41st Annual Mayfaire by the Lake

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I took the long drive to Lake Morton in Lakeland which is west of Orlando halfway to Tampa, I had never been to Lakeland before. It is a quaint little town of small bungalows and then gorgeous large homes around the lake. Boy scouts were charging for parking at a local church. I parked a mile away on a side street and walked to the lake. There were plenty of mobile food vendors and then 150 artists venting tents set up all around the lake.  I wandered the art fair quickly searching for a sketch opportunity. A couple playing Medieval instruments performed and a crowd gathered. I didn’t stop since I suspected they wouldn’t perform for long. Sure enough, when I returned five minutes later, they had stopped.

The Mayfaire by the Lake art festival was pretty much what I expected from an outdoor art festival.  Some of the art was bright and playful and some I just didn’t fully appreciate.  It was a beautiful sunny day for a fair. There was a stage set up outside a civic building. Young girls were dancing to the Disney Tarzan sound track. Parents and a small audience relaxed in lawn chairs. I finally decided to sketch this painted swan sculpture. The Lakeland skyline was painted on the swan and I could show the artist’s tents in the background. More importantly, I was in the shade. By the time I finished sketching, vendors were starting to pack up.

Admission to the Polk Museum of Art was free that day. The museum was open for only one more hour when I got there. Security asked me to check my bag at the front desk and I was happy to loose the load. There was an exhibit called, Sketches & Steel. It showed the process of abstract sculptor Albert Paley. I took everything in at a glance, sketches, cardboard 3D studies and small iron studies for huge monolithic sculptures, some of them 100 feet high. There was a room of children’s art that I rushed through. I was on a mission to Find a room of juicy paintings. 0n the second floor, there were photos of families and their possessions from photojournalist Peter Menzel‘s extraordinary 1995 work Material World: A Global Family Portrait. It makes for an eye opening book that shows what is truly important to people from different cultures all around the world. As I left the museum, I noticed an Art-O-Mat. This was a cigarette machine stuffed full of small art works. For $5 I was tempted to get an original piece of art, but I was too lazy to get a token in the gift shop.

First Thursdays

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Teachers and students from Full Sail had an exhibit at the Orlando Museum of Art for First Thursdays. I wasn’t aware of the call for entries since I haven’t looked at my Full Sail e-mail account for over five years. I’m pretty sure there are over 5,000 unread e-mails that I would have to catch up on. Snap an annual photography festival also had a photography exhibit in one of the back galleries. Admission to the museum for First Thursdays is $10. I had a Snap press pass so I figured I could use that to get in. I also put my Full Sail teachers lanyard in my pocket figuring I could claim I was an exhibiting artist if the Snap press pass failed. Every month I approach the museum to be turned away at the front door. I’m like a raptor always testing the gates. I recognized many of the faces of the volunteers.

This time I showed my press pass and said I was there to report on the snap exhibit. The volunteer looked for my name on the list. My name wasn’t there. She told me she would have to consult with someone. I stepped aside as others filed inside.  I assume the woman that greeted me was a public relations person for Snap. She put a wrist band on me and I went in. I sighed with relief, now I could get to work. I wandered through the Full Sail show fairly quickly. The most impressive work was a large Trope-L’oeil by Shawn Rinehart, of bottles, tools, a pulley and assorted hardware. The three foot high image was created in the computer. It was beyond photo real. A sexy female pirate Marquette also caught my eye. Tom Buzbee had a large painting of abstract spirals that was intriguing. They seemed to be a visual commentary on order and chaos. Hugo Giraud had a nice drawing with ink wash that I liked.

There was no one else in the back gallery looking at the Snap photography exhibit. They must have been crowding around the food and drink stations.  The photos were all rather large in format. A black and white shot of the streets of India stood out. There was also a series of photos of people in trailer parks. Wendy Wallenberg let me know she had a piece on display. On display in the main gallery was an exhibit called, “Reflections paintings of Florida, 1865-1965“.  There were plenty of juicy oil paintings that left me wanting to push paint around on a canvas. A painting called, Moonlight on the Ocklawaha by Charles Christian Eisele was dark and mysterious.

