Buddy Dyer Official 2019 Campaign Kickoff

The 5th Buddy Dyer reelection Campaign Kickoff was held at The Abbey (100 S Eola Dr, Orlando, FL 32801). This was an invite only event, so I was happy Pam Schwartz the Chief Curator the the Orange County Regional History Center, invited me along. As we approached people were lined up at tables at the entrance signing paperwork presumably making donations to the campaign. Contributions are limited to $1,000 per person or entity. 

 Entering the venue, there was an immediate crush of humanity. People were shoulder to shoulder, and we pressed our way in, negotiating through narrow gaps in the crowd. We met a few friends and then I pressed towards the media area. Media TV cameras were set up at the back of the dance floor and there was no one on the dance floor so we crossed over to some some tables where I found a spot I could sit and sketch.

Rather than sketch the podium on stage, I decided to sketch the crowd behind the media. The Mayor’s speech was short and sweet, defining what is great about Orlando. He pointed out the divisiveness in political discourse today and reminded us that after the horror of the Pulse Nightclub massacre, we responded not with hate of anger, but with unity and love. It is a shame the rest of the country doesn’t learn something from what happened here in Orlando. The mayors address wasn’t more than 10 minutes long, although he joked about having  more pages of notes. He asked the crowd to shout out what they love about Orlando. I heard “soccer” to my left and then the multitude of shouts blended together. He said that he loves seeing families out enjoying the parks on the weekends and that Orlando is a great place to raise a family. Buddy has been instrumental in the development of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, and the new Lake Nona Community. In a list of the best cities to live in Orlando ranked 64th.

I finished up the painting as the crowd dispersed. When the Abbey started flashing the lights, I knew it was time to leave with the rest of the stragglers. Buddy has been in office for 16 years. So far Dyer’s re-election prospects have not drawn a major challenge.

Thai Festival

The Wat Florida Dhammaram Buddhist Meditation Center (2421 Old Vineland Road,
Kissimmee, FL
34746) hosted its 16th Annual Taste of Thailand Food Festival 2017. The event was a celebration full of fun and laughter, live entertainment and of course Yummy Thai Food, there were also displays of Thai culture, costumes and traditional Thai music.

 Pam and I quickly wandered through the event and I settled on sketching this group of musicians as they performed on traditional Thai instruments. The performer on the large string instrument in the foreground unfortunately left as soon as I started sketching and he never returned. Thai music was soothing and meditative.

Once the sketch was done Pam and I went about the serious business of trying the Thai food available. Unfortunate many vendors started running out of food, so we didn’t try everything. We watched as a chef prepared a purple Thai pancake dish. I probably should have sketched because the preparations took quite some time.

The meditation Center itself is gorgeous with intricately carved details covered in gold. It had rained earlier in the day. It turned out that the spot where I parked was a mud puddle. My tired spun, kicking up mud when I tried to back out. Pam pushed the car as I drove. We gently rocked forward and back multiple times until the tire was free.

The $12 ticket price is well worth it if you go early since it is all you can eat. Be aware however that the food can run out quickly.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for March 30 and 31. 2019

Saturday March 30, 2019

10am to 5pm Free. Fort Christmas Bluegrass and Backyard BBQ Fest. Fort Christmas Historical Park and Museum, 1300 Fort Christmas Road. Barbecue contest for best chicken and St. Louis pork-style ribs.

10am to 5pm Free. Community Chalk Art Festival. Carrabba’s Italian Grill, 5475 Gateway Village Cir Ste 103, Orlando, FL 32812. Community Chalk Art Festival Live chalk painting dedicated to the local community’s diversity.

11am to 7pm Free. Longwood Pirate Seafood Festival. Reiter Park, 301 W. Warren Ave., Longwood Fl. Filled with vendors, mermaids,
a pirate village, great music, a pirate ship for kids to climb and a
shark ride. An assortment of ocean delights are available, along with
beer and wine.

Sunday March 31, 2019

11am to 7pm Free. Arab Fest. Lake Eola Park, Eola Drive, North Eola Drive and East Robinson Street. Arab Fest Cultural heritage festival celebrating Arabic art, food and traditions.

7pm to 9pm Tickets are donation based. Waterfalls, Forests, Coastlines, and Other Musical Dreams. Timucua Arts Foundation 2000 S Summerlin Ave, Orlando, Florida 32806. Central Florida Composers Forum presents “Waterfalls, Forests,
Coastlines, and other Musical Dreams,” a concert of works by local
composers at Timucua White House, March 31.

