Stella’s OMA Commission

Posted on by Thor

I helped Stella Arbeláez Tascón, a fellow artist and friend, when she got a commission from the Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) to create tablecloths for a fundraiser event. Her idea was to eco-print leaves on the tablecloths along with woodblock prints. The fundraiser concept was built around the 1979 art installation by Judy Chicago called The Dinner Party. With that installation there were 39 elaborate place settings on a triangular table arrangement for 39 mythical and historical famous women. Including Kali, Sacajawea, Virginia Wolf, Susan B. Anthony and Georgia O’Keefe to name a few. The messaging goal of the Dinner Party was to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record.

Stella had never eco-printed before, but she researched the process voraciously. After the fabric bolts were cut and hemmed, they were soaked in fresh water, dried, folded and stacked on a table set up outside. The next step was to boil water and soak the fabrics in chemicals that would allow the natural leaves to make impressions on the fabric. Since there were so many table clothes there were many boiling sessions.

I went with Stella when she purchased the old rusty butane stove for a song on Facebook Marketplace. When we picked it up there was a whole corrugated warehouse full of old abandoned equipment. A cow from the nearby field managed to get over the fence and had to be chased down to be put back in her field. That was all a sketch opportunity, but we were in and out rather fast to pick up the stove.

The water and fabrics frothed up in the huge metal pot and bubbled over the edge. When Stella finished stirring the pot, she went off to complete another task, and I sat and watched the pot while I sketched. I lowered the fuel nozzle a few times to keep the mix from boiling over. Once the boil was complete all the fabric was taken out and hung on outdoor clothes lines to dry in the breeze. Having this outdoor space to work on the project was critical since this was a messy process. The whole point of the eco-printing process was to celebrate the natural beauty of the outdoors.

In the background of this sketch is a hydroponics tower that was absolutely thriving. The edible lettuce was growing so fast that the tower was getting top heavy. The lettuce at the top was getting the most sunlight and it grew to the point that it broke the plastic tower in which the plant pots had been positioned. I patched the broken tower with plastic wrap because the water was leaking out of the tower and onto the ground. My fast, sloppy engineering fix seemed to work at least for the short term. I harvested the plants which were then drooping down unsupported and put them in bags in the refrigerator. The root system inside the tower was so huge that it would have to be cut out when all the plants were harvested. The greens lasted a long time in the refrigerator. I do believe some of them were eco-printed.

Apartment Hunt: Lake Formosa

Posted on by Thor

I have been moving from AirBnB to AirBnB in downtown Orlando to get a feel for where I might set up my art studio again. I have been living out of my backpack ever since returning from Europe. I loved Thornton Park. I stayed in two places in Thornton Park, and my favorite was above a barber shop a few blocks from Lake Eola and right across the street from the Falcon Bar.  From the studio window I could look over Lake Eola toward the skyline in the west to see gorgeous sunsets.

Last week I stayed in Azalea Park. I thought Azalea Park was the neighborhood around Dickson Azalea Park which is lovely. I was wrong, Azalea Park is directly under flight path of planes landing at the Orlando Executive airport and the noise is overwhelming. Since that nightmare, I made a map that includes the noise levels from planes.

Today I moved to Livingston Street for several weeks. The place has a back yard with a fire pit and is just a several block walk to Lake Eola. It is so peaceful and quiet here. I am waiting for the shoe to drop, something unsettling is about to transpire. There are some flights that can be hears but they seem to be little prop planes. Honestly if this place had a long-term rental option or was for sale I would consider this a perfect studio location. Unfortunately, it is just an expensive AirBnB and I will need to move out at the end of May.

While sketching today, a woman mentioned that she had a place available in the house right next to the Maitland Art Center. She explained that the place was very small. She didn’t mention square footage. I wonder how small it is? I declined, but now I am thinking I should have at least looked at the place. The location would have been amazing.

Every day I wake up and wonder where I should call home. Should I stay in Orlando where I am familiar with the arts scene, or should I explore some new place? With no roots, I could go anywhere.

The sketch is from a duplex on Lake Formosa that I visited yesterday. It is just 700 square feet with a bedroom and living room which would be my studio. The view out of the sliding glass doors looks out over Lake Formosa. The car port is a plus. I drew a floor plan to see if my studio flat files and Disney desk could fit. It is tight but I can fit in the space. The duplex neighbor has a fiberglass Lizard in the front lawn which I rather like.

Whenever I am serious about a property I tend to sketch after viewing the interior. I find sketching helps me think and consider what it might be like to live in the place. People walked by with their dogs and quite a few bicyclists buzzed past. Several medical helicopters flew over the lake and the train tracks that run along the west bank of the lake are loud. I am trying to decide if the train horn blasts are endearing or annoying.

The location is amazing. A bike path begins right at the end of the street and I could walk to the Fringe, Shakes, OMA and the Mennello. I have been walking up and down Mills Avenue this week and all those restaurant choices and music venues would be walking distance from this spot.

