Nude Nite Orlando was held at the Central Florida Fairgrounds on February 14-16. Pam Schwartz and I went on Valentines day, the opening night. I wanted to go nice and early to sketch before the place got really crowded. A ticket at the door is $35 and I didn’t have that much cash on hand. We had to get cash from a cash machine in the parking lot. Note that the bar a Nude Nite also only accepts cash. I didn’t get a drink since I was sketching the whole time I was there.
Nude Nite feels so much smaller than past years. It was at the fairgrounds last year as well, but I didn’t sketch because I got the dates wrong. My feeling walking around the event was that the event had grown smaller in scale. I have to say however that artists were just setting up for the night. I quickly decided to sketch Mandi Ilene Schiff as she was body painting. She was set up right in the middle of the warehouse which offered easy sketching access. She was painting a tiger face on they model’s chest. The color she added was a greenish glitter paint.
An art installation by Aubry Roemer consisted of a long roll of white paper on the floor. He painted nude models with blue paint and had them lie on the white paper to create body prints. He then also outlined the prints with large blue brush strokes. He also wore a mask although I am not sure why. A coffin with a plastic skeleton was set up. The premise was that guests could write notes on pages from a book and then put them in the coffin. The notes would be burned after Nude Nite. I suppose that burning negative thoughts could be a form of therapy.
As we were getting ready to leave, one performer, Sarah Jade, languidly hung from the ceiling with an aerial sling. She did splits and spun. When her routine was finished she gracefully floated down to the floor as if weightless. Performances were just beginning.
My favorite art was simple nude sketches on some form of Mylar. They were on sale for only $150. On the far wall behind Mandi was a huge photo mosaic for about $5000. A woman arched her back as if the Pieta. Another similar mosaic had lots of Bambi fawns. I lost interest since performances didn’t get under way until after 9pm. We decided to go out for dinner to finish off the Valentines evening. We went to Phò Vinh (657 N Primrose Drive Orlando Fl 32803) and I had Bún Càri Gà which is a delicious soup with rice vermicelli with chicken in a coconut curry broth. It was sooooo good, the highlight of the evening.