Winter Park, Florida –
The Central Florida Composers Forum will present “Waterfalls, Forests,
Coastlines, and other Musical Dreams,” a showcase concert of selected
works scored for Pierrot Ensemble by Full Sail University composer and
Central Florida Composers Forum founder and Executive Director Charlie
Griffin, University of Central Florida’s recent transplant Alex Burtzos,
Orlando-based composers Erik Branch, Damien Simon, and film composer
and Cocoa Beach resident Joe Gray.

The term Pierrot Ensemble
refers to a specific instrumentation used by Austrian (and later
Austrian-American) composer Arnold Schoenberg for his seminal and most
famous work, Pierrot Lunaire. Composed in 1912 for voice, flute,
clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion, this combination was
subsequently taken up by many later composers such as Milton Babbitt,
John Cage, and Peter Maxwell Davies.

The musicians featured in
this concert will be Julie Bateman (voice), Katie Mess (flute), Erik
Cole (clarinet), Pepina Dell’Ollio (violin), Abigail Collins (cello),
Ammon Perry Bratt (piano), and Justin Steger (percussion).

A
diverse collection of works on the program include Charlie Griffin’s
Shifting Coastlines, a trio of songs whose lyrics are taken from an
anthology of poetry called Verse and Universe. These songs all draw upon
science and math to explore the human experience. One example from the
set is “Love’s Discrete Non-linearity,” a poem set like a Gypsy tango
that uses the language of Chaos Theory to understand a romantic
relationship. Selections from two works by Alex Burtzos will be on the
program: The Birth of Dangun, a ballet based on the Korean myth of
creation, and The Impossible Object, a multi-movement work inspired by
works of M.C. Escher. Four vignettes by Erik Branch will include a
premiere of his Brises Dansantes. The concert will be rounded out by Joe
Gray’s The Black Forest, and Damien Simon’s Change.

10pm to midnight. Free but get a coffee. Comedy Open Mic. Austin’s Coffee, 929 W Fairbanks Ave, Winter Park, Fl. Free comedy show! Come out and laugh, or give it a try yourself.

Mini CityArts

City Arts Orlando Celebrated its Grand Opening In The Historic Rogers Kiene Building In Downtown Orlando. The Downtown Arts District’s gallery marked the opening of its new location with a ribbon cutting with Orlando Mayor
Buddy Dyer
and Orlando City Commissioners. When Pam Schwartz and I arrived on the scene the gallery was too packed to get inside. Another artist, Jonathan Stemberger, was already set up across the street documenting the scene on a large yellow canvas. I have seen him at other events recording history much the way I do, so I was pleased to get a chance to meet him. He gave me his card, or so I thought. When I got home and took it out of my pocket, it turned out to be a sticker with a silhouette of a Jackal-ope on it.

I worked from the far corner to sketch the crowd pressing through the doors below the historic spire. While working, Gladiola Sotomayor shared with me photos she had taken of the mural we had worked on together that now hangs in the Orlando International Airport. I have been through the airport multiple time and not seen it yet. At sunset there is a golden column of light that shines down Pine Street only on the Rogers Kiene tower. It was exciting to see, and I splashed down some vibrant yellows and oranges in response.

With the sketch done, Pam and I went inside to explore. This building offers far less space than the former City Arts Factory a few blocks away. Artists still have to pay for the right to exhibit their work. Inside it was very crowded and the music was highly amplified. Violinist Michelle Jones performed all night. I admire how she is turning the violin into a hip pop instrument.


I was most curious about the new gallery space upstairs that had formerly been a screening room for films. The stadium seating had been removed to open up the room. I have seen and sketched so many amazing performances in that space over the years, so it will be missed by me. Now it was filled with artwork created by patients in the Integrative Medicine department at Orlando Health. The program is called Arts in Medicine. I sketched Andrea Canny who was part of a similar program funded by LIVESTRONG. A dancer was in the center of the room, so it was impossible to get close to any of the paintings on display. 

The hall ways upstairs are narrow and a woman knocked into several paintings causing them to slip on their hooks, almost falling off the wall. Another woman slammed her hand against the canvas saving it from slipping further. Together they righted the canvases. Across from them, Heisenberg, from Breaking Bad glared, his portrait covered in blue crystals of Meth.

 Though there might not have been enough space, the people who love visual arts spilled out into the street.

Program Announcement Party

The 28th annual Florida Film Festival pass and package holders as well as other festival supporters gathered for this kickoff event featuring the announcement of all films, events, and special guests selected for the 2019 Florida Film Festival. The big announcement was that actress Nichelle Nichols best known for her role as Lieutenant Uhura on the original Star Trek series would be featured in the opening night’s film titled Women in Motion. Back in the 60s when Star Trek aired it was unheard of for a black woman to featured as a senior member of a crew. After leaving the bridge, she saw a film about the space program that featured all white men. She wondered why there were no women of color in the space program. She spoke to people in charge and ended up becoming the single most influential figure in the recruitment of women and minorities in the filed of space exploration.

