Orange County Regional History Center

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My advanced Urban Sketching student and I went for a sketch excursion at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL). I leave it up to my student to decide what to sketch.  She was intrigued by this Orlando Air Base display. With this display about 1/4 of an airplane fills the gallery while manikins inspect the wheel well.

The challenge was to make the plane and wing appear huge in the small gallery space. I opted to make it clear that the plane was enclosed in the room. The sketch isn’t absolutely accurate. There was a platform that the airman stood on but I didn’t think it helped to tell the story, so I left it out. I felt that what helped make the plane parts feel massive was the dark shadow they cast on the wall.

The display tells the story of the Orlando Naval Training Center which was established in 1966. For about 30 years the training center was in operation. The training center was fully operational between 1968 and 1994. More than 652,000 recruits passed through the facility. After being closed and demolished, the site became the Baldwin Park neighborhood. Blue Jacked Park in Baldwin Park has two memorials  dedicated to the Naval Training Center, the Lone Sailor, and the Blue Jacket Recruit.

 

The History Center’s One Orlando Collection

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Pam Schwartz the Director or the Orange County Regional History Center and Jeremy  Hileman who is in charge of the One Orlando Collection gave a Lunch and Learn talk about the collection that was build after the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

The shooting happened at about 2AM on June 12, 2016 killing 49 people at the Pulse Nightclub, and injuring about 68 others. The survivors have to live with the horrific memories.

The History Center has to decide what their roll would be in the community following the massacre. Pam immediately drafted a 5 page collection plan. Within a week, the museum became the collection entity following the tragedy.

Six years later, the collection is still growing. It has some 12,000 plus objects, oral histories, and terabits of video and photography. Some of the items predate the tragedy some are of the tragic event itself and some are of the love and support that followed and spread worldwide.

Many of the items in the collection are from the spontaneous memorials that cropped up following the shooting. People place items to try and replace the loss by giving. They don’t think what may eventually become of what was left behind. The History Center didn’t want to have that love and support just go away. There was no manual on how collect following a tragedy. The History Center collected for 32 days straight.

White crosses were donated by Greg Zanis, a midwestern carpenter, (now deceased) who brought crosses to a number of sites of mass tragedy. Memorial items were left on and around the crosses. The crosses were saved and put in special storage boxes and the items left behind were stored in a box for that individual whose name was on the cross. The Orange County Regional History Center will host the Pulse memorial crosses from Friday, June 10, 2022 through Sunday, June 12, 2022 in honor of the 49 and all others impacted. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

 

 

Brechner Series at the Orange County Regional History Center

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The Orange County Regional History Center hosed N.Y. Nathiri who spoke about The Legacy of Zora Neale Hurston as a Cultural Preservationist. In addition to exploring Hurston’s literary accomplishments, Nathiri delved into Hurston’s important work as an anthropologist and activist; Nathiri also highlighted the community-driven effort to promote Hurston’s legacy in Central Florida.

Nathiri read one short story by Hurston about the empowerment of woman. In it, men and women had been created equal by God but man wanted the upper hand. So the man went to God and asked him for more strength than the woman which God granted. The man used his new strength to dominate the woman.

So the woman went to God and asked for more strength but God had already granted that to the man. He could not grant her more strength then the man. That made her spitting mad. So she went to the devil. He told her to get 3 keys from God.

One key was for the bedroom, one key was to the cradle and one key was to the kitchen. She locked them all up and waited for the man to come home. The man had no peace in bed and nothing to eat, and he couldn’t have children unless he used his power to suit the woman. Of course you are far better off to read this story in Hurston’s own words. She uses a delicious dialect that comes from her background as a cultural preservationist and astute story teller.

Nathiri spoke quite a bit bout the history of Eatonville Florida which is the oldest town incorporated by African Americans just north of Orlando. It hosts the Zora Neale Hurston festival each year and has become an internationally recognized community. It was shocking to learn that in the 1980s, Orange County had considered the school in Eatonville as a possible site for a bus depot. They put this line item on the docket for a vote late in the evening since most working folks might not show up ant the item could pass. Residents in Eatonville showed up on mass for that meeting and they saved the school.

After Pulse: Roberta Blick

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Roberta Blick moved to Orlando in 1986. She became a member at Windermere Union Church teaching oil painting. Nancy Rosado another member of the church came in on Sunday morning, to enlist volunteers to help first responders at Pulse. Roberta wanted to participate. She said, “What can I do?” Her son heard her and he said, “Do what you  do best mom, and make a quilt.”

So she sat down in her hospice chair, and she watched the TV seeing all those beautiful people from Pulse. Their gorgeous eyes looked at her. It broke her heart. She had to do something with all those wonderful people. She got to know them. She gathered pictures of each of the 49 young people and she transferred the photos onto plain white cotton. She began making the quilt out of her white squares of fabric.

When she got all the squares finished she had to lay them all out on the floor of her sewing room. She called some people from church and they helped her make a nice big square out of it. It became a big quilt with all 49 pictures on it. She worked on it all week and that next Sunday she brought it to church. Nancy Rosado was there and she sat down next to her. Nancy took the quilt to share with others. Nancy got so many amazing people to sign it. The first names o the quilt were fellow church members.

