Orlando Health – Analog Artist Digital World

Air Play presented by Orlando Health is set up in Senef Arts Plaza in front for the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts through October 30, 2022. I went to sketch with my advanced Urban Sketching student and we found that everything was deflated on Sunday afternoon. It was like a large lawn of sad deflated Santas and snowmen that people have on their front lawns around Christmas time. We decided to sketch these large eyes of Sauron in the corner of the lawn since they were the only things that remained inflated.

Between the eyes is a large green generator. As we sketched a guy came out with a cart that had 10 to 15 gallons of gas to power the generator. When it roared to life all the structured on the lawn slowly began to inflate. The large structures were covered with brown tarps and those tarps had to be rolled back much like you might see at a baseball game after it rains.

Penis shaped mushrooms sprouted up behind one of the eyes along with a large red ant. Bright red and yellow flowers covered a hillside which was probably a kid’s slide. Someone then rolled the eyes away to the opposite side of the lawn. It turns out you can roll these eyeballs around and play a distorted game of eyeball soccer. Also on the lawn was a large 15 foot tall heart, lungs and what looked like human intestines. It was a bright, Gulliver sized recreation of Normandy beach on D-Day.

A young teen girl and her boyfriend rode by on those scooters they have downtown. She circled back and wanted to see our sketched. She didn’t know how to use the scooter, and when she stepped off, it did a wheelie and flipped over onto the lawn. They rode by a second time to check on our progress. As we sketched the theaters let out and a huge crowd pressed past us. I masked up as they all walked by talking about the shows.

As of March 7, 2022, The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts lifted for all indoor shows and events both public and private. I saw maybe 2 masks in the crowd of hundreds who walked by. Orlando is done with the pandemic but the pandemic is not done with Orlando. The Orlando Sentinel reported that there were 22,592 new coronavirus cases recorded over the past two weeks among Florida residents, bringing the cumulative total to 7,129,245. There were 522 more COVID-19 deaths, bringing Florida’s total to 81,661 dead. When the Pulse nightclub shooting happened, people rushed to give blood. Now people are happy to ignore s literally hundreds of people die every week from COVID in Florida. The death baseline has shifted.

Before the Pandemic, I was doing a series of sketches of the significant trees of Orlando. The City of Orlando Parks department published a map of 7 locations in Orlando with Significant Trees. These live oak trees line the south side of Lake Eola on Central Avenue. The huge lower branches reach out an some touch the ground before reaching back up to the sky. These huge trees provide plenty of shade for people walking around the park.

It was rush hour while I sketched. Someone wanted to park in the spot next to where I was sitting. He asked it the meters were running after pm and I told him I think the meters are off after 6pm. I can;t be quoted on that however. I tend to park out in the suburbs and walk into downtown when needed for a sketch.

This series of sketches of Orlando trees were the final outdoor sketching project I was working on as the looming pandemic squeezed in on Orlando. As of today April 11, 2020 there were 923 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Orange County and 12 deaths. Central Florida has 2,300 cases. The number of cases in Florida has topped 18,400. I had to stop sketching trees on location when people started coming up to me to see what I was sketching. Adulation is fine, unless it might cause death. The latest projections show Florida may see 1,218 to 10,293 fatalities
by June 21, with the median projection at 3,999 deaths, according to the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation out of the University of
Washington.The lower numbers of the projection assume everyone honors the stay at home at home order. Publix Supermarket, across the street from these live oak trees I sketched has made all of it’s aisles one way to be sure people shopping can maintain a six foot distance from each other.

Orlando area patients at Orlando Health are starting to get treated for COVID-19 with the blood of patients who have recovered. Convalescent plasma has shown promise as an early treatment for SARS, MERS and EBOLA before a vaccine could be developed.

#Stay Home, #Stay Safe, #Save a Life.