The Blair Witch Project was made in 1999 with a budget of $25,000. The premise of the film was that the film makers hiked in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland
to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair
Witch. The three disappeared, but their equipment and footage was
discovered a year later. The purportedly “recovered footage” was the film
the viewer saw. I first saw the Blair Witch Project at the Enzian. The Blair Witch Project grossed nearly $250 million worldwide on a modest budget of $60,000, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time. The Cast and Crew will be returning to the Enzian for an evening to see and discuss the making of the film.

This year the Oscar for the best film went to a film made for Netflix. This might be an indication that audiences have a growing taste for independent films. The Florida Film Festival is an Oscar qualifying film festival. So for the independent film creators, this is an important step in their film’s journey.

Following the announcement, trailers were screened. This year there are more films by women filmmakers than ever before. Pam Schwartz wrote comments for each film so we knew what the best films to see might be. Her choices included,  

Chef’s Diaries: Scotland, food travel.

Dachra, Investigative reporting about witchcraft.

Dog in the Woods, a magic universe dog.

All is True, Shakespeare’s biography and finding his voice after retirement.

The Biggest Little Farm, a couple on a farm faced the hardships of nature.

General Magic, an early computer company dreamed of the pocket cell phone and was ripped off by Apple.

Tungrus, was a hilarious short about a rooster terrorizing a family home in Mumbai.

Of the animated shorts, I liked,

Sister, about memories of an annoying sister. I incorporated this film into my sketch.

Hybrids, looked like  gorgeous epic about life in the ocean with crabs wearing bottle top helmets.

Cerulia, a creepy Burtonesque film.

Beginning April 13, 2019 the Festival will screen 180 films over 10 days. Festival passes and individual tickets for the film Festival are on sale now. It will be 10 days of Film, Food and Friends.

Florida Blog Con

At the 2017 Florida Blog Con, “Rowdy” Gaines was the key note speaker. Ambrose “Rowdy” Gaines, was an American former competitive swimmer, U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame member, three-time Olympic gold medalist, and member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He is locally born being from Winter Haven Florida.

His talk about how every moment of his training led up to a single defining moment in his life. From 1978 to 1984, Gaines set ten world records. He was considered a
favorite to win multiple gold medals at the 1980 Olympics. At the time
he was the world record holder in the 100-metre and 200-metre
freestyles.
That moment to shine however slipped through his hands when the United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. “I felt physically at my peak in 1980—and mentally up, too. It was tough, really tough. I had the chance for four golds.” To cap off his story, he handed off a gold metal and had it passed around the audience. I can say that is the only time in my life that I have held a gold metal.

In August 1991, Gaines was temporarily paralyzed with Guillain–Barré syndrome, which is is a rapid-onset muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system.
After a two-month hospitalization, he experienced a surprising full
recovery attributed largely to his superb physical condition as a
competitive swimmer. He eventually regained world-class times and, at
the age of 35, became the oldest swimmer to qualify for the trials for
the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Ultimately, he chose not to compete in the trials for the 1996
Olympics but instead continued his career as a television commentator,
covering swimming for NBC at the Games.

It was an inspiring story of perseverance and finding new directions and goals through the various stages of life. My own life is going trough seismic shifts and I am desperate to find full time work to make ends meet here in Orlando. Hopefully hard work and perseverance will someday pay off. The ship never comes to harbor, you have to swim out to it. Opportunities abound if you just keep swimming.

The 2019 Florida Blog Con will be on September 7at Full Sail University. Tickets are $50 – $70.

ADSR-Squared

City Arts Factory is about to move into the former Avalon Art Gallery space (39 S Magnolia Ave, Orlando, Florida 32801.) Chris Belt took over The In between Series from Patrick Greene, the former gallery promoter at Avalon Island. Chris wanted to add his own touch to the series and decided to ask artists from different disciplines to work together. Pulled together Elizabeth A. Baker a modern electronic sound composer, and Voci Dance.

ADSR-Squared was a multi-movement interdisciplinary structured improvisation work for dance and sound. Evolved from the traditional spatial and sonic relationship of a fixed media track behind dancers, the piece blurred the line between music makers and movers, creating an immersive experience for both performers and audience.

I decided to sketch from the side lines but was afraid the wall I backed my artist stool against might be in the way of some part of the dance routine. I went back stage quickly to check with choreographer Genevieve Bernard to be sure I wasn’t blocking anyone.

The Voci dancers brought a playful aspect to the evening. They interacted with speakers, holding them to their ears and moving to the beat. When they began using small musical instruments, one dancer became possessive and would not share the instrument she came to love. The dancing wasn’t limited to the stage area. Dancers moved in and around the audience as well.