It pleased Roberta so much that something we were doing helped others. Nancy said that some of the people who came into her office didn’t even have a picture of their child. That must be such an awful feeling to not have a picture of the child they love so much. Anyone who is a mother would know that. Her first thought was to create something that would have a beautiful picture. Friends from church wrote the name of each one of the children, and the names went above their picture.

The quilt traveled everywhere.  Nancy would sit down beside Roberta to tell her who had signed the quilt. She said President Obama had signed it. He had put a special thanks to Roberta because he heard she was an old woman. That meant so much. The only thing that hurts is that she did not think to start doing it earlier of the Sandy Hook babies and others who died needlessly. Think of the impact walking into a room an having all those beautiful eyes looking back at you. Think of the impact for all of those mothers and fathers. Think of all the beautiful people who have been killed. Look what they have done.

At a one year remembrance exhibit the the Orange County Regional History Center, 453 family members of victims saw Roberta’s quilt in one and a half hours. Thousands of photos must have been taken of that quilt on exhibit. Roberta Blick died December 20, 2017 from cancer.

 

Healthcare Heroes

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Beginning Monday, June 7, 2021, the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd.
Orlando, Florida 32801) presents Healthcare Heroes: Portraits of Orlando Health’s Front line Workers, a group of thirteen large, stunning portraits by Central Florida-based artist Nelson Cárdenas that will be on display in the museum’s atrium through August 15, 2021.

Cárdenas, who is also a cook at the Orlando Health Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, created the portraits of Orlando Health employees using oil paints and a technique called pyrography, which uses blowtorches. His artwork honors and provides an intimate look at the community’s front line healthcare staff who have worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the opening, Nelson pulled out a scroll which he said was a list of what inspired him to do the project. He pointed out, that if inspiration were a switch, it would always be on. On the scroll was a long list of names of healthcare workers who had helped save lives for the past 12months during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he was humbles to see his work on display at the History Center. As he put it, this was every artist’s dream.

Jean Carlos Nieves Rodreguez

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Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Jean Carlos Nieves Rodriguez was one of the 49 who died on the evening of June 12, 2016 at the Pulse Nightclub shooting. Staff of the Orange County Regional History Center visited the Rodriguez home to talk to his mother about his life.

Jean Carlo always had high aspirations of working hard.  He was working as a manager in Miami. Just a few months before his death he and his mother bought a house with a pool. His mother DiMarie Rodriguez invited us to that home. DiMarie speaks Spanish and a translator helped conduct the oral history. Jean Carlos sister, Valeria Monroig, was in the kitchen. Once, he told his sister, “I love you more than I love myself.” He always watched out for the family. The room echoed, feeling empty.

Since the house had a pool Jean Carol’s friends would often come over and his mom loved the activity. They brought an energy to the home. On June 13, 2016 they decided to have a BBQ but she had to work, so they pushed it back to June 15, 2016.

Jean Carlos group of friends were debating about what they should do on June 12 and they decided to go to Latin Night at Pulse. This was his fort time going to Pulse. A roommate of Jean Carlos was going back to Columbia on June 16, 2016.  They all decided they should celebrate Wakim’s birthday early. All the friends met at the house before gong to Pulse. They hung out by the pool and had a few beers.

Jean and his mom had a tradition of texting each other before bed. She might text “Night, night” and he might follow with “Love you” to which she would text “Love you more.” That night as she was getting ready for bed she texted, “Night night.” That night she didn’t hear back from him and at 3AM she bolted straight up in bed. She checked his bedroom and the bed was immaculately made. Her heart sank. She texted him, “Where are you?” “Are you still hanging out?” At 5:16 AM she was texting him again. She texted again at 10:47AM as well. She hoped he was with his group of friends. She tried texting again from work. While at work she heard there was a shooting at a downtown club.

Once she found out the shooting was at Pulse, she called her best friend and asked her to help find her son. Her friend could help since she knew English. Her friend called back and said, “You need to leave right now.” She explained that the hospital was full and everything in the area was locked down. “You need to go find your son because this is huge.” She didn’t know where to start looking. She drove to the hospital and found one of the moms who was a long time friend. Together they tried to get information. They were eventually moved to the hotel across the street. There they waited for the survivors list to come out. She prayed for the strength to get through the ordeal.

In a vision she saw him face down. She knew she shouldn’t hope to see his name on the survivor list. By 10AM she officially knew. They came to her house to let her know. Over 700 people showed up for his services. It was overwhelming to see the public outpouring. The Osceola Parkway had to be shut down for the funeral procession. Jean Carlos was laid to rest in Puerto Rico with his grandmother. She regrets that decision and hopes to one day have him back.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings

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From a September 23, 2020 Orange County Regional History Center Oral History with Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, “You have to be a bit of a realist in these processes where, no matter what you think, you won’t be able to make all the changes that need to be made in days, months. It will be decades of being in the fight. So I have been doing this now for four decades.”

