Kaleidoscope Venue for the Arts (1991 Corporate Square #181, Longwood, Florida 32750) is in a warehouse in Longwood. Monthly they host themed shows. The theme in April was All Things Music. I like the idea of submitting art created with the theme in mind but have never submitted work to this space since they charge a $10 submission fee per artist. Regardless I figured it might be nice to head out and see all the art created with music in mind.
There is a second floor walkway in the venue and that is where I decided to hang out and sketch. There were paintings of flowers, abstracts and polished photograph but I couldn’t pick out any piece that really tied in with the theme of music. An artist joined me upstairs and he explained that he would be at the steampunk show up in Mount Dora. This is an event I have sketched before so we had some common ground. He was picking up his work and a painting by his daughter from the last show. He offered me an area fan which he plugged in. The air conditioner wasn’t keeping up with the heat.
Downstairs, beer, wine, sodas, and water was available for donation at the bar. Co-Owner Jack Beals was serving the drinks. Contributing artist’s drinks were complimentary. Pam ordered me a Coke that I sipped when I was sketching. The one advantage of the space as explained by one of the artists was that you can exhibit really large paintings. Since my work is sketchbook sized, that isn’t an appealing reason to consider submitting work to the space. In April the space was already insanely hot, I cant imagine how hot it must get in the deep summer months. I still see the Facebook invites to submit art to this venue but have learned to scroll by them on my feed. Right now there is a call for artists for a “Fan Art” show opening August 24, 2019. I am a fan of everyday life, but I don’t think that is what they are looking for.
