Returning from Europe, I was hoping to re-establish my courses at Crealde School of Art in Winter Park. The problem is that Crealde published a printed course brochure and submissions for the courses happened while I was away. My Urban Sketching Course was not in the printed brochure, so I would need to wait until the next brochure was printed. I filled out a revised course description last week to try and generate interest in the art of sketching on location. Instead of focusing on Urban Sketching, I decided to re frame the course focus more about Travel Sketching. My course will be offered again in the summer and fall.
At the Crealde Christmas Party, I got to meet the new Crealde Executive Director & CEO Emily Bourmas-Fry. She was wearing an adorable set of deer antlers. She was warm and inviting and made me feel right at home again. Jim Hobart the Crealde Photography Program Manager has been talking to me about mounting an exhibit of my series of WWII sketches that follow my father 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken through Europe in 1945. It has been 80 years since Germany surrendered to end WWII and I sketched every city where my father’s C-Company was encamped and fought in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.
Towards the end of the series I started adding black and white paintings based on historic photos on top of my location sketches which show what the area looked like in 1945. I now have to go back over all the sketches I posted while I was traveling in Europe to add these black and white historical visual notes. Since history is repeating, I sometimes let modern history morph into the history of the 1945 atrocities. I plan to show the paintings by framing them in white shadow box frames and then having the black and white historical paintings elevated on the glass to show some parallax and separation of past and present.
In sketching the artists mingling, I noticed David Cumbie, the Sculpture Garden Curator & Sculpture Program Manager. I sketched at one of his welding workshops once and when I think of an artist who is completely committed to forwarding the Crealde art cause, I think of him. My course is offered on Sunday mornings and when I used to walk to my classroom, I always noticed David hard at work in the sculpture studio.
For over 3 months I have not interacted with people since I could not understand what they were saying. In some ways that is liberating. I would just assume they were complimenting my sketch, and I would say, Merci, Bedankt, Dank Je or Danke, My American roommate had suggested that I would meet the love of my life in Europe (Eat, Pray, Love style) but that was impossible since I could not understand any thread of conversation. I did not know any French, Flemish or Dutch. I was happy that my limited German was partly understood for the final months of the trip. One German female artist did invite me to her studio, but when we discussed meeting again, I had misunderstood what she said, and I went to the wrong place.
American party small talk therefore was not something I was prepared for at this Christmas party. I talked to a few people about the project I am working on, but when I discussed the German Stalag Forced labor camp that my father’s C-Company helped liberate, I could see people’s eyes glaze over. It seems discussing war atrocities tends to be a party conversation killer. I listened to one conversation, but it was all about commuting times and I lost interest and walked away. I wasn’t interested in loosening my inhibitions with drink, so after I sampled the food and desserts. I drifted off and made my way back to the home studio where I could settle in for a quiet night to write and sketch.
