After the Tone set the tone at TONE.

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Art in Odd Places: TONE / Orlando  has taken over Downtown Orlando on
Magnolia Avenue between Anderson and Washington Streets from September 17-20th. It is a public and visual performance art Festival that presents art in unexpected places. I went downtown on September 17th to see Brian Feldman, a performance artist from Washington D.C. who used to hail from Orlando. I saw him running to and from his car getting the elements for his simple set, a small table with red legs supporting a tiny potted plant, a phone message book, and an old rotary phone. The title of his performance piece was “… after the tone.”

The premise of his performance is that people seldom leave voice messages anymore. Instead, they might leave a text or a message on any number of social media options. I am a case in point. I seldom notice if my phone rings and there are 44 unanswered voice messages that I need to get to. I tend to respond immediately to texts or Facebook messages, however. With so many ways to communicate, I sometimes lose track of which method was used if I need to go back and reread a message. Voice messages may indeed become extinct. 

Joe Rosier was the first patron to approach Brian’s table. Brian asked him to name someone who would be least likely to pick up their phone. Brian then wrote down Joe’s message on a phone message book. Then Brian asked what tone of voice he should use to deliver the voice message. If the person picked up the phone, Brian would immediately hang up. Sure enough, on the first call, the person picked up and Brian hung up. Joe kind of cheated by calling back and asking the person to not pick up. On the second try, Brian delivered a voice message of endearment in a sultry voice.

A young woman approached Brian who knew nothing about his performance or even who he was. She agreed to leave a message with an ex-boyfriend. Her message was fascinating. She wanted him to know that, “You’ll get your $50 and you were never a good boyfriend, what makes you think you’d be a good friend?” Brian’s angered mafia voice tone sent the message with perfection. Another young woman asked Brian to deliver a voice message to congratulate a friend who just landed a new job in Chicago. Brian did his best to deliver the message in a hardy Chicago accent. He practiced, saying “Duh Bears” several times. The message ended with, “Oh, and you’re hot”.

Another artist, Klimchak, guy rode by on a bicycle wearing a flame patterned cape playing a theremin with strong speakers to belt out the sci-fi vibes. It rained for a few minutes and I ran for cover across the street to hide under the arched doorways of the History Cente, leaping over 6 Spanish Moss nests which had bars of Tone soap in them. Three nests were empty. Barbara Hartley later explained that the artist, Dina Mack, had purchased many bars of soap and the missing nests would be refilled each night. Michael Heidmann offered me his umbrella so that I could finish my sketch. Thankfully, the rain stopped long enough for me to finish. I’m so glad Orlando is small enough for this kind of neighborly gesture.

The Greek Orthodox Church around the corner had a food share earlier in the evening. That meant that some people walking past Brian’s performance piece were more concerned with finding a place to sleep rather than art. Across the street and up the block a bit, a man lay down on his back among the landscaping outside the History Center. Later on a fire engine and an ambulance showed up with their sirens and blinking lights. The man was placed on a stretcher and whisked away on the ambulance. Brian felt terrible that he hadn’t called the ambulance. With 50 or so art projects going on, I thought the man might have been a performance artist or maybe he was a homeless man taking a nap before police told him to move along. Being from NYC I’m kind of used to seeing people asleep on sidewalks. Never faint or collapse in a city setting. No one will notice.

After sketching Brian, I went to see an artist who was sealed inside a Plexiglas box. He was sketching his view from inside the box using day glow markers. Four large black lights illuminated him. Yellow plumbing elbows were all around the AT&T building and one of them had a matching elbow with a fist sticking out of it. On the corner of Washington and Magnolia, a 6 foot high board had an American flag and a gun range human silhouette with a target made with flowers. A black hand made from plywood reached up towards the cloudy sky. In the History Center Park, Halee Sommer showed me a storage pod that was set up as a darkroom where anyone could enter to learn how to develop black and white prints from negatives. My older brothers used to develop film in the basement and the smell of the chemicals brought memories flooding back. Amazingly, I only saw a fraction of the art on display. The Tone themed art continued all the way down to the new Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. As I walked back to my car, I passed a man asleep in an entryway to the AT&T building and kept on walking. Be sure to get downtown and experience TONE for yourself.