Part of me wants to find a place right in downtown Orlando, but I don’t think those cramped high-rise apartments are for me. I was also walking through Eola Heights each evening and found quite a few homes for sale. I looked online and discovered that every one of them was well over a million dollars (WTF?!)  So, I shifted my gaze to rentals further north. That brought me to Lake Formosa.

I agonized for several days about this property and finally filled out an application form.  My application was denied because someone else snatched up the rental while I was debating. Back to square one.

Urban Sketching Class Notes

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This page is an example of the types of notes I jot down for students on our sketching excursions on location. We met at the Rep Theater and the first sketch opportunity was a large modern red statue outside OMA. My student works pretty fast, so I just offered a quick thumbnail sketch to give him ideas on how to think about the composition.

Next we sketched the Rocket Thrower sculpture which can be intimidating for a beginner. The last time I sketched the Rocket Thrower, he was wearing a Fringe Tee shirt. I used the sculpture for several different lessons. The small thumbnail sketch shows sweeping gesture lines with no detail. I then showed how to block in the three body masses, the head, rib cage and hips as three simple shapes. Then we did a separate exercise where we just looked at the negative shapes around the sculpture which I colored blue. The negative shape exercise allows the student to get away from the distractions of anatomy and just think about puzzle piece shapes.

I always fell the urge to want to cover the page with watercolor washes as well, but there isn’t always time. Honestly blocking things in extra quick like this for a student is good for me because it reminds me to avoid distracting detail at first and think about the big picture. I also find that being able to verbalize my thoughts help cement them in my own mind.

OMA Debacle

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Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) has put Orlando on the art scene map by having a blockbuster showing of 25 potentially fake Jean Michel Basquiat paintings on cardboard. The New York Times investigated and now Orlando is a laughing stock in the international arts scene.

At the exhibit opening, the museum in it’s wisdom had an artist named Naderson Saint – Piere, in the lobby creating a painting in Basquiat’s style, thus demonstrating how easy it would be to forge the famous artists work.

OMA has a new and ambitious director named, Aaron De Groft, who learned all he knows about art by getting a PHD from Florida State University. He should be expert enough to spot a forgery. “Dammit Jim I am a doctor not an art expert.” At the opening of Heros and Monsters: Jean – Michel Basquiat, De Groft claimed the work on exhibit was worth $200 million dollars.

The “story” is that these were created in 1982 while Basquiat, working out of a studio space beneath Larry Gagosian’s home in Venice, California, preparing for a show at the art dealer’s Los Angeles gallery. The cardboard works are said to have been sold by Basquiat directly to the television screenwriter Thad Mumford, a producer and writer for the top-rated M*A*S*H. for $5,000 in cash without Gagosian’s knowledge.

Mumford threw the work in a storage locker and it stayed there for 30 years until he failed to pay a bill for the storage locker in 2012. Thad Mumford died on September 6, 2018. William Force, a “picker,” and his financial backer Lee Mangin, snagged the lot for $15,000.  This story of forgotten treasure in a storage locker is too good to be true. Gargosian told a reporter that he “finds the scenario of the story highly unlikely.” Gagosian, lived just one floor above Basquiat and kept close tabs on his studio progress. The provenance of the artwork is in question. Force and Mangin have not been able to find a buyer since the works legitimacy has been in question. If they could get a museum too exhibit the work it might become easier to sell.

In 2017 one of Basquiat’s paintings sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s which is the current auction high for an American artwork. One “proof” that the work was  created by Basquiat is a poem in which 25 paintings were mentioned. Now what rhymes with 25 paintings? The treasure hunting pickers claim it as a form of receipt. It wasn’t in the storage locker but was apparently retrieved by them from Mumford. It was signed in oil stick, JMB.

To confirm the authenticity of the artwork experts turned to the cardboard it as painted on. It is hard to differentiate cardboard of 1980s from that of today. However on the back of one of the works was a company imprint that said, “Align top of FedEx Shipping Label here.” According to Lindon Leader, an independent brand expert consulted by The Times, who was shown a photo of the cardboard, the typeface in the imprint was not used by Federal Express before 1994. He should know: that was the year he personally redesigned the company’s logo and its typefaces while working as senior design director at the Landor Associates advertising firm. “It appears to be set in the Univers 67 Bold Condensed,” Leader said of the label’s distinctive purplish font. In 1982, “They were not using Univers at that time.”

BOOM so these were created 6 years AFTER the artist’s death from an overdose on August 12, 1988.

The Orlando Weekly reported that a tipster claimed a gag order had been handed down to OMA staff by museum higher-ups and that computers had been seized from the museum by the FBI. This has not been confirmed. De Groft is doing what he can to, deny, deflect and distract as pompously as possible. This morning 18 February 2022 his story was that he was absolutely no doubt that works were genuine. By this afternoon his story changed when he told the Orlando Sentinel‘s Matt Palm, “Our job is not to authenticate art. Our job is to bring the best art to the people of Orlando and Orange County.” Ha. Yes the best Orlando can do is exhibit fake art.