Artists Process

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Each month Urban Rethink (625 E Central Blvd • Orlando, FL), invites artists to show their work, and discuss their process. A computer was set up s that the first artist, Bob Snead, could share his work with us from New Orleans via a Google + video chat. The computer screen was projected on a screen so everyone in the room could see. The problem was that no one knew how to get the Google chat to work. Pat Greene started asking everyone who entered the event if they knew how to work the program. Finally someone did mess with the settings and Bob’s face filled the screen. Bob does representational that is autobiographical and often funny. For instance one self portrait had, “My father gave my mother syphilis.” written on it. Bob couldn’t see all of us as he showed his work and if we weren’t laughing, he couldn’t be sure we were still there.

Some of Bob’s art is performance oriented. He once staged a “Pro Wall mart” demonstration. With Clark Allen, he set up a toilet paper roll assembly line in which everything was made from cardboard. A cardboard pickup truck was displayed in a gallery. He later had to abandon the truck leaving in in a public space. A week later it was mangled beyond recognition.

 The second artist was Kevin Paul Giordano,  who is a writer, journalist, musician, photographer, and filmmaker. He began his career as a writer in New York City, publishing in the New York Times, New York Post, New York Sun, Salon.com, among others. He also worked as an editor at such magazines as Vanity Fair, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, Vibe, Spin, among others. His musical-play “It Must Be Love” appeared on Off-Off Broadway in 2002. He has received grants from Glenville State College, West Virginia for research on a book on the American Rust Belt. The grant offered him a car and a camera, so he set out to document an abandoned part of US history.

He screened a half hour documentary that explained the history of Rust Belt cities like Paterson, New Jersey. My father worked in Paterson, New Jersey his whole career, so I was fascinated to learn the city’s unique history. The city was founded by Alexander Hamilton, and his Society of Useful Manufacturers, to be a manufacturing mecca. Steam locomotives were built here as the nation pushed west. Then the city turned to silk weaving using the power generated by water from the Paterson falls. An intricate system of canals moved water to all of the manufacturing plants. In the 1960’s Rayon eliminated the need for silk. Much of this countries deindustrialization happened in the 1970s. Today all those plants sit empty and abandoned. More than 25% of the people in such abandoned cities are below the poverty line. The story is much the same for each Rust Belt city Kevin photographed.

There is a beauty in the way the rusting decay is being taken over by nature. Railroad lines lead nowhere with weeds and grass disguising the rails. Pealing paint creates intricate patterns and some tools remain where they were last used decades ago. Today we live in a computer society that fosters the free exchange of ideas. This free exchange doesn’t always make people money. By looking back, Kevin helps us look forward so we all can change and adapt.

Sunday Afternoon Improv

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Sunday January 27th I went to Urban ReThink,(625 East Central Blvd, Orlando FL) for Sunday Afternoon Improv. I didn’t check the invite closely and I thought I was going to sketch some comedians. Patrick Greene and Jim Ivy introduced the event which will be happening quarterly. Jim explained that the theme of the show was, “Of the Earth”. Musical sounds would be created with natural objects like stone, wood, water or metal. Jim was the first to perform. He sat on stage in the retro 60’s chair and opened his laptop. The laptop generated sounds and then he began to play what looked like a Frankenstein altered clarinet that had a long PVC body. Perhaps it was a flute played with a reed mouth piece.

All of the performances were improvised and experimented with found objects. At one point a pizza pan was amplified. Dan Reaves performed second followed by Christopher Flavo and A.J. Haring. Just about everyone in the audience was a musician.

Daniel Gruda experimented with pots and pans and a tea kettle. The whole time he adjusted an electronically generated tone using a foot pedal and tons of wires. A skull decorated his microphone. With a second sketch finished, I decided I should get home. As I left, more speakers were being loaded out of a car. In all the improv went on for a good four hours.

Collide-Scope

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Individuals from various backgrounds collide to confront a community challenge in this signature bi-monthly event at Urban Rethink (625 E Central Blvd • Orlando, FL). Anna McCambridge Thomas started these creative, think outside the box community awareness sessions. I attended the December 10th session. The ten or so individuals sat in a circle to share ideas. In the past, small teams were set up to consider creative solutions to our community’s problems. Unfortunately, there were some clashes of will among participants in one team, so adjustments to the format had to be made moving forward. This session was an open discussion for all that showed up.

 Each challenge will address an issue that is mainly social in nature,
and will focus on our community, but can be adjusted to a broader (even
global) scope in its presentation. The challenge will be announced at
the beginning of each corresponding event. These events are not meant to
solve issues within one week’s time, but to open an interesting,
informed, creative and honest dialogue. It is also meant to promote a
more healthy, vibrant and livable community, and to bring together
people who might not have otherwise met or collaborated. (This includes
both the selected participants and the individuals who join in as
audience members.) Perhaps a spark will ignite in the mind of a visitor
who will help to continue the project, or create something new based on
an idea within it.