The band I decided to sketch was called, The Cornucopia Jazz Project. Matt Festa was on sax, Jeremy Birdsall was on the keys and Orlando Sanchez was playing the bongos. The music was lively and I had fun sketching to the beat. Chere Force and Rory stopped by to ask why I didn’t have a piece in the show. I really don’t have a good excuse.

The Year of the Sketchbook

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I spent three days at the Namta Art Materials World International Conference and Trade Show at the Orange County Convention Center. The floor was never really packed, but there was a constant flurry of activity at the Stillman & Birn booth. The line of quality sketchbooks were introduced at last year’s conference and they must have made an impression. The sketchbooks cost a bit more, but people are realizing that artists are willing to pay more for the quality. Paper matters, feel the difference. When Michael Kalman showed a colleague one of the early sketchbook, he was told, “You hit a home run with the paper.”

A person stopping by the Stillman & Birn booth said, “This is the year of the sketchbook, I half expect the easel manufacturers to introduce a new line of sketchbooks.”  This year, Strathmore and Canson both introduced new lines of quality hardbound sketchbooks. These new line of sketchbooks are scheduled to hit stores in July. I went to the Strathmore booth and thumbed through the prototype sketchbooks. A sales manager explained the different lines, paper weights and page surfaces. What really mattered to me wasn’t the numbers or convoluted naming conventions, I wanted to see how the paper held up to lines and washes. I already know that the Stillman & Birn books make my work sing so I’ve developed product loyalty.

Jason Das, an Urban Sketcher from Brooklyn NY was flown to the Convention by Stillman & Birn so he could work the floor looking for sponsors for the Urban Sketching Symposium in July. Jason stopped by the booth and I got a chance to flip through his most recent sketchbook. I get a visceral thrill from seeing artists sketchbooks. There is no pretense of existential artistic concepts, just raw sincere observation. Another artist named Donald Owen Colley was working at the Faber Castell booth. He uses Faber Castell Pitt brush pens to do his drawings in old ledgers. The book he was drawing in was from the 1860s. The pens are good for putting down warm and cool gray tones. I picked up a few Pitt pens and immediately started playing with them. The bold blacks in this sketch were put down with a black Pitt pen. Owen was hit by a car as he was walking in the International Drive area. Florida almost killed him. There were artists painting and sketching in many of the booths. I felt like a kid in a toy store.

Library Garden

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I heard there was to be a paper flower making workshop at the Peacock Room (1321 North Mills Avenue). I arrived right after work which is early by nightlife standards. One room was full of paintings by Cameron Moore. He is a Full Sail instructor. The work was representational with a touch of the surreal. Skeletal horses were juxtaposed against dense forest scenes. There were some futuristic cityscapes and human figures were covered in patterns reminiscent of New Zealand tattoos.

The other room was full of fluorescent flowers. It stopped me in my tracks. The female bartender asked if she could help me. She thought I was looking for someone. I was just looking for a sketch. Rob Leaman was the artist who created the huge flowers in what he called,  the library garden.  Rob arrived with fluorescent paper and some Elmer’s glue.A woman in a black and white dress stopped in. The white of her dress glowed light blue. He began demonstrating how he creates the smaller flowers by folding the paper.  Then five women showed up all at once and Rob showed them the intricacies in every fold. My digital tablet flashed a warning letting me know my battery was low. I looked around for an outlet but couldn’t find one. This is the advantage of a paper sketchbook it never complains. Moments later the screen flashed off. The sketch was done.

Snap! Fashion Night

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Snap Orlando was a three day photography celebration showcasing the work of renowned international, national and local photographers. Fashion night was held in the “Urban Wild” Space Wendy(400 Pittman St). This turned out to be an empty warehouse behind the Sheraton Hotel near the Bob Carr Theater. Lion King was being performed at the Bob Carr so parking in the neighborhood was difficult. Luckily Terry and I left my truck down in the parking garage where she works. I had a press pass and Terry was a bit upset that she might have to pay $25 to get in. As soon as we entered the warehouse, Wendy Wallenburg was there to greet us. We then walked right in. It was still early in the evening and the place wasn’t crowded. While Terry searched for a bathroom, I hunted for my sketch.

