically. She said, “If you want to warm up, then come on up on the stage and dance! You’ll warm up fast.” I was still messing with washes on my sketch, besides I don’t know any swing moves. Chances are, I would get up there and trip up the whole swinging crowd. Fred Astaire, I am not. But, with a few lessons, I might be able to keep up with these hip swinging kids. I’ll put it on my bucket list.

The Bigger the Better

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Nude Nite had so many sketching opportunities, that it was hard to focus my attention. A model lay prone as a female body painter scrolled intricate red patterns on her body. A tower of wire armature nudes spiraled upward with the artist continuing to add figures. Nude winged angels soared overhead. An aerialist spun herself on satin streamers from the rafters. I finally couldn’t resist sketching as Stephen Palladino worked on an urban mural of a very big and busty woman. The wall was inside the abandoned warehouse dividing the two huge halves of the Nude Nite exhibit. A forklift was needed to raise him up as he added a tattoo of legs spinning around a heart on the busty mural’s shoulder.

Since there was art on all the walls, I had to sit in the middle of the room, much like the guy seated on the red bucket. This meant plenty of people became curious, looking over my shoulder. I had to snap out of my “zone” fairly often to say “thank you” or to crack a joke so I could get back to work. To the left of the mural, behind that green partition was a large wooden table decorated with intricate metal work and divided into sections. A bottle was hard mounted to the table with an iron cage. The whole contraption had the looks of a Medieval torture device. The bottle was spun and a woman)s muscular boyfriend grabbed her by the hips, trying to position her as the bottle came to a stop. She laughed and leaned against him. They kissed passionately when the bottle stopped. I walked up to the table to see what the fuss was about. Written in the partitions, were instructions like “Nibble my ear”, “Talk dirty to me”, some I can’t repeat since there might be children reading, and of course the classic, “Kiss me.” I kept moving to make sure the bottle didn’t land on me. I didn’t see who had spun it after all.

I had a long drive back to Orlando from Tampa, and I decided three sketches were enough for one night, so I hit the road. The line to get in to Nude Nite was incredibly long. The evening was just getting started for many couples.