B-Side Artists – Analog Artist Digital World

On Tuesday October 30th I went to the Death By Pop-Up Shop, (1844 A Winter Park Ave, Orlando, Florida 32803) for a Community Paint event. These Community Paint events will happen every Tuesday from 3-11pm. It is all about giving artists an excuse to get out of the house and escape some of the distractions for a day. Artists brought canvases, easels, paint, sketchbooks, notebooks, laptops or whatever they needed to create with, and they worked along with fellow artists, musicians, poets and designers.

Death by Pop is a hip urban custom clothing store with B-Side Artists work adorning the walls. Chris Tobar was there to show me around. Artists whose work were on display included: Steve Parker, Justin Barrows, Peter Van Flores III, Peterson Guerrier, Jaime Torraco, The three Bears, Cake Marques, Jeff Pfaff, Michael McGrath, Brian Heeter, Decoy and Chris Reason.

Swamburger was the guest artist that evening. He sold one of his pieces online while everyone was working. He found an image online of a ghetto Spongebob and he laughed as he said, “This is just wrong!” A huge jar of Cheetos puff balls sat on a table, largely ignored. Artist Tiffany Dae was seated right in front of me. She was painting an intricate sculpted wooden totem. She assembles various photos found online into cosmic, ethereal images which are painted. I always like meeting artists and learning how they work.

I spoke with Mila Belle Dykes just as I was leaving, having finished my sketch. I had met Mila Belle once before at City Arts Factory at Mia De los Muertos. She was painting a skull mask on a young woman’s face. I considered sketching Mila at work that day, but she said she would be done in just five minutes. I needed more time so I focused on other artists. The painting she was working on at Death by Pop was light and airy with white doves appearing and rising within abstraction. She worked her oil on canvas with thin glazes retaining the vibrancy of light bouncing through the paint and back out.

On the third Thursday of the month, I went down to the City Arts Factory (29 South Orange Avenue) to do a sketch of the B-Side Artists show opening. This group of artists had seven original members lead by Swamburger and more artists have joined the ranks over the years. The B-Side name came from the flip side of Albums in the 1980’s, it was common knowledge then that the B-Side of the album would have the more experimental and cutting edge performances. Some of the work in this show had the feeling of emerging from the streets, having an urban feeling whose roots go back to graffiti. B-Side Artists is the urban youth underdog that continues to surprise pop-culture with it’s style, bold content, and willingness to create in artistically a-typical conditions.

Sketching a gallery opening is an insanely difficult challenge. I leaned back against a wall on my portable stool and got to work. The difficulty comes from people standing in front of you as you work. I have trained myself to not get frustrated but instead to wait or look elsewhere and draw some other detail not blocked by the person in front of me. Swamburger greeted me with a warm handshake and smile. Outside he related to me the dream he has of someday finding a project where all the arts groups in town can come together and collaborate on a project which shows the world what the Orlando arts scene has to offer.

Guerrier Peterson was the artist who’s work was on the wall opposite from where I was sitting. One painting had elephants across the base of the painting and then rising up behind them was the torso of a woman with no head and a knot of organic looking roots twisting upward out of the neck. Another painting depicted a demonic looking freak show clown with a long tongue. The longer I drew and studied the work, the more I liked it.