Holi Fest at the Citrus Bowl

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I went to the Citrus Bowl to sketch Holi Fest knowing full well that this Indian springtime celebration would touch and color my life. Last year I went to the event in a black suit and that was a mistake. Live and learn. I walked past the Police Mounted Unit Barn and the horses greeted me by walking up to the fence. Across the street the Indian music was playing loudly and I saw that some people were already multi pigmented. I seated myself with my back against a light pole and immediately got to work. A husband, wife and daughter settled in next to me. The little girl was maybe 5 years old and the supersoaker water pistol she carried was as big as she was. She aimed it at me once and I raised my sketchbook up to my face in a joking gesture of self defense. The dad told her, “No!” I was a little disappointed. A few minutes later I was shot in the right shoulder from behind with a bright purple stream. I wiped the stained pages of my sketchbook and kept working. A woman approached from behind and wiped my cheek with a bright blue pigment.

The field wasn’t very crowded when I started the sketch but by the time I finished there had to be at least a thousand people all joyfully throwing pigments and chasing each other with pigmented water pistols. Melissa Kasper from DRlP Dance company came out to do research for Jessica Mariko, DRIP’s founder who was unfortunately out of town. I hugged Melissa who was like a giddy school girl ready to play. I gave her a plastic bag to protect her camera and then she bounded away to put a few things back in her car. The next time I saw her she was covered in pigments and she had met some friends who were swing dancing to the Indian music. When my sketch was finished I introduced myself to her friends who were all brightly colored. They had a bag of pigment and they helped fully initiate me.

For my second sketch I decided to introduce myself to an Indian family that was sitting against a fence. There was constant activity. People tended to keep turning around always on the lookout for a brightly colored shower from behind. In the opening remarks from the stage it was announced that people came from as far away as North Carolina, New York and Nebraska. The word Holi came from Hola which means sacrifice. The festival celebrates the beginning of spring. It asks that we renew ourselves and move forward with love, understanding and compassion. There was no drinking at the event. The family I was sketching offered me several round fried dumplings dipped in a sweet yellow sauce. They were quite good. After finishing my second sketch I bumped into Hannah Miller and Jack Fields. They and their friends were vibrant and bright. When I left the event, I had to go to Loews on an errand. I turned a few heads as I wandered the aisles. The clerk checking me out said, “You must really get into your painting!” “Yes I do.” I replied.

DRIP’s Wet Run

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It was late afternoon when paint can lids began to be hot glued to the central column. Jennifer Wagner stood on a tall ladder with the hot glue gun hard at work. For some reason one of the lids just refused to stick so that task was set aside.
After a cast lunch of delicious wraps and giant cookies, everyone was anxious to see if everything worked. Thomas was in charge of dumping a bucket of water on the stage floor to see how the drainage worked and to check for leaks. Sure enough leaks were found and silicone was applied along all the joints. Jennifer sealed all the seams of the vinyl curtains that surrounded the dancers stage. A big difference between the initial design and the final stage is that the paint and the tubing supplying the chandelier fountains all remained hidden under the stage and inside the central column. This streamlined the design.

With the sun setting in the west, the dancers came downstairs to rehearse. There was just enough time for one wet run. I did one last sketch of the performers inside the space. One of the stage techs told a dancer that the water was very warm, like 94 degrees. When the water showered down on her, she shrieked because it was freezing cold. As always the dancing was sensual, fun, and compelling. Within six short minutes the performance was over. Jessica Mariko wanted to get one run done with paint instead of water, but the dancers had to leave. Melissa Kasper, a long time “drippy” and the DRIP Assistant Workshop Manager, was asked if she would stand in for a dancer and she shouted, “Yes!” For her this was a dream come true and the remaining cast considered it “Epic!” I was asked to step inside as well but I didn’t have a change of clothes. Melissa changed into a pair of jeans which were ironically cleaner than the paint splattered jeans she had worn all day. She had lost weight and these jeans were getting too loose. She stood under the yellow chandelier and was covered head to toe with bright yellow paint. The paint splattered everywhere coating the vinyl screen. The hardest part of her job became cleaning the vinyl using a towel and then getting on her hands and knees to scoop the thin paint into the drains with her cupped hands. The dancers will have to clean up four times on performance night since the show is repeated for separate audiences.

Drip Paint Can Chandeleires

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I was invited to sketch a stage construction and rehearsal by the DRIP Dance Company. They were setting up in the Isleworth Country Club as part of a Travistock Cup Golf Tournament gala evening. About a month ago I did a sketch of what the set could look like based on suggestions from Jessica Mariko as we sat in Starbucks. The sketch helped sell the performance to the venue.

When I arrived at Isleworth, I had to surrender my drivers license to the security guard at the entrance to the gated community. My license is pretty old. In the photo I still had a full head of hair. The license is updated periodically with a sticker on the back. In a typical case of security guard blindness he didn’t see the expiration date on the back. I had to point the 2013 expiration date to him.


I was asked to park in the cast parking lot which is way past the clubhouse. A golf cart shuttled me to the cast entrance of the clubhouse where I wandered through the bustling kitchen past the security office and down endless basement hallways until I found an elevator upstairs to the main floor. Everyone was rushing to get the place ready for the gala.

