SECAC: Life Disruptions as Opportunities for Artistic Growth, Session II

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The SECAC Chair for Life Disruptions as Opportunities for Artistic Growth, Session II was Stella Arbeláez Tascón who earned her Masters degree in Studio Art from the University of Central Florida. I attended the first session the previous day and learned so much about how artists live through seismic life changes and use that change to fuel their art.

Steven Pearson from McDaniel College gave a talk titled, Pandemic Pivot: Teaching, Practice, and a Return to Representation. My own art had gone through a huge pivot during the worst of the COVID pandemic, so this talk was high on my list of sessions I needed to attend.

Steven’s early work representational with splashes of abstraction mixed in. Someone reviewing his work wondered when the artist would take the dive and work purely in abstraction. That comment lead Steve to venture into the world of abstraction.

Then the Pandemic hit and he found himself isolated in the studio. He read a book that said and artist should focus on their environment. He started doing detailed depictions of his studio and domestic life. He did a detailed sketch of an interior wall and then would go outside and do a view of the same wall from outside. Abstraction was abandoned as he worked to truly document his surroundings.

The representational work grew larger and he used historical allegories to depict domestic life when his family moved to the suburbs. He noticed a neighbor obsessively mowed his lawn several times a week and so he depicted himself in battle as a weekend warrior. One painting depicted him going up a staircase on a mission with a vacuum to clean his son’s room. He loved the humor in the allegorical painting but his son didn’t appreciate it.

Steve had a triptych of three very large painting in the SECAC Juried Exhibition.  All three depicted on scene of an above ground pool with a deck around it. In the first panel on the left the artist depicted himself blowing up an inner tube with a pile of inflated inner tubes beside him. The center panel depicted his daughter sitting on the deck with her legs out over the pool which was now covered. An inner tube which was inflated in the first panel came into this scene deflated. The right panel depicted his wife standing in a swimsuit straining leaves from the pool surface. This painting was done as the family was being pulled apart by divorce. The center panel felt lonely and desolate as the parents worked their separate chores far from each other.

Anna Vic Webb from the University of Central Florida gave a talk titled, Growing from Myself: Abstracting Self Portraiture as a New Framework of Visual Language for Abject Experiences and Ingrained Emotions. He talk was about what it is like to live with ADHD as an artist and how that framed her view of herself and the world. Many of her works are self portraits in a world that is distorted wit a fish eye perspective and vibrant colors. The eyes are often very expressive and piercing. In one she depicted herself seated on the floor holding her legs in a fetal position. Her concerned eyes were huge staring straight at the viewer. The hair on her legs became a vibrant expressive tangle. Creating with ADHD could feel fractured but it could also be a superpower as hyper focus leads to very productive periods of creation.

Having ADHD lead to periods of self-harm with chain smoking and putting herself in harmful situations. On painting showed her walking alone on a beach with blood red waves crashing on the shore. A full moon illuminated the scene and a shadow hinted that someone was about to block her way. There was a quiet menace to the scene.

What was most inspiring was how her art grew as she found new ways to live with and harness the power of having ADHD. The final piece that she showed was a huge departure from the other work. It still had vibrant colors, but the portrait was less warped and more polished. There are exciting possibilities as she continues to explore.

The final speaker was Kayla Lehman from Georgia Southern University, with her talk titled, Obsessive Compulsive Disruption: How OCD Has Impacted My Creative Practice. Kayla created a video game that depicted what it is like to get up pin the morning and find it impossible to get out the door while experiencing OCD.In the game the character went to the bathroom, and every task had to be obsessively scrutinized. The character would reach for a doorknob and then stop as multiple choices flashed up to once again wash hands or consider another task. Every task would have multiple choices about what should be done but ultimately there was no escape the character would never leave the room.

Her life impacted by OCD also lead to her creating a short CGI animated film. In the film people other than the lead character were depicted as having heads that were just an eyeball encased in black eye lids. The character had a dark cloud always on her shoulder which caused self doubt and an inability to find friends. Only when she realized that everyone else also had dark clouds did she begin to find friends. The clouds slowly became less opaque as she socialized.

The entire Life Disruptions as Opportunities for Artistic Growth session was so inspiring. All artists have their demons and need to find ways to silence doubts and create.

