Artists Party and Street Market

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Affect Art held its first Artists Party and Street Market at Taste Restaurant (717 W. Smith Street College Park). The purpose of Affect Art is simply to help artists help themselves. A few artists were set up inside the front room in Taste and everyone else was set up outside under the awning. Clouds loomed, threatening rain as the evening grew dark. Parker Sketch had some paintings on display in the gallery inside. I met Terry for dinner at Taste before I started a sketch. I liked the tatter tots but the fish tacos were too hot for my taste. I had to wash them down with plenty of beer. Parker walked some patrons through the gallery and on his way out he saw us and stopped over to say hi.

Some sort of performance was going to happen in the gallery. A petite dancer was getting ready to perform. I found out she was a silks dancer who would be performing her aerial act.  The event was a fundraiser for YAYA, a youth and young adult Network of the National Farm Worker Ministry. It cost $5 to enter, so I opted to go with a free sketch outside, besides, catching a girl spinning and flipping as she is suspended from the ceiling would be a difficult sketch.

Outside, Parker was busy painting a skateboard with a Pabst Blue Ribbon logo. The board was for a show at City Arts Factory. Just about every gallery is filled with skateboards that have been painted by local artists. The show, curated by B-side artist Tr3 Harris is called Boarded up – The Art of Skateboarding. It is an impressive show hanging till July 14th.

Whitney Broadaway had an ingenious idea of letting passers by make their own prints. She had lino cuts already prepared and a young couple stopped to try their hand at print making. The woman rolled out the ink and applied it to the print plate. Only the high ridges would print. A sheet of paper was applied on top of the inked plate and then Whitney set it inside the press. The crank was turned applying massive pressure. The costumer was given the thrill of the big revel. Both Whitney and the costumer signed the print.

Although not much art was sold, it was a great opportunity for artists to mingle and talk art. One artist was talking about how the DADA movement was “the punk rock of art.” He admired Jackson Pollack who finally said, “F*ck this I’m just going to do what I want.” An artist who was dressed like a rough Harley Davidson biker lamented how he was an outsider in high school. Whitney’s table became a social hub for artists who had studied with the same teachers at UCF. A friend walked by and didn’t notice me sketching. I suppose I become a bit invisible when I sketch and I was camouflaged by large potted plants.

K.D. Lang

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On May 27th, K.D. Lang performed at Hard Rock Live in Universal Studios. Terry scored some free tickets to the concert. We were pleased to find that parking is free for Florida residents after 6PM as well. We parked in the Jaws lot and rode the series of escalators and people movers towards City Walk. City Walk is the closest thing Orlando has to Times Square so I might be tempted to return for some night time sketching in the future.

Our seats were way up in nose bleed territory, but the price was right. Terry went to get some sodas at the bar. I saw Parker Sketch in the crowd but I didn’t have a chance to talk to him, I was already sketching. I layed out the sketch while the house lights were on, but then the place went pitch black. The warm up act was Jane Siberry and the Siss Boom Bang. She is from Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is most famous for her early 1980s new wave
hits such as ‘Mimi on the Beach’, ‘I Muse Aloud’ and ‘One More Color’.
Internationally, she is best known for her 1993 album ‘When I Was a
Boy’. She talked far more than she sang and honestly we couldn’t wait for her to get off the stage.

Terry has several K.D. Lang CDs so I was very familiar with her music. She  is a Grammy Award-winning Canadian singer and songwriter. She is
regarded as one of Canada’s foremost female vocalists, as well as a
champion of legal equality for LGBT people. K.D. is the same age as me. Terry told me that when K.D. came out publicly she was in her twenties and it took some guts since most performers hid their private lives and loves. She was on fire for this performance. I particularly liked her rendition of Hallelujah.  People were standing and swaying to the music by the end of the concert. There was endless applause when she left the stage and even louder applause for the encore. It was a great concert in a great venue.

Artists@Work

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First Thursdays, Third Thursdays, it seems like Thursdays are the only day that art happens in Orlando. Now on every Wednesday
artists gather in SODO to create art outside OLV Cafe (25 W. Crystal Lake St. Suite 175) which is located in that new Super Target street mall in SODO. The address is misleading. I walked down Crystal Lake watching the numbers get smaller. I found out that the restaurant is located half way around the block inside the shopping area.