“I know what I know about this. I’ve been in this fight for decades. I haven’t been sitting as a spectator in the arena. I’ve been in the arena.”

“So that is what I say to young people, ‘you want to really bring about change, you need to become the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the judges, the police officers,  the school teachers, the doctors, the professors in college, the researchers, the entrepreneurs. You need to become all of those if you really want to bring about change.’ ”

“Otherwise they are going to be frustrated if they think that, it is going too happen like that, They are going to be so frustrated. I think that is what we see. Sometimes when you see the violence, the destruction, it is frustration manifesting itself. Because they really don’t understand what the fight is at this point.”

First Fringe Film Festival

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I entered my short animated film Greyhound, in the first Fringe Film Festival going on at the Shakes in Orlando Fl. The screening was on my birthday, May 22, 2021 so I felt I had to go. I have not been documenting this years Fringe due to the ongoing pandemic, but in this instance I decided to make an exception.

The screenings were held at eh Play What You Can Stage in an outdoor tent between the Shakes and the Firehouse museum. Pam and I arrived a bit early and I started sketching the venue right away. We both kept our masks on and other audience members were split with about half wearing masks.

It felt awkward finding a seat with a view of the stage. Finding seats with a full six feet of social distancing was impossible. Before this outing, I liked to keep 4 dead body lengths (about 24 feet) between myself and anyone else. It has been more than a year since I have sketched on location. It seemed like everyone was watching us.

An artist, Gabriella Serralles, was on the stage doing Imprompto Digital Paintings which showed up on the screen. I think she was supposed to be doing pet portraits, but I can’t be sure. There were no dogs in the audience. The staging was all wrong however since she was seated right in front of the screen meaning more than half the audience could not get a clear view of shat she was painting on the screen. When the artist was finished, audience members let and a whole new crowd filled the seats.

The first film was a documentary about a metal working artist who sculpts fish. I didn’t pay close attention since I was frantically trying to finish my sketch. My film was next in line. I kind of assumed my film would be last in the lie up so I was surprised. Up until this night the film had only been screened as part of the Ocoee Exhibition at the Orange County Regional History Center. I am sure people saw it but privately with one or two people at a time. It was therefor a surprise when the audience broke into applause after my film screened. Visual artists aren’t used to that kind of spontaneous affirmation.

My second favorite film for the evening was made by Evan and Christie Miga of Miga Made. It had two robots flying a car through a futuristic world reminiscent of Blade Runner. I love how they take the simplest objects and covert them into props of a high tech world.

We didn’t linger when the screenings were over preferring to remove ourselves from the crowds. I didn’t count how many were in the audience, maybe several dozen, but it was more crowded than I would prefer during a pandemic. The seven day average for deaths in Florida was 58 deaths a day the week of the screening. Which is lower than the several hundred who died every day in January of 2021, but still not reassuring.

Yesterday This Was Home: A Future of Civil Rights

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The 12 year old boy morphs into a man while seated on the Greyhound bus seat. Sam explains how his experience on the bus helped fuel his further protests in high school. It was the beginning of his continued efforts to stand up for his rights. I decided to end the film with an iris out much like the ending of a silent era movie. I had Charlie Chaplin‘s, Circus in mind.

I learned a lot doing this film. I came to realize that at most I can produce 10 seconds of animation a day which usually amounted to one or two shots a day. The animation might go smoothly but then late at night I would be painting each individual drawing. I saved so much time by doing rather clean storyboards which I then re-used as the backgrounds for each shot.It turns out I really love animating when there is a compelling story to be told.

Each day during the pandemic I plan and execute on illustration which tells a story about the news of the day. It was nice to take a whole month to tell one story with action narration and music. Animation is really the ultimate art form which ties together all the artistic disciplines.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

 

Yesterday This Was Home: They were Trailing Him

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This is the storyboard for the climactic moment of the story. The bus driver got back on the bus with several people trailing him. He walked past the children and sat the white passengers in the seat behind them.

This is the first scene I imagined when I heard the oral history. It is the climactic moment when the children’s rights were acknowledged and upheld. It was the first step towards not allowing the systemic racism to continue.

Animating this scene pushed the memory allowed on my computer to the limits. The computer crashed multiple times as I worked. I had to animate three people walking up the aisle. Part of me wanted to animate each character separately with their own cadence and unique steps, but instead I kept them in a military lock step to simplify the scene and keep the animation quick and simple. I was running out of time. I also had to cut the back ground into separate layers so that the driver and passengers could remain behind the foreground seats and characters. I animated the walks backwards and forwards from this particular stage  of the walk. It is a particularly long scene so I just kept adding steps to the characters walks until the time was allotted. Seating the two passengers was the most challenging aspect and it turned out to be rather fun as they plopped themselves down. I acted out the motions on my own using the living room couch. I have to have sat down on bus seat hundreds of times in m life. I used to ride the bus to NYC every day when I first want to college. That familiarity with riding buses is part of the reason I love this story.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours later until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.