SECAC: Art of the Gilded Age in America

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On my second day at SECAC, I arrived a bit late and grabbed a quick bite in the central social room before heading downstairs. Stella P. Alberaéz Tascón was the chair of a session that would be happening n several hours. She had to sit down and write up an introduction. As she did that, I wandered across the hall and poked my head into a session in progress. I had done no research to pick the topic, and I simply sat in the back row and started to sketch.

In the row in front of me an attendee was working on a portrait drawing in his sketchbook. I immediately felt at home. I was at a conference where everyone was an artist in one form or another. The only other time I felt this at home was in Paris where I would sketch at events and always see another artist at work in the room.

The session I found myself in was about Art of the Gilded Age in America. The chair was Willaim R. Levin from Centre College (emeritus). The speaker at the front podium was Virginia Raguin from the College of the Holy Cross (emeritus). Her talk was about Stained Glass in the Gilded Age. I was immediately drawn in and fascinated. She mentioned that Lewis Comfort Tiffany got his start at a Worlds Fair. She seemed to downplay Tiffany’s artistry and focused on his marketing ability, business acumen and ability to surround himself with very talented artists.

I have sketched at the Tiffany Museum in Winter Park multiple times so many of the slides of stained-glass works were familiar. The Tiffany Museum is home for the Tiffany Chapel which was created by Tiffany’s newly founded firm, Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, to demonstrate its artistry and craftsmanship in producing ecclesiastical goods ranging from clerical vestments and furnishings to mosaics and leaded-glass windows. It was put on display in the World’s Fair, it so moved visitors that men doffed their hats in response.

The Chapel won many awards at the World’s Fair and based on it’s reputation the Tiffany brand became highly sought after worldwide. The chapel itself went into a basement crypt at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine which was under construction in NYC. The chapel was stunted and suffered from water damage in the crypt from 1899 to 1911. Tiffany offered to buy it back from the church so he could restore it. Tiffany had the chapel removed and installed it, with substantial repairs by his workmen, in a free-standing building at Laurelton Hall, his Long Island country estate. There it remained his pride and joy up until his death in 1949.

16 years after his death, the Tiffany Foundation began dismantling the chapel, selling off portions to institutions in the region. In 1957 the Tiffany estate suffered from a huge fire which gutted many of the buildings. A daughter of Tiffany’s informed several collectors from Winter Park that much of the leaded glass was still intact after the fire. The collectors went to the burnt-out shell of the Tiffany estate to buy all of the mansion’s then-unwanted windows and architectural fragments. I love the story of the chapel which was gorgeous in it’s youth then abandoned and destitute and finally rising from the ashes like a phoenix.

SECAC: Con/Texture: Surface and Sense

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There were two chairs for this session, Con/Texture: Surface and Sense, which was about texture in art. One chair was Roja Najafi from Chandler-Gilbert Community College and the other was Catherine Ingersoll from Virginia Military School.

In the first talk, Carolyn Hauk from the University of Delaware spoke about the history of mosquito nets. The history dated back to slave trade days where slaves tended to the nets around their owners beds but seldom did they have nets for themselves. The nets morphed from a practical way to keep from being eaten alive by mosquitoes to a status symbol in the age of air conditioners where outdoor air was kept out of the home.

Antje Gamble from Murray State University then presented Chiseling Bronze: Surface Textures in the Sculpture of Marino Marini. The sculpture she was referencing was of a naked man riding a horse and the man in many cases had a large erection. It was interesting how the elephant in the room remained unmentioned until she talked about one of the sculptures having a removable phallus which kept getting stolen. She picked apart the unique textures to each of the castings of the sculpture. The artist didn’t accept the texture of the cast but would then take a hammer and chisel to each surface and carve away metal.

I decided to sketch Tara Kohn from the University of Southern Maine who presented Soil and Skin: The Texture of Grief in Ben Altman’s The More That is Taken Away. She went to Altman’s studio as he was working on a huge environmental sculpture which was a nine‑year solo earthwork, performance, and memorial exploring mass violence, historical trauma, and the act of inheriting such histories. Altman’s work was inspired by a 2005 visit to a mass grave in Belarus, near the birthplace of his Jewish grandfather, which marked the start of his focus on violent turning points in modern history. I identified with the angst inherent in Altman’s work. He dug a trench on his property and lined it with castings of his form. He expressed his grief by cutting his hair and creating a trench which was reminiscent of the cast bodies found at Pompeii. The body forms laying in the trench later grew grass so the raw earth and human forms lying in anguish nourished new growth.