When I arrived, Parker Sketch was setting up his work area. He was setting up right outside the entrance and I immediately knew that I had to sketch him at work. It was getting near sunset with the sun just an inch above the Super Target. I wouldn’t be adding any color until it got dark. The square canvas Parker was working on once depicted a blue meanie. The canvas changed quickly as he applied paint straight out of the tube or jar. A pink mass began to take the form of a splash. When that paint dried, blue was quickly layered on top. Zinc white was layered over the background and later a light ocher was slapped over that. It was a delight to see colors and forms change so quickly. He is working on a series of paintings that depict splashes which ties into the splashy spattered look of his playful work. He pointed out that he couldn’t sling paint quite the way he could in his studio because no matter how big a drop cloth he used, the paint would always find a way to get on the pavement or brick work.

Parker organizes a monthly Artist critique session and he is pivotal in getting people together to make and talk about art. He said that he promotes other artists because it helps elevate the Orlando art scene. If there is a vibrant art scene then that helps him. His reasoning is identical to the reasons I often give for why I report on the arts scene daily. It was Parkers Facebook announcements that had me out sketching at OLV and considering what a great time I had, I’m bound to want to go back. What artist wouldn’t?

Parker let me know that artists can get a cup of wine for free when they worked outside the restaurant. Now that is a true motivational perk! I ordered a tall glass of Pino Noir. It was sweet and tasty and helped keep the lines flowing. In all about eight artists set up and worked the evening I stopped by. A mom was out walking her toy dog with a girl friend and her two children. After they admired my sketch “It’s righteous”, they started talking about how they would have to come back. They liked the bohemian vibe of being around artists. The mom was being flirted with most of the evening. Her ten year old daughter took an interest in what I was doing and she wanted to play, so I gave her a sheet of paper and let her borrow a brush. She eventually filled the sheet with vibrant colors which is essentially what I was doing. Another artist hard at work.

Kelly Stevens,who organized Nude Nite each year, was there having dinner. She stopped over and thanked me for putting Nude Nite in my 2012 Event Calendar. We discussed the months of work that goes into the show and perhaps I will get to document the behind the scenes process more this year. inside at the bar, Todd Morgan and his wife, Laura were having a drink. Todd founded “Harmonious Universe” which does murals with the help of anyone willing to pick up a brush and help. I sketched the progress of a mural done in the beer garden behind the Milk Bar down in the milk district. I found out the restaurant was closed and that entire wall was white washed.

D.J. Mo’Negro was mixing music outside right next to the entrance. I was tapping my foot to the beat. Parker pointed out that one beat reminded him of “Time keeps Slipping Away.” Once I heard it, I couldn’t help but sing the lyrics out lout. Parker and I were both singing as we painted. Late in the evening the DJ started mixing frenetically. Parker shouted out, “Stop punching buttons!” The toy dog started barking at the D.J. He shouted back, “What?” He stopped the music and the barking stopped. Once he flipped the music back on, the dog started barking again. I shouted out, “Everyone’s a critic!” Shortly thereafter the D.J. started packing up.

January Artist’s Critique

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Parker Sketch organizes these monthly or bimonthly Artist Critiques at Barefoot Spa (801 Virginia Dr.) I was running a bit late. I parked a block away and walked down Virginia Drive away from Mills. Belly dancers were rehearsing in a dance studio. I almost had to stop but I was late, for a very important date. I could see from the street that Barefoot Spa was packed. People were standing in the doorway. Luckily, I had my own artist’s stool so I pushed to the front of the room and set my chair up in a corner right next to Parker. Ken Austin was sharing some of his more abstract watercolors and I got busy sketching. I had recently had a chance to meet Ken on a group trip out to the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Daytona Beach and then I bumped into him giving a demonstration a few days later at Crealde.