One group was assigned the task of considering the homeless problem. They noted that many homeless in Orlando still have cell phones. They came up with the notion of assigning a homeless person a QR code. The homeless person could ask a passer by to scan the QR code and an information page would inform the person on how to donate to a food pantry. Terry Olson talked about an Urban Artist who did a mural under a highway overpass. I didn’t see the art, but it apparently livened up an otherwise dreary area. The city deemed the art to be graffiti and they did a sloppy white wash over it. Now the overpass is more dismal than ever. Terry is looking into ways to make it easier for artists to get permits for public art. Utility boxes are being painted by artists. The artists are only given $100 for supplies and that is their sole commission for the job. It is no wonder that many of those decorated boxes look like they were painted by amateurs. One box on Mills Avenue near the Orange Studio does make me laugh, it reads… “The end was here!”

There Will Be Words

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On December 11th, I went to the final installment of “There Will be Words” for 2012 at Urban ReThink, (625 East Central Boulevard, Orlando).  Officially it was the end of the second year of these monthly readings by local authors. Jesse Bradley was the host.  The authors who read this month were,

Hunter Choate,
Rachel Kolman,
Jonathan Kosik,
and Leslie Salas

Flirt. 

I sketched from my perch on the second floor balcony.  I liked Jonathan Kosik’s story titled “Pensacola.” The story told was of pristine sand beaches turned into hazardous sites by thick merciless oil from a spill in the Gulf. Men in hazmet suits worked tractors that pushed the black sand up and down the beachfront.  Lifeguard stations stood empty. As the well spilled into the Gulf, the narrator tried to reach his wife by phone. There were irreconcilable differences. Lawyers sent papers that needed signing. 223 calls had been made. “A long drawn out period of litigation, mixed with harassment charges, would only delay the cleanup of what had turned into an ugly situation.” Experts believe the Gulf might restore itself in 50 years. For those who lived through the damage, the loss would last a lifetime.

On display at ReThink was a black dress on a manikin made entirely of plastic garbage bags.  The plastic was folded into ornate roses that decorated the bust and lower skirt of the dress. Dina Mack pointed out that the dress had a zipper in back and, if you were thin enough, you could wear it. I imagine it would get rather hot especially in the Florida sun. The International Academy of Design and Technology assigned groups of students to design the dresses. They were on display at various Thornton Park businesses. The schools slogan is “You imagine, we get you there.”

The next “There Will be Words” will be on February 12th at Urban ReThink. Authors mingle around 6PM and the readings begin around 7PM. You never know what stories might surface or sink beneath the black waves.

Art and Process

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On November 14th, I went to Urban ReThink to hear artists Brian Phillips, Dina Mack and Tory Tepp talk about their Art and Process. Dina Mack lead off showing her work from inception to today. She worked in the beginning by doing collages. Her work later matured and become austere in its simplicity and abstraction. She did an instillation in which she froze written documents in ice and then let them melt in the gallery. For the Corridor Project, she had a series of cloth napkins which she used to blot her lipstick. She vividly remembers her grandmothers perfume, so she scented the fabric. The lipstick stained napkins were an autobiographical look back at memories she had of her mother and grandmother.  Her grandmother used to give her a butterscotch candy if she sat still in church. The sound of the wrapper still brings back the memory, so she filled a vintage purse with butterscotch wrappers. The ephemeral installation was installed on the lawn of the Mennello Museum for only a few days. The sense of smell is only now being researched. Apparently all the Marriott hotels in the country use the same perfumed cleaning products. A scent can trigger many vivid memories. Much of Dina’s work speaks in a whisper, implied, like a scent on a breeze.

Tory Tepp is now a resident artist at the Atlantic Center of the Arts in Daytona Beach. He began his career as an artist doing traditional paintings. He hit a wall where he felt painting didn’t have any meaningful place in today’s society. He stagnated, not knowing where to go as an artist. Then he started planting seeds and growing a garden outside his Los Angeles studio. This garden helped him feel more connected to the people in his neighborhood. He started using abandoned shopping carts as planters. This evolved into Urban art with a taste of nature. An installation at a college consisted of a series of grass covered dirt mounds that acted as a natural place to meet, lie back relax and mingle. He is now working on a similar installation as part of his Atlantic Center of the Arts residency. With any luck, I’ll get out there to sketch the work in progress.