One dancer sat next to me for the longest time. I began to wonder if she was an understudy, but she was only waiting for her moment to shine when she began her solo. Ausin Texas has the saying, “Keep Austin Weird.” The In Between Series is doing its part to “Keep Orlando Weird.”

The Shasta Trailer

Traveling to Austin Texas, Pam and I decided to stay in a Shasta Trailer parked in someone’s garage. It was an affordable option that felt like a camping adventure. There was a shower in the backyard where a few chickens wandered. In this sketch, Pam is making breakfast. Behind her is the bathroom which was the one flaw of the trailer. I couldn’t get in and out of the bathroom without bonking my head. It was also too tight for me to stand to lift my underwear back up, so I would have to crawl out of the bathroom and then shimmy my skivvies back into place.

This trailer also promised several bicycles but they weren’t working. We ended up taking Ubers wherever we wanted to go instead. On a whole however, this tiny trailer was the perfect place to explore Austin from. The host offered plenty of suggestions for restaurants and venues to explore. Austin’s restaurants are strangely loud and always crowded. It is as if the louder a restaurant is the more crowed it becomes. We tried several Texas BBQ joints to see how Texas compares to Central Florida BBQ. My humble taste buds could not differentiate. I would need a blind taste test side by side.

Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival

This was the 60th Annual Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival. I arrived on the first day to do a quick sketch. I entered by the rose garden and realized that it was the perfect spot to slow down and observe before entering the tight crowded walkways.College girls took selfies in front of the iconic peacock statue. One girl must have shot over 50 photos of herself in her constellation pattern skirt.

The first local artist I saw was Robert Ross but I never did find his tent. There are so many paths set up with wood chips through the park that I suspect I must have missed a few aisles. Someone walking the event was on his cell phone was saying to a friend, ” It’s 9 to 5 or some mess like that.” I always like seeing the quirky work of Ed Myers who integrates hidden digital phones and tablets into his creations to add blinking eyes to some paintings.

There was a hand made book binder that intrigued me. It reminds me that I should create my own sketchbooks if I want to work on paper that I love in the size that suits me. I have never found just the right sketchbook for my work. I make due with what I can find mass produced.

Local artist Mathew Cornell had a booth on Park Avenue. He creates small and incredibly realistic oil paintings. I like that he doesn’t crowd his booth with tons of work. He just had a few paintings appropriately spaces like in a gallery. The painting on display were called roadside attractions being from his travels across the country. He is trying to relate what America means to him as an artist.

There was also fashion accessories, photography, mixed media, ceramics, metal, leather, jewelry, digital art, fiber, glass, clay and sculptures. It was a chance to see a wide variety of art as inspiration. Of course it is illegal to sketch on Park Avenue in Winter Park. I hoped that the city ordinance had been rescinded for the duration of the festival. I also knew that Central Park is considered a safe zone, where freedom of expression is permitted.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for March 23 and 24

Saturday March 23, 2019

8 AM to 1 PM Free. Parramore Farmers Market. The east side of the Orlando City Stadium, across from City View. Purchase quality, fresh and healthy food grown in your own
neighborhood by local farmers, including Fleet Farming, Growing Orlando,
and other community growers.

10 PM to Midnight $18  Corsets and Cuties: Lady Jaimz Bday Show. Theater West End, 115 W 1st St, Sanford, FL 32771. A little song, a little dance, maybe a Cutie in your lap. Unexpected fun and surprises await!

Lovely ladies and some not-so-gentle men sing, dance, and take their clothes off all for your entertainment pleasure! Whether you’re celebrating with the one you love or out on the prowl, the Cuties are ready for ya! Guest stars, and special treats from sponsor Premier Couples Superstore – you can be sure of a fantastic night out!

NOTE: The show is intended for adult audiences, as it contains adult content and nudity. 

10:30 PM to 12:30 AM Buy some food and drink. Son Flamenco. Ceviche Tapas Orlando, 125 W Church St, Orlando, FL. 

Sunday March 24, 2019

10 AM to Noon. Free. Heartfulness Relaxation and Meditation Class. University, 5200 Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL 32811. The Method of Heartfulness A simple and practical way to experience the heart’s unlimited resources. 

1 PM to 4 PM Free, $5 onsite parking. Florida Cowboy Heritage Day Family Open House. Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens, 633 Osceola Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789. Cattle Culture Arts Crafts demonstration historical presentations cowboy poetry live indoor painting hands on art activities.

2 PM to 4 PM Free but get a coffee. Irish Music. Olivia’s Coffee House, 108 N Bay St, Eustis, FL.