Little Econ Trail

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When I was jumping between Air B&Bs, I kept my bicycle in the back of my Prius. When I was staying in Azalea Park, I went for a bike ride every morning on the Little Econ Trail as a way to start each day. The Little Econ trail is really nice and winds along waterways for miles. Each morning I would see the same man doing tai chi and I would often pass others I had seen on previous bike rides.

While riding on this trail I met James Chonody who is an artist who sets up in one of the picnic shelters as he paints a picture in acrylics and shows off a whole bunch of his paintings. I stopped to sketch him once and we had a pleasant chat. We have been friends ever since.

This area of construction caught my eye. The machinery isn’t right on the trail but in a clearing. I suspect that paring is being improved in the area. There are tennis courts nearby and multiple bathrooms along the river. Perhaps more parking was needed near this trailhead. This isn’t a beautiful scene but it shows that the trail is a work in progress.

In the distance I heard two guys talking about their cars and all the work they put into them. That conversation is what leads me to think this area is for parking the metal machines that dominate the roadways. A local artist and podcaster named Chris Fioravantti used to promote the idea of safe roadways for bicyclists. He was hit by a car in June of 2021 and died. Killer Roads.

I always seen to be attracted to sketching mans need to alter and rip away natures beauty.

Haunted Livingston Studio

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The Livingston Street Studio was decorated for Halloween. I worked at the Shakespeare Theater as stagehands for Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors and Corduroy. When set for the play, Come From Away, was broken down a bunch of long foam pieces from that set were re proposed as tombstones. The foam already had wooden backing and supports on the back which could be used as stakes to get the tombstones to stand in front of the haunted house. There is a nice, abandoned planter that runs in front of the Livingston Street Studio. The planter area is overgrown with weeds, but for an abandoned cemetery, that was a great look.  My hope eventually it to turn that area into a food garden. In one night, dozens of tombstones were painted.

My roommate was the master designer of the display, and the initial theme was going to be Dogula, which would have depicted the adorable pup Boo-Boo as Dracula. My roommate had an entire box filled with magical Halloween themed decorations and lighting. We started by taping up some plastic sheets with black cats printed on them for bedroom windows. When the room light was turned on the cats became visible from outside.

Next, a spiderweb was added to the center window and a sheet was hung behind it with a nebula pattern projected for some mystical lighting effects. For my studio office on the corner, hand crafted red and yellow window decorations were crafted using a Cricut machine which was used to cut bats and pumpkins from black vinyl. I cut out a Dracula castle by hand with scissors and vinyl scraps were used by my roommate to make tree branches.

On Halloween day giant pumpkins were printed out. The display needed refinement right up until sunset when ghouls started to roam the streets.

In front of the entry door under the carport, a rusty old cauldron was moved that was found in the backyard. In the cauldron, a fog machine was placed along with some witch’s legs. Fog would rise from the cauldron which was lit by a demonic red spotlight making it look like a witch was being cooked. A dilapidated wooden fence which was probably destroyed from a recent hurricane added to the horrific effect of an abandoned haunted house.

A giant stainless-steel bowl was put on a small table for the candy.

Halloween morning candy was purchased from Aldi. I have purchased candy in the past to hand out in other neighborhoods I had lived in, but no children ever showed up. The Eola Heights studio is just 2 blocks north of Lake Eola, so there was some chance that children might show. I decided to get one big bag of candy. My roommate was more hopeful and got about 5 bags of candy.

While I was sketching, I had my back to the street. Any trick or treaters would have to approach me from behind. That might have been unnerving for some. One little girl creeped up on me and shouted Boo! I acted frightened and surprised and offered her candy which was still in the Aldi shopping bag. I rushed inside to let my roommate know that we were getting trick or treaters. One of the solar lights from the cemetery was used to illuminate the candy in the bowl.

At first the plan was to sit back under the carport, but I was already out in the driveway since I was sketching so we set up there. My roommate then set up a radio which played Halloween themed music like Thriller and Ghost Busters. The music brought in multiple hordes of trick or. My roommate was great at guessing who the costumed guests were dressed as. There was so much delight in the simple act of sharing candy and complimenting the handsome and beautiful costumes.

At first my roommate was very strict about insisting that the trick or treaters only take on piece of candy. As the crowds thinned, we started asking them to take 3 pieces of candy. The young ones started arriving zonked out like zombies since they were overstimulated and experiencing a sugar crash. A car parked in front of the house and a crew of ghouls piled out and swooped in for candy and then rushed back to the car.

