Days Apart

Posted on by Thor

A Douglas County, Colorado couple in their 70s died within days of each other from COVID-19.

An Oklahoma couple married 45 years, died days apart. They texted each other “I love you” before going into coma.

In Jacksonville, Florida a mother and daughter died 19 days apart from COVID-19.

A Wisconsin couple married for six decades died from COVID-19 just 2 days apart.

A California couple married 35 years died from COVID-19, 11 days apart.

The wife and husband behind Seattle’s Kona Kitchen died from COVID-19 just days apart.

A South Carolina couple married for 66 years died days apart from COVID-19.

A Louisiana woman lost both of her parents days apart due to COVID-19.

An Atlanta, Georgia couple married for 49 years died days apart from COVID-19.

Three members of a Freehold Township, New Jersey family died days apart after contracting COVID-19.

Just as the United States is rolling out COVID-19 vaccines, the numbers have become gloomier than ever: Over 3,000 Americans died in a single day, more than on D-Day or 9/11. One million new cases in the span of five days. More than 106,000 people in the hospital. The U.S. recorded 3,124 deaths Wednesday, December 9, 2020 the highest one-day total yet, according to Johns Hopkins University. Up until last week, the peak was 2,603 deaths on April 15, when New York City was the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak.

 

Jacksonville was like Mississippi

Posted on by Thor

Jacksonville was like being in Mississippi. After standing up for his rights Sam realized he was in a city with deep rooted racial hatred. Jacksonville was the site of Axe Handle Saturday in which blacks were attacked by a white mob who struck them with ax handles. I painted a negative view of the violence which plays back as a time lapse as the painting forms. Each horrific memory is depicted with this effect. On top of this I composited an old film look with scratches.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday This Was Home: New Driver

Posted on by Thor

When the Greyhound bus got to Jacksonville, Florida, one driver got off the bus and another driver got back on. When I got to animating this scene I decided there wasn’t enough time to get the driver up the bus steps. Instead I had him already inside and walking down the aisle, seen only through the bus windows. This had the added advantage that I didn’t have to worry as much about animating his lags and arm swings. The animation went smoothly but I could not get away with animating him of fours. With that wide spacing between drawings he seemed to pop into view in the bus windows too abruptly. I had to put any animation seen in the bus windows on twos which means each drawing was held for two frames of film.

The bus painting was reused from the shot of the bus pulling up into Winter Park. To allow to see the character through the windows I duplicated the bus layer in Procreate and erased the windows- I stacked the layers so that the bus driver animation was between the background bus layer and the foreground bus layer. The main reason for doing this was that I could quickly paint the driver without being super careful about painting near the windows.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre.

The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday This Was Home: Jacksonville

Posted on by Thor

The bus pulled into the Jacksonville Florida Greyhound station. I did my research to find out exactly what the Jacksonville station looked like back in 1957. The only animation was of the bus pulling up to the station and stopping. I already had a painting of the bus from earlier when I animated the battle line. I duplicated that painting and erased the background and then imported that image with the transparent background into this scene. The animation consisted of setting a starting position just off screen for the bus and then a stopping position and creating key frames for those two positions in Adobe Premiere Pro. Another nice feature of the program is that it had an ease in setting which nicely decelerated the bus to a stop.

The wheels don’t spin but once the sound of the bus stopping was added the scene seemed realistic enough. Sound effects made a big difference in adding believably. Jacksonville has a reputation for its racism, notably an incident known as Axe Handle Saturday when white beat black with axe handles in 1960 which was three years after this story takes place.

This short film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd, Orlando FL) in the exhibition titled, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre.

The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Yesterday This Was Home: Animated Map

Posted on by Thor

As Sam talks about the recent court case that makes segregation illegal when traveling between states, this animated map shows the bus route to Detroit from Orlando through Jacksonville. This was fairly straight forward, by setting up a start key that set position and scale of the art in Adobe Premiere Pro. I then zoomed out to include enough f the map to show Detroit as well. The white line showing the bus route was added in Callipeg copying each frame and adding a bit more to the line with each new frame. I think this was the first animation I did with the program to get used to the interface. I did enough research to be sure that all the highways were indeed circa 1957.