There Will Be TrIP

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On January 14th, there was a reading by five different artists who had taken part in the Transit Interpretation Project (TrIP). TrIP asks artists to travel to destinations using the Lynx bus system. The poems, narratives, and images make there way to “The Corridor Project” TrIP site. Julian Chambliss, Patrick Greene, Dina Mack and Moriah Lorraine Russo read their stories. They posed for a photo with Lynx CEO John Lewis.

I sketched Patrick as he read about his bus TrIP. He romanticized the travels of the beat generation like Kerouac knowing full well he would be home that evening to a home cooked dinner from his mom. The most fascinating write up came from Julian who gave a brief history of public transportation in the south. It seems northern cities developed their public transport systems before the advent of the automobile so the systems they designed had to be robust and efficient. Southern cities urban sprawl came about after the advent of the automobile so public transit came just as an afterthought. He also spoke about the history of Eatonville Florida the first entirely African American community. Although it might have seemed like voluntary segregation, it also demonstrated that this community could not only survive but thrive.

Jesse Bradley was the host for the evening. Amazingly he has been taking the Lynx buses every day for 17 years. He tried to drive a car and he even tried a moped with apparently tragic consequences. The angry mobs on the Florida roads are intimidating. I always drive with the notion that no one else on the road is thinking and that they could do anything with no reason or thought of consequence. Even so, it is seems many drivers want to drive through the traffic in front of them. With people texting and talking on cell phones the incidences of full speed rear end crashes are escalating. This weekend I saw a car waiting at a red light get hit at full speed from behind. It is crazy out there people. A bus is a huge battering ram but there must be a high incidence of accidents from impatient, insane car drivers drying to swerve around the bus as it pulls up to each stop.

Chapbooks of the stories read are being made available for $8. There are 39 copies available as of this writing. As I left the reading I grew anxious knowing I would have to take the bus back home. I walked under I-4 into Parramore to the closest 21 bus stop.

Birkbeck, Duff and Ball

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On June 20th (Third Thursday), The Gallery at Avalon Island featured musicians Rick Birkbeck, Duff and Ball at the opening reception for The Imprint Show. A large fabric instillation grappled its way through the entry where the main exhibit was and where the musicians performed. Naomi Butterfield was there listening and Terry and I joined her. One of the musicians was related to Naomi, but I don’t recall the links on the family tree. The musicians had to perform over the ever louder conversations that erupted around the art.

The Imprint show featured all women artists including Dina Mack and Leslie Silvia. Dina and Leslie’s work are exact opposites visually. Dina had quiet abstracts that featured white on white while Leslie’s work had black paper cutouts that boldly featured folklore bordering on nightmares. Britty Metty aka Brittany Metz, had a complex installation that resembled an alter with an illuminated Virgin Mary that had her skull shattered. Stuffed animals and an intricate assortment of found objects were piled up at the Virgin’s feet.

This was the evening of the last game in the NBA Finals, so Terry wanted to go to Frank & Stein’s (150 South Magnolia Avenue Orlando, FL) for some hot dogs and watch the game. It was an exciting game, with the Miami Heat winning. Towards the end of the game, Frankie Messina, Naomi and several others stopped in to watch the climax of the game. Frankie gave several of us “Emblems of Power” necklaces made by Mo4us Da Heru. Mine was an all black bead necklace with a golden cross encased in a black cube.

Art and Process

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On November 14th, I went to Urban ReThink to hear artists Brian Phillips, Dina Mack and Tory Tepp talk about their Art and Process. Dina Mack lead off showing her work from inception to today. She worked in the beginning by doing collages. Her work later matured and become austere in its simplicity and abstraction. She did an instillation in which she froze written documents in ice and then let them melt in the gallery. For the Corridor Project, she had a series of cloth napkins which she used to blot her lipstick. She vividly remembers her grandmothers perfume, so she scented the fabric. The lipstick stained napkins were an autobiographical look back at memories she had of her mother and grandmother.  Her grandmother used to give her a butterscotch candy if she sat still in church. The sound of the wrapper still brings back the memory, so she filled a vintage purse with butterscotch wrappers. The ephemeral installation was installed on the lawn of the Mennello Museum for only a few days. The sense of smell is only now being researched. Apparently all the Marriott hotels in the country use the same perfumed cleaning products. A scent can trigger many vivid memories. Much of Dina’s work speaks in a whisper, implied, like a scent on a breeze.