Then silence. We could see crowds of ghouls walking towards Lake Eola but they were not walking down our street. Joy started to turn to disappointment. There was still plenty of candy left over. There was one Kit Kat in amongst all the fruit gummies. I snitched that last Kit Kat but blamed a tiny, adorable superman in a muscle shirt for taking it.

At 10pm we packed up. Boo-Boo, who was dressed in a black cape like Dracula was getting antsy. He needed to go for a walk. We both heard loud music coming from Lake Eola so we decided to walk towards the sound. Walking around the lake we passed to many killer clowns and girls dressed in tight costumes would coo at how adorable Boo looked. His high collar made him look like a dignified aristocrat who might suck your blood.

We followed the music to it’s source. Washington Street in Thornton Park was closed for a ticketed bar crawl. Everyone was in costume and festivities were just getting under way as crowds of killer clowns and sexy video game characters lined up to get through security. It was a golden sketch opportunity but I had already done my sketch for the night.

On the walk back to the Livingston Haunted House, BooBoola got even more attention. Overall, it was such a pleasant Halloween night.

Nosferatu

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I met Steve Schubert at the Brutally Early Arts Meetup at City Arts Factory (39 S Magnolia Ave, Orlando, FL). Steve founded Strange Machine Labs with the tag line: Because ordinary is boring. At the meetup Steve described a Halloween themed escape room party he hosted as his lakefront home. Another artist from FAVO was in the room, and he shouted out that he was the only person to escape. I talked to that artist later and he showed me several photos from inside the home, one of them being of Nosferatu.

I decided this was a sketch opportunity, and I talked to Steve about arranging to stop by at night. He also had skeletons on his lawn, which was another sketch opportunity, but when I got to the house it was still light out and it had started to rain. Watercolor and rain do not mix, so I decided I had to sketch inside. Giant spiderwebs and a huge Tiki sculpture welcomed be at the front door.

Since the sun was just setting none of the Halloween lights had been turned on yet. Steve walked me around as he lit candles and turned on the spectral effects around the living room. There was a ghostly mirror but it wasn’t working when I looked at myself in the glass. A video of a fire ignited in the fireplace along with haunting sound effects. Plastic bats hung from the fireplace damper. The head of a woman floated in a small greenhouse on a table. She was achieved through a peppers ghost effect, being a reflection of an iPhone video that was hidden above.

Nosferatu was in the corner of the Living room. He was about 9 feet tall, and his shadow made him look even taller. There was a place mat in front of him, and you had to step on the place mat and then back up which caused him to begin a welcome speech. Standing on the mat I felt uncomfortable since his fingernails were so long and his height became overbearing. I assumed he would animate and I might get clawed. It took a few tries, but eventually he gave his speech as he pivoted at the hips. His arms remained stiff but there was some overlapping action to his head, and his jaw clattered with a fair approximation of syncing to the dialogue.

A group of people arrived after I was deep into the sketch. One victim, or rather guest, was an Orlando Urban Sketcher and his wife. She approached Nosferatu and seemed genuinely frightened when he started to speak. I could hear that most people started to gather in the basement which was known as the lobotomy lab.

In the corner of the lab was a recreation of Zoltar, an animatronic that is based on the amusement park animatronic who granted a wish in the movie Big, starring Tom Hanks. The head was sculpted by Steve’s son and painted by his daughter. The costume and turban were hand sewn. AI allows Zoltar to listen to a question and formulate a response. Another item, the Spectral Hotline, was a red phone which would listen to a prompt and then build a story from the prompt. The prompt the guest offered was a Yeti and Cliffhanger, the character on the other end of the line began to tell a chilling story about a researcher venturing into the mountains in search of the elusive Yeti and setting up camp. After he settled in for the night a large furry hand reached for the entry to the tent. It was clear that the researcher and beast were about to meet face to face, but cliffhanger decided to let the story rest there. Cliffhanger doesn’t do endings.

Another device called the Memory Spark Station, had a glass skull and 16 color coded buttons. When a button was pressed, a sound bite from a movie clip would play. The goal was to identify where that sound bite came from. I heard one clip of the villain from Austin powers.

I wandered outside thinking I might sketch the skeletons who were busy on the lawn. The rain had stopped, but it was getting late and I decided to leave the home filled with strange and mysterious Halloween machines.