Brian Phillips showed his illustrative work. He has a whole series of paintings of house fires illuminating the night sky. He has some of his paintings hanging at Urban ReThink now. One piece in particular caught my eye. It was a painting of a stone arrowhead with a bold flat backdrop. This simple image implies much about the violence of survival. That image lingers. Brian didn’t claim any deep rooted underlying themes to his work. For the people intent on finding hidden meanings, he did a painting of a house fire and diagrammatically circled some embers. The diagram pointed to a bird, leaf and phone. It was pure nonsense. He paints because he loves the process.

I’ll be giving a talk on my art and process this Wednesday December 12th from 7PM to 9PM at Urban Rethink, (625 E Central Blvd  Orlando, FL, 32801). Rick Jones will be presenting, discussing and displaying his works on the ReThink wall, along with photographer Hannah Glogower. Stop by and say hi.

Art Reach Orlando

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At Urban ReThink, Brendan O’Connor started telling me about several mural projects he is helping spearhead.  He spoke excitedly about a mosaic mural that was in the planning stages in Apopka. Migrant workers were being asked to contribute items that came with them when they moved to Florida. QR codes and micro chips might also be embedded in the mosaic so that anyone with a smart phone could scan the mural and listen to interviews and history behind the items. He then invited me to Corner Lake Middle School in Bithlo the next day to sketch the beginning stages of a mural being started there. Christie Miga is the artist in residence who created the mural image.

When I arrived, the hallway was crowded with kids. Two young girls were tracing lines on an image projected on the wall.  The rest of the kids were sitting in the hall doing their homework or playing tag. Brendan O’Connor quickly introduced me to everyone. Brendan and Sarah Zimmer work for Art Reach Orlando as project managers. Marsha Selby is a teacher from the school. She’s a science teacher that does art on the side in her own free time since the school doesn’t offer it. Unfortunately the traffic on Colonial Drive got me to the school about half an hour late. All the kids were packing up to get back home.

I decided to try and get a sketch anyway. Do to a minor glitch, Christie needed to readjust the image.  Those adjustments gave me time to finish my sketch. Sarah and Brendan helped her make all the adjustments.  The work went quickly now that the hall was quiet. I remember similar adjustments had to be made the first day I had students help me with the Mennello Museum Mural. I asked them to cover the wall with pencil grid lines every foot. I went inside the museum to sketch several people for the mural. When I came back out, I  found the grid started out good but then the grid lines arched upward by the time they got to the other end of the wall.

Christie Miga’s mural image was developed in Illustrator on the computer. She explained that they were just projecting the background elements today. Later other elements will be layered on top. The image to start had large arching shapes that looked like hillsides. Time will tell what the final image looks like. Christie wanted to keep the image simple to start.

Functionally Literate

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November 3rd was the inaugural episode of Functionally Literate held at Urban ReThink. The quarterly events aims to connect, entertain and enlighten Orlando’s growing community of writers, book club nerds and culturally curious. Each event will feature a visiting author along with thee talented local writers. The series is organized by Burrow Press and The Jack Kerouac Project. When Terry and I entered, a bit late, the place was packed. Large holiday lights were strung from the balcony creating a festive canopy over the audience. For some reason people were shy about sitting in the front row so we scored two front row seats.

Jared Silvia introduced the series and pointed out that Don Pomeroy‘s debut book, Wally, published by Burrow Press last month was available. Don Pomeroy thanked the book jacket illustrator Brian Phillips who had his work on display in the back of the room.  Summer Rodman and Rachel Kapitan then introduced Catlin O’Sullivan who is the resident novelist at the Kerouac House through the end of the month.  Catlin is working on a historical novel called The Kiss Off, involving a gangster on the lamb. She prefixed her reading by letting us know that a petite waitress had rented a room to the gangster. She went out with him one evening and things went from good to very bad. Upon returning home, she heard a raccoon in her attic. She went up to the attic with a hammer in her hand. What followed might upset any readers that despise cruelty to animals so I will end the scene there. If you want to read more, follow this link…

Susan Lilly read some wonderful poems. One was about a summer where she had to go to a camp where she was force fed sermons. A field trip to a rock concert exhilarated her to the point where she said, “If I had been a boy, I would have had a hard on.” She and her friend got in trouble for separating from the group. The other authors were John Henry Fleming and Don Peteroy. A reading versed in old English biblical phrasing told the story of Christ trying to win a basketball game to impress two girls. A large pad was flipped with the verses but the moderator unfortunately blocked my view. The audience would periodically respond with an Amen. It was funny but in time felt forced. Don’s story began to discuss how messy and gutturally funny human sexuality is when it is real. I will not even try to describe the slick, wet, messy, smelly and noisy details.

Afterwards, a large group of us went to The Wine Room a few blocks west of ReThink for some flat bread pizza and drinks. That morning the Kerouac Project had a garage sale that made over $1,400 which will keep the Artist residence running through the end of the year. There was plenty of laughter and barbed conversation to end the night.