Tory Tepp is now a resident artist at the Atlantic Center of the Arts in Daytona Beach. He began his career as an artist doing traditional paintings. He hit a wall where he felt painting didn’t have any meaningful place in today’s society. He stagnated, not knowing where to go as an artist. Then he started planting seeds and growing a garden outside his Los Angeles studio. This garden helped him feel more connected to the people in his neighborhood. He started using abandoned shopping carts as planters. This evolved into Urban art with a taste of nature. An installation at a college consisted of a series of grass covered dirt mounds that acted as a natural place to meet, lie back relax and mingle. He is now working on a similar installation as part of his Atlantic Center of the Arts residency. With any luck, I’ll get out there to sketch the work in progress.

Brian Phillips showed his illustrative work. He has a whole series of paintings of house fires illuminating the night sky. He has some of his paintings hanging at Urban ReThink now. One piece in particular caught my eye. It was a painting of a stone arrowhead with a bold flat backdrop. This simple image implies much about the violence of survival. That image lingers. Brian didn’t claim any deep rooted underlying themes to his work. For the people intent on finding hidden meanings, he did a painting of a house fire and diagrammatically circled some embers. The diagram pointed to a bird, leaf and phone. It was pure nonsense. He paints because he loves the process.

I’ll be giving a talk on my art and process this Wednesday December 12th from 7PM to 9PM at Urban Rethink, (625 E Central Blvd  Orlando, FL, 32801). Rick Jones will be presenting, discussing and displaying his works on the ReThink wall, along with photographer Hannah Glogower. Stop by and say hi.

The Sketchbook Project

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The Sketchbook Project has been touring the nation and it made a stop at Urban ReThink (625 East Central Blvd., Orlando). The Sketchbook Project sells small sketchbooks to artists around the country, asking the artists to return the book full of art. I participated the first year I heard about the project but it was painful to give up a full sketchbook. I learned from fellow Urban Sketchers that the Sketchbook Project retains all reproduction rights to the sketches. It is nice to have the one sketchbook in the Brooklyn Sketchbook Library but I’m not tempted to do it again.7000 sketchbooks were neatly stored in bookshelves on wheels. They can be quickly rolled off a truck to be moved to a new city. Dina Mack sat flipping through sketchbooks. As she put it, “I’m in sketchbook heaven.”

Urban ReThink which was formerly a book store seemed perfectly suited to house the collection. The first step in checking out a sketchbook was to get a library card. I already had my card from the previous year, so I skipped to step two, which was checking out a book. There was a laser bar code reader to scan the card and then you used a computer to pick out sketchbooks by theme, location or artist’s name. I picked two local sketchbooks to start. The sketchbook from Orlando was dark, brooding and full of angst. The next category I searched was “This is a sketchbook.”  I figured I’d get to see some quality sketches. One artist did catch my eye. Cheism was an artist from London and his sketches were light hearted and fun. Larry Lauria an animation instructor from Full Sail stopped in. Larry had submitted a sketchbook this time around so I tried to check out his sketchbook. It wasn’t available. Someone else must have checked it out. I seemed to keep checking out duds while the young couple next to me kept getting fun creative sketchbooks. One of their books was taped together accordion style and the whole book was one big colorful Dagwood sandwich.

Artist Mary K. Shaw sat with friends at the table in front of me flipping through sketchbooks. Blank post cards were available for artists to sketch on. If you sketched on a postcard, it would be sent to the next stop on the sketchbook tour. Robin Maria-Pedrero completed a postcard sketch and in return, she was given another artists postcard. The postcard sent her warm wishes for a beautiful day. The next step for the Sketchbook Project is a mobile library, similar to a food truck.

15 Views of Orlando

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I was asked to exhibit several of my sketchbooks at Urban ReThink. The opening was on the Third Thursday in January and the work will be up through February 16th. Artists include Barry Kirsch, best known for his Murder City Photography, Ashley Inguanta, whose local photography had a surreal edge to it, Lesley Godeck Silvia, who had a bright neon ice cream swirl photo that looked great next to my sketchbooks. All the work depicted scenes from the City Beautiful. The two sketches of mine on exhibit are, Musical Mondays, and There Will be Words. Dina Mack, the curator, explained that she wanted work with a local flavor to accompany a Burrow Press’ 15 Views of Orlando Book Release Party. The book features 15 short stories written by local authors. All of the scenes in the book happen in different neighborhoods of Orlando.