SECAC: Life Disruptions

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At SECAC in Winston Salem North Carolina, I attended Life Disruptions as Opportunities for Artistic Growth, Session I, organized by Stella P. Arbeláez Tascón. The first speaker at this session was Zoe Nestlie from the University of Central Florida whose art is influenced by an emotionally abusive relationship. Her talk was titled, Making the Invisible Visible: Giving Form to Emotional Abuse in Intimate Partner Relationships. The relationship had her questioning who she was as she faced unsteady ground with every interaction with her partner. At first she painted the eyes of her partner in front of an image of a wolf. She felt however that image empowered her abuser.

She switched to creating an alter ego character who navigated the uncertain world of healing after abuse. The character was cartoonish but, in each scene, there were visible hints of the abuse happening. Besides the digital paintings, she began sculpting plush sculptures that hinted at the process of recovering from abuse.

The second speaker, Hallie Bahn from the University of Massachusetts Amherst gave a talk titled, Sand Through My Fingers: The Negotiation of Time, Labor and Control as an Artist-Mother. She was an animator and had given birth. She got a grant to work on an animated film using sand. She wanted to collaborate with her child in the process, but her child was not interested in any form of linear storytelling. Hallie would animate a scene usually with an animal and then she would film her child destroying the final image. The film became a process of creation and destruction. It was displayed in a sand box which encouraged children to interact. The resulting spears of sand she would then reform and use to animate another scene. Having come from a Disney Feature Animation background I had multiple questions, as did Stella. The film is still in production.

Sally Brown from West Virginia University gave a zoom talk titled, The Architecture of Absence: Grief, the “Empty Nest,” and the Generative Power of the Archival Pivot. Sally is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores womanhood, motherhood, and the physical body through drawing, painting, and mixed media. Some of her pieces integrated drawings by her child along with her own drawings, many of which were expressionist self-portraits depicting her own body. Some paintings had breast prints along with drawings of the nude.  She had to deal with an empty nest she was making a major pivot inn her work moving forward.

The last speaker, Paige L Morris from Tyler School of Art and Architecture gave a talk titled, Tending the Rupture: The Politics of Care and Slowing Down.  I identified with her talk on a deep level. Paige is an interdisciplinary artist and educator in Philadelphia, PA. Building upon her foundation in glass, Morris utilizes material poetics, sound, and video performances to examine language, the complexities of love, and the human search for truth and meaning. Her practice actively investigates agency and desire as a method for unlearning her patriarchal conditioning.

She expressed the idea that a resume or CV should list things like overcoming grief among the achievements. A CV tends to only focus on achievements like shows. and job titles but life experience and resiliency plays into making someone a desirable hire. Page lost a sister and that grief at first made producing art seem meaningless. The demands of making enough money to survive tended to crush any hopes of creation. She has since become a beacon of creativity in her community by opening a shared art space with other artists which hosts shows. The space isn’t a non-profit, it is just a bunch of artists coming together to split the rent and mount amazing exhibitions. Her story was inspiring. All of the presentations tied together nicely being about motherhood and finding oneself in a patriarchal society while growing as an artist.

SECAC: 1 Painter, 1 Painting Session II

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The first SECAC session I wandered into was by mistake. I had intended to go to 1 Painter 1 Painting Session 1 but I wrote the room number down wrong. Regardless I was pleasantly surprised at the In Situ Session I did attend. For the second session I attended, I decided to correct my mistake and go to 1 Painter, 1 Painting Session II run by Amanda Lechner.

The first speaker was Donna Woodley from Tennessee State University. Her talk was titled, Restoring the Innocence of our Grands. Donna explained the steps she took in doing a painting of her grandmother. Her grandmother was deceased, so Donna used photo reference to complete the posthumous portrait.

She knew she wanted to have the portrait use orange and blue colors. She found the color scheme in an outdoor seating arrangement at a restaurant. She then showed the photos of her grandmother that she used for reference. She wanted to break away from strictly following the photo reference so she considered putting a golden comb in her grandmother’s hair. That idea was abandoned since her grandmother never wore such a crown like hair comb. What followed was then a series of photos of the painting in progress. Donna liked the result, but when she showed the painting to her parents, they felt it didn’t look quite right.  A comment from a member of the audience eluded to the idea that the portrait might have some similarities to the painter who painted it. Donna admitted the her grandmother had a great influence on her, but as far a physical attributes she was very distinct.

The next presenter was Emily Ezell from Grambling State University with her presentation titled, Compulsion and Expulsion: A Psycho-Chromatic Trip into the Deep End of Postmodern Figurative Painting. She showed every stage of the research and painting progress of a big painting about the relationship between mothers and sons. She referenced many paintings from art history as she developed the complex composition. I liked how she used the digital program, Procreate to make a composite image that she referenced but then deviated from.

