Lakeland – Analog Artist Digital World

On March 6th, Terry and I drove to Lakeland Florida to meet Seattle sketcher Carleen Zimmerman and her husband Neil. They were vacationing in Florida and the plan was to meet for lunch and then go to Florida Southern College to sketch. Lunch was delicious. I had a lasagna roll that was quite unique. Unfortunately it had rained on the entire drive to Lakeland.

I got to flip through Carleen’s Florida sketchbook which was almost completely filled. She had read my book on the flight to Florida and was applying principles I had written about. I was quite pleased to see a note on one sketch that said, “Thor suggests building the pose from the feet up.” Most of the sketches were of Florida water foul. Carleen and Neil are avid birders. Because of that they are friends with Terry’s sister Rachel in Seattle.

It was still sprinkling when we were done with lunch. Carleen and Neil called it a day and went back to their hotel. Terry and I pushed on to see the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture at Florida Southern College a few miles away. Terry had been on a guided tour there once with her friend Elaine. She didn’t like the tour however since the guide just talked for two hours in the gift shop.

The campus is perfect to explore on a rainy day. Florida Southern
College (FSC) has the largest concentration
of Wright designed structures anywhere in the world with 10 buildings and two additional
structures on campus, and is in the National Register of Historic Places.Construction on the campus began in 1938. Students helped with some of the construction. Wright designed an esplanade that cover all the pathways around the campus. What is unique about the overhangs is that they are only supported on one side leaving a completely unobstructed view on the open side. If a walkway stepped down, so would the overhang. Wright must have been a short man. I began to feel claustrophobic, always feeling I might bump my head. The structures are also showing signs of wear and stress. Large cracks hint that the supports are having trouble bearing the load. Decorative custom brickwork had glass embedded into it, but students can’t resist digging out the glass like a gem from it’s matrix. Restoration work is needed everywhere.

A group of photographers explored the campus and I caught one in my sketch. An emergency phone looked like it had been bashed by a linebacker. It had one large red “Help” button for easy operation. I was shocked at how few students there were. There are 1800 undergraduate students but only one or two were seen by me on the campus walkways.

I took the long drive to Lake Morton in Lakeland which is west of Orlando halfway to Tampa, I had never been to Lakeland before. It is a quaint little town of small bungalows and then gorgeous large homes around the lake. Boy scouts were charging for parking at a local church. I parked a mile away on a side street and walked to the lake. There were plenty of mobile food vendors and then 150 artists venting tents set up all around the lake. I wandered the art fair quickly searching for a sketch opportunity. A couple playing Medieval instruments performed and a crowd gathered. I didn’t stop since I suspected they wouldn’t perform for long. Sure enough, when I returned five minutes later, they had stopped.

The Mayfaire by the Lake art festival was pretty much what I expected from an outdoor art festival. Some of the art was bright and playful and some I just didn’t fully appreciate. It was a beautiful sunny day for a fair. There was a stage set up outside a civic building. Young girls were dancing to the Disney Tarzan sound track. Parents and a small audience relaxed in lawn chairs. I finally decided to sketch this painted swan sculpture. The Lakeland skyline was painted on the swan and I could show the artist’s tents in the background. More importantly, I was in the shade. By the time I finished sketching, vendors were starting to pack up.

Admission to the Polk Museum of Art was free that day. The museum was open for only one more hour when I got there. Security asked me to check my bag at the front desk and I was happy to loose the load. There was an exhibit called, Sketches & Steel. It showed the process of abstract sculptor Albert Paley. I took everything in at a glance, sketches, cardboard 3D studies and small iron studies for huge monolithic sculptures, some of them 100 feet high. There was a room of children’s art that I rushed through. I was on a mission to Find a room of juicy paintings. 0n the second floor, there were photos of families and their possessions from photojournalist Peter Menzel‘s extraordinary 1995 work Material World: A Global Family Portrait. It makes for an eye opening book that shows what is truly important to people from different cultures all around the world. As I left the museum, I noticed an Art-O-Mat. This was a cigarette machine stuffed full of small art works. For $5 I was tempted to get an original piece of art, but I was too lazy to get a token in the gift shop.