Artist Andrew Spear was working on the second of two murals he was doing on the cinder block walls of the warehouse.  Using thick Krink permanent markers, he was transferring a crosshatched ink drawing based on one of the photos in the show. A woman was hugging the neck of a stag. Andrew stood stoically on his ladder adding the finishing touches to the animal’s neck and head. He worked non-stop the whole evening to push the mural towards completion. He came over to greet me. We admire each others work since we share an affinity for the power of line. Of course admirers would interrupt his work but Andrew would embrace them and speak about art with enthusiasm. Naked couples embraced in photos encased under plastic sheets.

When I was done with my sketch, a fellow named Frank asked if he could flip through the pages.  Terry asked me for my press pass so she could go in the VIP area while I worked. With my sketch done, I went to go find her. I marched into the VIP area like I belonged, but one of the female bouncers stopped me saying I needed a ticket. I tried to explain that I was press but she wasn’t buying it. I was wearing a suit but still had on my hiking boots. A dead give away that I didn’t belong. Tommy Cannalonga, a gallery owner, greeted me from inside and as I turned to greet him and shake his hand, the bouncer said, “Oh, all right, go on in.” Later I thanked Tommy and he said, “I knew that would help.”

Sara Segal told me about the photographer’s lectures she had been to that morning. She explained how photographer Frank Day‘s work had its roots in the history of European and American Landscape painting. She mentioned the Hudson River School’s Frederic Church and I knew of his huge paintings. She pointed to a man seated alone on a couch and it was Frank, the same man who had flipped through my sketchbook. Frank had wide set eyes and a small nose on which thick glasses were perched. Sarah began talking to him about his work as Terry and I listened in. Terry bragged that she took some pretty crisp pictures with her cell phone, and she showed Frank a photo of our pet cockatoo. Frank was quite amused. Later photographer Gregory Scott joined us. Terry was convinced she knew the designer of his shirt and he allowed her to inspect the label on the inside of his collar. Across the way a man was tweaking another man’s nipple as a photographer took a digital picture of a large red dragon tattooed on a woman’s back.

By the time Terry and I left the VIP tent, the fashion show was already over. Terry and Wendy had an ongoing commentary going about the horrible fashion mistakes by many of the women in the room. Wendy was particularly offended at some of the purses. I was amazed at how many people were on cell phones. I held my cell phone up to my ear even though no one was on the other end, just so I looked like I fit in.

The Central Florida Composers Forum Concert

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CF2 was evening of new music by local composers at the Timucua White House. I arrived with Terry about an hour before the concert because the idea had been tossed around with Serena Jones, that it might be nice for me to project a sketch I was working on live during the concert. Unfortunately for technical reasons, that didn’t work out but I still got a great sketch from the second floor balcony. Serena worked the multi media imagery on a flat panel TV screen from her laptop.

The featured artist for the evening was Woody Igou. Woody set up a series of sculptures on card tables. One sculpture was of a series of hollow horns stacked up. At the beginning of the performance he mixed some gorilla glue with pigments and salt and he poured the mixture inside the horns. For the rest of the evening the mixture expanded like the blob, overflowing and oozing down like lava.

The CF2 concert offered contemporary composers an open forum to showcase their recent work.

Featured Composers on the Program:

Daniel Crozier (Rollins College) – Piano solo (2009)

Benoit Glazer (Music Director for La Nouba) – Brass Quintet and Percussion Quintet (2011)

Charles Griffin (Full Sail University) – Flute Quartet, prerecorded audio and video projection (2010) Rebekah Todia (Full Sail University) – Soprano and piano (2012)

Charles Griffin’s composition featured animated projections that responded to the music. The audience was encouraged to repeat vocalizations as they appeared on the screen. Everyone followed with shhh, and ah, ah sounds. This gave a primal feel to the proceedings.

The concert was an invigorating multimedia mix of electro acoustic, post-minimal, contemporary art song, solo piano and big-band jazz pieces by musicians and composers from Rollins, Full Sail, UCF and of course, Benoit Glazer, the musical director of Cirque du Soleil, and resident of the (Timucua) White House.

