CREAM at the Falcon

Posted on by Thor

The Falcon Presents: CREAM. The Cream of the Crop, ‘La crème de la crème,’ the cream of the cream, the best of the best. The Best of Orlando of Artists.
The show opened December 12th and runs through January 18th. I have one sketch of a poetry reading in the show. Check out the most talented artists in Orlando! When you buy local art for yourself or as a gift, you support both the artists in our community and the local economy and you get the joy of giving something that is one of a kind. Melissa Felcman was still placing labels under the artwork when Terry and I arrived. We ordered several hard ciders and I watched the bar maid do her multitasking ballet of serving drinks.

At the opening, I did a sketch at the bar. As I worked, the place filled with artists. Kelledy Francis who did some amazing fine art fashion when she was here in Orlando, had moved to Texas and then NYC where she now works at an advertising agency. She used to work as an art teacher at Valencia College and I once visited her class to share my sketchbooks with students. Scott Donald introduced himself. I had sketched Scott once before as he worked on a painting behind Neon Forest Gallery. He had long hair back then, and I didn’t recognize him in a trim suit all polished up. The Neon Forest Gallery unfortunately had to close down several months after I sketched the opening. They used to bring in hot artist talent from NYC and LA but people in Orlando weren’t buying. It is a sad tale I have heard again and again. Ron Marrs stopped by the bar long enough to let me know he was moving to New Orleans.

The Research Studio in the 21st Century

Posted on by Thor

Friday evening I went to the Maitland Art Center to see the opening of RS21. I knew one of the exhibiting artists namely Kelledy Francis having met her at the Kerouac House. Kelledy exhibited some of her couture dresses from her Four Seasons series. She had planned to hire models and have them standing in a small man made pond out in the Maitland Arts Center court yard. However heavy rains were predicted so she decided on a more fine arts approach to exhibit her dresses. The three dresses seen in this sketch are hung from the ceiling by thin wire. The seasons represented are Spring, Fall and Summer. A woman in a gold dress expressed an excited interest in the dresses and I hope she and Kelledy had a chance to talk.
The three people sitting at the table were there for quite some time. It turns out that the woman typing was transcribing everything the young couple was saying. They were actually part of the exhibit put together by Kim Walz. Kim explained that the transcriptions were being fed wirelessly to a large screen in the exhibition room as were live texts messages. She apparently also had speech recognition software which would then print gallery goers conversations in real time.
The cutting edge exhibit and installations were created in the spirit of the work started at “The Research Studio,” founded by André Smith in the 1930’s. The show runs through July 13th 2009.