The dance staging area was set up in a central court area surrounded by arches. White curtains had been set up surrounding the stage to hide the work in progress. Melissa Kasper, Jennifer Wagner and Thomas Starr were busy painting paint can lids. These lids would later be used to decorate the central column of the stage. The theme for the performance was Pop Art. On a second floor balcony, huge Pop Art paintings were covered with black fabric waiting to be unveiled. I could just make out an Andy Warhol soup can image as it peaked out from within it’s curtain. Set construction went on all day long.

Riff

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DRIP is currently developing an exciting new rock show called Riff, “a wet, raw, sexy Rock and Roll experience.” The event is happening in the DRIP warehouse (4502 Old Winter Garden Road); which is now easy to find because out by the sidewalk there are huge Styrofoam letters spelling out DRIP. After parking, arrows lead me to the entry at the back of the warehouse. A makeshift bar was set up and people were mingling before the show started. Tony Corbitt, speed painter, had his easel set up right in front of the entrance. He slipped his shirt up over his head and started attacking the black board with bold strokes of white paint. Each painting took less than five minutes to finish, so I had to work extra fast to catch him in action. I had talked to Tony the night before and learned that he dreams of one day studying drawing and painting in Florence, Italy. Before the conversation was over I found myself with the same longing. Another artist stood beside me and sketched the painting in progress. Before my sketch was really complete, the stage door was opened and people filed into the warehouse. There was an area right by the door where people could check their shoes since all areas of the warehouse were considered a splash zone. The room was packed and I had some trouble finding a spot from which to sketch. I finally settled on a spot close to the band right next to the speakers.
The room went black and then the band started to belt out a hard edged rhythmic beat. I immediately realized I was a bit too close to the speakers. My right ear was starting to hurt. I decided to take one of the erasers off the end of a pencil and I used that as an ear plug. It worked like a charm. Soon the dancers in the center of the staging area began to move. They used two ropes hanging from the metal girders of the warehouse high above to start swinging. Paint buckets full of water were thrown at the dancers as they gracefully gyrated.
The next routine involved a large platform which was used to hold a transparent “canvas.” As I sketched I realized that my sketch was getting covered with the constant rain of day-glow red and blue paint. Anyone in the audience with a white shirt suddenly glowed a mysterious blue. If my sketch were to be placed under a black light you would see clearly the red and blue day-glow paint splatters. The sketch shows Danny Millan and Nate Skaggs filling the dark space with loud music.
After the performance was over, people lingered outside and talked. Jessica Mariko was explaining that she hopes to find a hotel or similar venue that would be willing to offer DRIP permanent home.
You can still experience Riff in Orlando June 17th to 19th from 8 to 10 PM at 4502 Old Winter Garden Road. The show is also going to be in Miami July 22nd and 23rd from 8 to 10 PM at Easy Street Gallery (3501 NW 2nd Avenue Miami).

Ignite Orlando

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I went to Slingapour’s on Wall Street Plaza downtown to find out what Ignite Orlando was all about. In the first part of the event speakers were invited to give creative presentations with the limitation being that they had to give the presentation in 5 minutes and the slides would be on a timer and would change automatically. Some of these presentations were quite entertaining and the fast pace kept the evening lively. One presentation I particularly liked was about toys and play. He pointed out that people do not find enough time in their adult lives for play. This may be true for artists as well. I may start a sketch with the most serious of intentions, but it is only when I let loose and just relax and play with the lines and values that things fall into place.

The last speaker was the woman in this sketch named Jessica Mariko. Being the last speaker I realized I had to catch her and fast. She stood before the microphone and I waited for her to start to talk. Instead as music began to play, she slowly rose up on her toes and then broke into dance. The music had a voice over by her describing her creative process, her thoughts about art, thoughts about the need for artistic collaborations, and a lament that many artists do not know how to market their talents. All the while she danced. I sketched her at the beginning of her routine and towards the end. All of her commentary resonated with me and her playful presentation left her and many in the audience breathless at the end.

After the Ignite Orlando event was over, the MP3 Experiment began. Everyone in the bar had an MP3 player and had downloaded an MP3 from the Internet. I had also figured out how to use my wife’s MP3 player and had downloaded the file, but I suddenly realized that I had left the MP3 player on my kitchen table next to the users manual. I was forced to observe the experiment as an outsider. In the bar everyone stretched and then began pointing at different places in the bar. All at once they silently walked out into the street toward the park in front of the History Center. When in the park they all hid behind trees. A man ran around dropping packages on the ground and all the while people tried to keep him from seeing them behind the trees. People then opened the packages and handed the items to each other. They began blowing up balloons. On one side of the park they all had red balloons and on the other side blue balloons. Then as in opening scenes of 2001 a Space Odyssey they began violently waving the balloons around and making threatening growls at each other. Suddenly the groups charged at one another and a game of tag began. Those who were tagged fell to the grass. At one point they wandered the field in slow motion acting like zombies or monsters. At the end they all shook hands laughing and exhausted. To tell you the truth I have no idea what it all meant since I still haven’t listened to the MP3. The homeless that usually sleep in the park must have been equally baffled.