Paul Martin is the artist seated to the right in the sketch with a baseball cap and flip flops. He went to UCF in the 90’s and then went to Miami. The Miami arts scene is thriving but he felt he wasn’t making headway. He returned to Orlando where he is combining new medias with old media. He presented a painting of a Chinese flag on Plexiglas. When he traveled in China he took photos of any graffiti he could find. It was rare and hard to find. He scrawled this graffiti onto the Chinese flag painting. He plugged the painting in and three small video screens played footage of the American Flag waving in the wind. Someone in the room wondered if the video screens had been manufactured in China. There was an irony to the piece and an underlying social comentary. Paul pointed out that a client over time might decide that new video might be needed and this painting, like software could be upgraded for a price. China Flag 2.0. Love it. Everyone in the room was mesmerized. Americans can’t help but watch a video if it is playing. That in itself says something about our culture.

Matt Charlan is new to Orlando, having come from Boston. He presented a large painting of a smiling baby’s face. The face filled the canvas and was offset a bit to the right. Matt talked about how he liked to paint in the dark using just flashlights. For him the act of creation is meant to be a struggle. When he paints, he actually doesn’t look at the canvas. He has a video camera set up across the studio and he looks at a laptop computer to see the brush strokes he puts down. In a way he is a voyeur to his own process. He uses the cheapest house paint he can find along with pastels, white spray paint and fixatives. He started painting on uneven surfaces to heighten the effect of catching the video vantage point. While in Boston he painted a portrait of Steven Colbert on a couch. The portrait can only be seen from one vantage point. If you move, the image breaks up. A video was posted on YouTube and it got three million hits. That is huge, like instant viral fame! It gained him instant notoriety in the Boston Arts scene. Yet the couch never sold.

Art Critique

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Parker Sketch has organized a monthly critique group. I haven’t really gotten feedback on my work since I was in college. That is longer than I care to admit. The last session was held at the Barefoot Spa. I decided to bring a five foot panel that I had just started. All together 19 artists were slated to show their work. Seated in front of me was a woman named Loraine Del Wood. Her name was just Loraine Wood but someone told her, “Your name is so boring.” From then on she included her middle name for an exotic touch. When she discovered that I worked for Disney Feature Animation in the past, she told me about her animation background. She had worked as an inker and painter at Columbia screen Gems in the early years. Hand drawn animation was transferred to a clear acetate cell and then the character was painted on the back of the cell. She had worked on many animated characters. The one that stuck in my mind was Tubby the Tuba.

She loved animation and talked to different animators to learn their craft. She was told “Women don’t do animation.” Her husband worked on live action films so she left animation and assisted him on such films as Some Life it Hot, The Pink Panther and West Side Story. Her art fell to the wayside and she took a 40 year break from 1964 to 2004. She showed a series of paintings she did of women wearing black wide brimmed hats.

Painter Richard Colvin showed 2 paintings. One was of John Ashcroft standing in front of a statue which was partly draped. Ashcroft later insisted the statue be properly draped. He stopped doing this sort of political art since he felt he was preaching to the choir. In one year he experienced the grief of 11 deaths of family and friends. He started doing more traditional landscapes. He experienced a mad rush of creativity, doing 30 paintings in two months.

Marla E. Artist showed a large plaster base relief which was going to be used to cover a flat screen TV. The image was divided in two so it could be separated to display the TV. She wanted to sign up on Facebook as Marla E but it didn’t allow initials for a last name. Her occupation as artist was tagged on to her name. Facebook is the new Ellis Island, forcing name changes as people immigrate to the digital realm.

Evoke 365

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On the third Thursday of every month I like to go downtown to see what is new in the art gallery scene. My first stop was to see Parker Sketch who had his easle set up outside Nube Nove Salon in Thornton Park. He had three paintings he was ready to work on. One was of Bert and Ernie and another was of Jack Skelington. His easel was splattered with paint indicating it was well used. I really want to sketch Parker Sketch but he explained that he would be handing out business cards more than painting. Besides the sky was filling with dark storm clouds. I realized I should probably seek some cover before I started a sketch.

I walked to Blank Space where an event called “Blank Canvas” was taking place. Jon Glass Man Gardner was outside with a table full of vibrantly colored cans of spray paint. At a previous event he had asked to take a picture of my sloppy, overused watercolor palette. Greeting me, he said, “I wanted to challenge you with that limited palette you use.” Jon had spray painted a spiral design on one of Blank Spaces windows. He told me that Pine Street had been shut down near City Arts Factory. This was news to me and I assumed something big might need to be sketched.