Hippocrene Saxaphone Quartet

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On November 8th at 7PM The Accidental Music Festival kicked off with performances by the Hippocrene Saxophone Quartet at Urban ReThink (625 E Central Blvd, Orlando). The first pieces were solos titled, Calling and Cradle written by Jay Batzner and Alexis Bacon. George Weremchuk on soprano saxophone and Scott Devlin stood behind music stands on stage during their solos. I ended up sketching them again when they sat with the rest of the quartet.

Composer Stella Sung introduced her Tropicana Suite after a brief intermission. She explained that the piece was written for the Prism Quartet. She dedicated the piece to a friend and co-worker named Stephen Levinson who passed away. Stephen collected blue bottles which were quite beautiful in the way the refracted light. She wrote Blue Bottles Groove based on that collection.

The final piece, titled, We Are Star Stuff Harvesting Star Light featured a guest artist, Pandit Nandkishor Muley on the tabla drums. The music had an ephemeral peaceful quality. The Accidental Music Festival has one more performance featuring, Eladio Scharrón and Carrie Wiesinger performing Latin American works for flute and guitar including Cronicas Del Discubrimiento by Roberta Sierra, Fantasia by Inocente Carreño, and Histoire du Tango by Astor Piazzola. Concert begins today Sunday November 11th at 3pm @ The Timucua White House (200 South Summerlin) .

Gloria Steinem

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Gloria Steinem gave a talk at Urban ReThink on October 19th at three in the afternoon. Gloria is a well known and respected feminist who founded MS Magazine. I arrived an hour early to be sure I got a good vantage point to sketch from. Police were on hand to make sure that Urban ReThink didn’t exceed the maximum allowance for attendees. As people settled into their chairs, I sketched.

Gloria’s talk mostly centered on encouraging people to vote. She said that the Richard Nixon presidential champagne was the first to discourage voters by portraying the government as corrupt. The fewer people voted, the better chance he had of winning. Gloria heard stories from people who had trouble getting to polling station,. Buses ran late and police cars blocked access to some poling stations. This tended to happen in under privileged neighborhoods. She highlighted Romney’s positions when it came to women’s health. She then outlined how women’s health issues had been controlled throughout history. The American Indian women knew about contraception using herbs and careful lunar timing to only conceive a child when the season was right. When the settlers arrived, the Indians referred to the European women as “those who die in child birth.” Today she feels that poor women are supposed to get pregnant as often as possible to supply young soldiers for the army.

Gloria pointed out the importance of gathering together to discuss common causes. Although we are supposed to be more interconnected than ever thanks to social media like Facebook and Twitter, you get more out of groups coming together. In the question and answer session a young man got choked up as he spoke passionately about a cause he believed in. Gloria pointed out that everyone in the room felt that passion, not just from his words but from every aspect of his presence. There is an electricity that comes from community gatherings like this. She encouraged everyone to mingle after her talk. You might meet a friend or find someone passionate about the same cause. Anything is possible and a single voice can make a difference. Vote.

Flash Spooktacular Spoken Word #2

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I went to Urban ReThink, (625 E Central Blvd, Orlando), on October 9th, for readings by local authors.This edition of There Will Be Words featured eight writers reading horror stories or ghost stories that are 500 words or less. The event is held on the second Thursday of every month starting at 7PM.  Jesse Bradley was the moderator so I sketched him since he stepped up to the mic between readings. 500 words fly by mighty fast when you are sketching. Authors included, Karen Best,
Teege Braune,
Arnie Ellis,
Brendan Earl,
Whitney Hamrick,
Sam Lamura,
Rafael Lancelotta, and
Michael Pierre. John Hurst, a former Disney Feature Animation colleague, entered the event wearing a knitted beard and mustache. Walked up to a redheaded man with a beard and cap. They looked like twins. Everyone laughed as they posed for pictures together.

A small iPhone was on a tripod recording the authors. Some stories were funny while others were downright gory. One author imagined what it was like to be eaten alive. In this agonizing moment, he hoped they wouldn’t ruin his looks making it hard for him to pick up zombie chicks. One of the more horrifically truthful stories was written a half hour before the event. The author went back into his family history to talk about an uncle who was murdered by a male lover. There was little consequence for the crime. Handmade, limited edition chapbooks featuring prose from each
night’s readings are sold on site for $5 to support the event and its
authors. Burrow Press will soon be selling 5 box sets of the There Will Be
Words’ first year of chapbooks, all copies signed by the authors, as a
fundraiser for future book projects.  After the event, John invited me out with his red headed buddy for some Mexican food. My sketch was done, and I felt I should get home, so I thanked him for inviting me, and then slipped away into the night.