This animated short will be on display a the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando Fl) from October 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021 as part of the new exhibition called Yesterday This Was Home which is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. These procedures go into effect after October 3, 2020. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays after October 3, we will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Exhibition programming

AdVOTEcacy in Action
Saturday, October 3, 2020

Coffee with a Curator
Sunday, October 4, 2020
Saturday, January 9, 2021

Celebrating Black Culture: Music, Storytelling, and Poetry
Evolution of Music
Thursday, October 15, 2020

The Legacy of Ocoee: A Panel Discussion
Thursday, October 29, 2020

Lunch & Learn: Crafting the Ocoee Exhibition
Friday, November 6, 2020

The Destruction of Rosewood
Sunday, November 15, 2020

Family Days: Growing a Better Tomorrow
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Saturday, February 6, 2021

 

Walkers Rush to Jacksonville Beach

Posted on by Thor

On April 1, 2020 Ron DeSantis issued a sat at home order which was to last 30 days. The order limits movement outside homes to providing or getting
essential services or carrying out essential activities and applies to
interaction with other people outside of residents’ homes. 17 days later he issued an order allowing Florida beaches to open. With the state experiencing 27,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry was the first to decide to open it’s beach prompting #FloridaMorons hashtags on Twitter. On the day DeSantis allowed municipalities to open their beaches, there were 1,400 new infections, in the state’s highest one-day jump yet. Curry seems to feel that by limiting gatherings to less than 50 people will keep the beaches safe. Jacksonville has the largest population of any city in Florida at 900,000 people. With 794 cases of COVID-19 and 14 deaths so far it has become a hot spot.

Other cites including Coco Beach are planning to open their beaches soon. Coco will allow locals to sunbathe and sit in chairs on beaches, as long as
people practice social distancing and don’t gather in groups of more
than five people.

Lake Worth Beach City Commissioner Omari Hardy weighed in on Twitter, “When a person
doesn’t believe in science, they do dumb things. When a person in power
doesn’t believe in science, they do dumb things that hurt the public.
This move is so dumb that I had to make sure it wasn’t fake news. You
guys, it isn’t fake news.”

According to DeSantis, “You look at how this disease is transmitted, it’s transmitted
overwhelmingly when you are in close, sustained contact with people,
usually in an indoor environment,” DeSantis said. “Going forward, we got
to be promoting people to get exercise, do it in a good way, to do it
in a safe way.” However recent research shows that the virus spreads much further then 6 feet and an ocean breeze is a perfect vehicle to allow the spread.

The Mayor of Miami Beach, Dan Gelber, said in a video statement, “I’m
sorry but we will just have to do without beach access for the near
future,” adding that it’s unlikely that Miami’s beaches will reopen
before early June. Miami-Dade County closed its beaches on March 19, after thousands gathered at the beach
for Spring Break. As of April 22, there are more than 10,000 confirmed
cases and more than 200 deaths of COVID-19 in Miami-Dade county.

Some from Orlando must have also flocked to Jacksonville, where hundreds crowded together in line and then rushed the beach when it opened at 5pm on April 17, since vehicles with surf boards strapped to the roof were seen leaving town. Social distancing seemed to be the last thing on anyone’s mind when the beach opened. Thousands of people were seen on the beach within 26 minutes of the beach opening. The decision to open beaches goes against Trump’s re-opening recommendations that cases should have declined for 14 days. 



As of today April 23, 2020 Florida has 28,576 confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 927 deaths. 60 people died today from the virus.

Virgo’s Narcissa Beach Party

Posted on by Thor

Local actress, Michelle Papaycik, hosted a mermaid-themed photo shoot party at Driftwood Boneyard  (Big Talbot Island, Jacksonville Fl). Photographers and beach lovers were encouraged to spend as long as they wanted taking pictures and soaking up the sun. Usually, photo shoots are a challenge to sketch since models vogue quickly for the camera and then change poses incessantly. I figured that a mermaid might not move around quite as much on the beach since the large tail might slow her down.

Half way on my drive to the beach I got a message that the main contingent of people going were running late. I had seen pictures of the beach and decided it was worth the trip just to take the time to sketch the driftwood beach. I brought along a tent to keep myself out of the sun while I worked. There was a nice long sandy trail that lead down to the beach, and once there it really felt like another world. All the plentiful driftwood created wonderful patterns against the sand.

I figured I could beach a few mermaids in my sketch once hey washed ashore. Unfortunately, mermaids never appeared. But I had a decent sketch and decided to get back on the road to Orlando. My passenger side mirror had been demolished by a garbage can, so I was a bit blind when people passed me on the passenger side. So, on the drive I stayed in the right hand lane and just accepted that I might need to slow down on occasion as cars entered and exited from the highway. I’ve since fixed the mirror which is wedged in with an eraser. This amazing beach was well worth the visit.