Casa Feliz

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Every Sunday, from 12pm to 3pm, Casa Feliz in Winter Park hosts musical events. I’ve sketched here before and honestly it would be a worthy spot to sketch every week. I arrived early on this weekend when Alborea Dances was going to perform flamenco. It was a gorgeous, cool day, so I decided to walk around the old historic home. For the first time I slipped under an arch into the back of the building. The sun blazed bright on the brickwork and there was a large shady oak tree under which I decided to sketch. There was only half an hour or so before the flamenco dancing was to start inside, so there really wasn’t enough time to sketch. I couldn’t resist and I started anyway.

Several people approached me to see what I was working on and they were both artists. Is everyone in Winter Park an artist? One girl arrived early for a wedding that was going to happen at the Casa that afternoon. She took a multitude of photos of the building and garden for a painting she planned to do of the building. Her eye was drawn to the bright colors of the scene. I suspect the painting might be a wedding present. A tail stately woman let me know that she had painted almost an identical view to the sketch I was working on. She lived right across the street and she went back to her place to get the painting. She brought back a panoramic three foot wide canvas. The painting was done in oil with a Burnt Sienna under painting which she wiped away the lights. She said she had forgotten to paint one of the chimneys but a fellow painter pointed out the apparent flaw and she added it back in. I let her know that we were on the same page doing panoramas, since I am often bringing out the panoramic sketchbook. She let me know that there was a plein air painting group that got together every week in Winter Park. I wish I had written down the information. All I remember is that they meet at Panara’s. There is another Plein air group that meets once a week in the evenings, and they do nocturnes of the businesses on Park Avenue.

Before I could start adding color to my sketch, I heard the Flamenco Music flair up inside Case Feliz. I couldn’t resist the draw of the music. I quickly packed up my supplies and then slipped into a back door to see what was going on inside. After sketching the flamboyant flamenco dancers, I returned to my spot under the tree and I started splashing in colors.

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?

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.

January Artist’s Critique

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Parker Sketch organizes these monthly or bimonthly Artist Critiques at Barefoot Spa (801 Virginia Dr.) I was running a bit late. I parked a block away and walked down Virginia Drive away from Mills. Belly dancers were rehearsing in a dance studio. I almost had to stop but I was late, for a very important date. I could see from the street that Barefoot Spa was packed. People were standing in the doorway. Luckily, I had my own artist’s stool so I pushed to the front of the room and set my chair up in a corner right next to Parker. Ken Austin was sharing some of his more abstract watercolors and I got busy sketching. I had recently had a chance to meet Ken on a group trip out to the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Daytona Beach and then I bumped into him giving a demonstration a few days later at Crealde.

Paul Martin is the artist seated to the right in the sketch with a baseball cap and flip flops. He went to UCF in the 90’s and then went to Miami. The Miami arts scene is thriving but he felt he wasn’t making headway. He returned to Orlando where he is combining new medias with old media. He presented a painting of a Chinese flag on Plexiglas. When he traveled in China he took photos of any graffiti he could find. It was rare and hard to find. He scrawled this graffiti onto the Chinese flag painting. He plugged the painting in and three small video screens played footage of the American Flag waving in the wind. Someone in the room wondered if the video screens had been manufactured in China. There was an irony to the piece and an underlying social comentary. Paul pointed out that a client over time might decide that new video might be needed and this painting, like software could be upgraded for a price. China Flag 2.0. Love it. Everyone in the room was mesmerized. Americans can’t help but watch a video if it is playing. That in itself says something about our culture.

Matt Charlan is new to Orlando, having come from Boston. He presented a large painting of a smiling baby’s face. The face filled the canvas and was offset a bit to the right. Matt talked about how he liked to paint in the dark using just flashlights. For him the act of creation is meant to be a struggle. When he paints, he actually doesn’t look at the canvas. He has a video camera set up across the studio and he looks at a laptop computer to see the brush strokes he puts down. In a way he is a voyeur to his own process. He uses the cheapest house paint he can find along with pastels, white spray paint and fixatives. He started painting on uneven surfaces to heighten the effect of catching the video vantage point. While in Boston he painted a portrait of Steven Colbert on a couch. The portrait can only be seen from one vantage point. If you move, the image breaks up. A video was posted on YouTube and it got three million hits. That is huge, like instant viral fame! It gained him instant notoriety in the Boston Arts scene. Yet the couch never sold.