Dina invited me to bring along a box of calendars to the art show opening. Urban ReThink is a bit removed from the downtown galleries that act as the hub of the monthly Third Thursday Downtown gallery hop. Dina and I sat outside Urban ReThink and she had a natural knack for inviting passers by inside to look around. Ashley was there to meet anyone interested in her work. Her pieces were hung clothes line style and they were very affordable. One young man expressed his interest in buying a piece. He insisted that she would have to frame the work however. Quite honestly the frame would cost more than she was charging for the art. I rolled my eyes. He was probably haggling because he was more interested in the artist than the art. In my sketch, Patrick Greene, Dina Mack and Ashley Inguanta were relaxing in the “living room” setting at Urban ReThink. I sketched fast with few interruptions since few arts patrons wandered in.

The gallery was a ghost town. A few people glanced at calendars but they couldn’t afford the $12 to buy one. The highlight of the evening for me was meeting Heidi Behr and Mark Egeland. Mark owns a bicycle manufacturing facility in Winter Garden. He showed me a few photos of the process and it would be an exceptional sketch opportunity. There are seven stations from metal entering the factory until the final product rolls out the doors. These are seven sketches I now want to capture. Who knew that bicycles are being made right here in Central Florida? Heidi is involved in Scooters for Hooters, a breast cancer fundraising event. We talked about how I might get more involved in this cause this year.

McRae Art Studios Open House.

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I went to a McRae Studios open house (904 Railroad Avenue Winter Park). This hallway in the back of the building was full of the quirky art of John Whipple. Built from odd antiques each sculpture has its own unique personality. I really like the mannequin head on a tricycle following a carrot in the foreground. Another head had a megaphone for a mouth. A peacock had a barren wire tail as it waited to roll away on it’s single roller skate.

I stood in a doorway that opened out onto the railroad tracks out back. A small gaggle of girls rushed past me periodically as they played. I joined Dina Mack who was singing as Chip Weston played guitar. Lining the walls of Chip’s studio were luminous seascapes, some large and some shockingly small painted gems. Tu Tu Tango catered the event and I ordered some Tapas. I always like visiting Larry Moore’s studio. I identify with his plein air oil paintings. He had a larger painting hanging outside his studio which was more abstract and playful. It was a hot summertime image and it really caught my eye.

Don Sondag had started a series of nighttime paintings done around Winter Park. There is a quiet mystery to these nocturnes and it made me want to get out and experiment at night. Several musicians had gathered in Lynn Whipple’s studio. They jammed for a while, then talked endlessly. From the quirky and unexpected, to the more traditional art, a trip to the McRae Studios always inspires me.

McRae Art Studios Open House

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I always love to sketch artists at work in their studios. So when I found out McRae Artist Studios in Winter Park was having an open house, I headed right on over. The first artist I visited was Dina Mack who is an abstract painter who also teaches a course called Destination Journal. Dina had a set of colored pencils that were made from tree branches and we debated for some time how they got the leads inside the pencils. It made sense for them to have drilled out the center then shoved the leads in, but the branches sere gently curved to a straight drill bit would have been useless. I decided they might have grafted the leads onto the sides of trees and let the branches grow around the leads, but that would take too much time. Another studio visitor wandered in and conjectured that the colored pencil leads might have been molten or liquid and allowed to dry, but that still doesn’t account for the hollow space needed to pour the liquid into. Quite simply, it is an unexplainable miracle.
After wandering around a bit I found that there was always a group of people standing outside the studio of Susan Bach. Susan is a potter who makes wonderfully ornate funeral urns and vases. She was demonstrating how she throws a pot on her potters wheel and she sometimes invited passers by to try the wheel for themselves. Hal Stringer, who I had met a few weeks before when he hosted an artists gathering at his home, decided he would give the potting wheel a try. He struggled with the clay at first, using a bit to much brute force to try and keep it centered on the wheel. Susan encouraged his to relax and close his eyes. Then with just his sense of touch he gently began to build the form. He did a fine job, and Susan placed his piece aside so she could fire it and glaze it later.
A crusty old fisherman who used to be a captain of a fishing boat on the Bearing Sea near Alaska stopped to watch Susan work for a while. He told her about how he was the only captain who had an all woman crew in the cold arctic waters. This is a fine example of artists and patrons sharing and learning from each other. This was a fabulous event where it was possible to see artists as they work. I hope the McRae Studios continues this tradition.