The street outside City Arts Factory was indeed shut down. A food truck was parked waiting for costumers. A makeshift stage was in the middle of the street along with a large screen. It began to rain and people rushed to move the amplifiers, microphones and band equipment under cover. Between downpours, break dancers dried off a dance floor with rags. The rain returned with a vengeance however. A lightning bolt lit up the street and the thunder was so loud and sudden that a woman screamed in surprise. My line jumped.

Two drummers started performing under an awning. I was dry thanks to the same awning. A singer started shouting out the lyrics to the beat. A man sat next to me and started telling me of his life on the streets when he was an alcoholic. Since I was focused on the drawing, I only half heard his story. I assumed that in the end, he wanted change. When he turned to leave, I saw “Trust in God” was emblazoned on the back of his T-shirt.

The performers were part of Evoke Ministries. Evoke began in 2010 with ten artists who vowed to do one painting a day for 365 days. The artists prayed, fasted and asked for god’s direction as they pursued this artistic quest. They hoped their work might open a discussion on what faith means to this generation. They hoped to unveil the liberty, love and freedom of a life rooted in faith. The 1500 paintings, all executed on four inch square wooden panels was on display in the halls and galleries of the City Arts Factory. The paintings were simple and straightforward. Many relied on writing to express thoughts when images didn’t fully express an idea. “A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.” An image of a farmer sowing seeds read, “Sow love.” “Why http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnot a flood of love?” “Get your hand off your mouth… expose your flaws to someone you trust…be unbound and move forward.” Proverbs 28:13

I was inspired with the artists passions to express themselves, unfortunately their visual journey didn’t move or inspire me. Outside the rain continued. A small group of of people were clapping and swaying as a rapper made up devotional lyrics to the beat of a drummer. His rap was fun and inspired until the words got lost and jumbled, he choked. Everyone laughed and clapped encouragement. He dusted himself off and continued to sing.

Art Critique Group

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Once a month Parker Sketch invites 16 artists to gather to talk about art. Each artist is allowed 10 minutes to discuss their art or process. Then the other artists offer their opinions. For the August gathering the event was fully booked within a day. We all met at Barefoot Spa (801 Virginia Drive). There were deserts and drinks on a folding table and the room was filled with folding chairs.

As artists filtered in they were invited to place their work in a back room. Names were written on Parker Sketch business cards and then placed in a bowl. Cards were picked at random to decide who showed their work first. Les Jarvela introduced everyone as they arrived. He must have a photographic memory. I sketched Chauncey Nelson who displayed a round painting which had a variety of different sized white balls arranged on it. The piece reminded me of Urban planning. It envisioned to me a city of the future. Chauncy had shown a realistic painting at the last art critique I had attended so this seemed like a departure for him into new territory. He did the piece with the idea of exhibiting the round painting in a square show. He used tapioca for the smallest spheres. Ping pong balls and a few larger balls completed the piece. Everything was white. He was considering painting one small ball red and titling the piece, “Why me?” He pulled a small Christmas light crown out of his pocket and put it on one of the balls. He considered another title, “Balls cried the Queen!” Everyone laughed.

Patti Ballard showed several of her multi media paintings of wide eyed children. She incorporated collage elements in exciting and unexpected ways. For instance a beach scene had a grid pattern hidden under the ocean. The girl’s dress was an intricate fabric pattern. Seen up close this layering of elements really worked. The world she created had a solemn colorful sadness.

I showed some of my studies for the Mennello Museum mural and asked for advice on how to reproduce a watercolor sketch look to the large scale of the wall. There was a lively discussion on mediums and methods I could use to execute the work. I kept taking notes. Getting so much feedback this early in the process was exhilarating. I love that there is such a wide variety of work shown. Abstract artists offer new insight to representational artists and visa versa. Parker Sketch’s paintings were already on the walls and he brought in a couple of new pieces. He asked how he should market his work. A long lively discussion followed but ultimately everyone agreed that in the end the work should speak for itself.

It was late when the last artist showed their work. Parker invited the remaining artists to continue the discussion at a bar across the street. I decided I should get home. Terry was already asleep. I crawled into bed and she didn’t stir.