During the height of the pandemic, I used a similar digital approach to develop concepts for paintings, so I was pleased to see another artist using the same approach. Emily manipulated the image extensively changing colors and moving elements around until it came close to what she wanted.

She showed a painting titled, Spoils of the Hunt, by Keller Ferdinand which had a woman near a dead stag. She then showed a painting of Madonna and Christ and pointed out that the body of Christ and the dead stage were very similar. That was the realization that lead to her wanting to do the painting. The initial laying down of colors to block in the painting happened rather fast but once the detail work needed to be done the painting process slowed down. Seeing the process behind this large figurative work left me wanting to do large paintings myself.

The final presenter was Adam Eddy from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His piece was titled, Still Life with Cantaloupe and Picture Frame. Adam got real geeky with the oil painting mediums used and how a painting is constructed. He went over painting techniques that have been around since the time of Jan van Eich. Since I have just recently started oil painting again, I was fascinated by every geeky detail. Adams painting was done from life with a simple still life of a cantaloupe. He did a monochrome under painting to find the correct values and then applied thin glazes to add color. He talked about seeing paintings he loved in text books and then going to a museum to see the paintings in person. Seeing the painting in the museum was an experience that surprised him. The paintings were covered in glass and so He saw his own reflection and the reflection notice others in the room. It was distracting and he felt he had a better view of the art in the book. He went back to his own still life painting and added this strange reflection to the final painting. When I saw the final painting as a photo in his presentation, I at first thought the reflection was just a result of a poorly lit photo, but it was painted and intricately planned. Hearing about his old master techniques left me wanting to try those techniques out for myself. Overall the 1 painter, 1 painting presentations were inspiring and made me want to get my hands dirty by covering a large canvas or panel.

SECAC: Art Book Sales

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At SECAC in Winston Salem North Carolina, the Winston Ballroom in the Conference Center had many small tables set up so people could relax between sessions. Long tables were set up down the center aisle of the room which had a wide array of art books for sale. Stella Alberaéz Tascón found a book that showed how to mix your own pigments by finding the natural plants and crushing pigments using a mortar and pedestal. It took a Herculean amount of self control for me to resist getting some more art books to fill out my art book library. I walked down this aisle multiple times between session flipping through the selections.

On the far wall of the room away from the entrance doors were long tables full of coffee’s, Teas and pasties. Since my hotel didn’t have any breakfast options, I came in here each morning to grab a power bar. I resisted caffeine.

Here and the main entrance hall were the min social areas. Many professors researchers and artists had clearly been her at SECAC many times before and they would shout out in joy and hug when they spotted a friend from past years. This was all new to me and it was an uncharted adventure to learn what I could from as many lectures as possible.

I would enter this central conference room between sessions and sit down to figure out what I needed to see next. The titles of the sessions could be long and esoteric so choosing just the right talks was a guessing game. Sessions were organized into categories such as, Studio Art, Art History, Studio and Art History, Graphic Design, Art Education, and Interdisciplinary. I tended to want to see sessions relating to studio art, but almost all of the sessions were also related to art education.

Towards the end of the conference, I just started wandering into sessions with no preconceptions and I was never disappointed. Since I am endlessly curious and rushing to complete a sketch, there was never a moment to slow down and be bored. I honestly can’t imagine anyone being bored with so much research and artistic expression being shared.

Their Eyes Were Watching GOD Rehearsal

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I went to a rehearsal of Their Eyes Were Watching GOD in the black box theater in the Orlando Shakes (812 E Rollins St, Orlando, FL). The play is based on the book by Zora Neale Hurston. The play was being written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright James Ijames, and involved a collaboration with the Arden Theater Company. A reading of the play will be presented during PlayFest and a full production is planned for the 2027–28 season.  I contacted the director, Roberta Emerson about getting the sketch.

Zora Neale Hurston’s novel was first published in 1937. The story follows the life of a black woman named Janie Crawford who is recounting her story to her best friend Phoeby. The play largely takes place in Eatonville, just north of Orlando Florida which is the first African American incorporated town in America.

Janie had 3 marriages. When her mother catches her flirting with, and kissing a young man who the mom considered a no-good low life, she set up an arranged marriage. That marriage was to the OLDEST man in the cast. He was hard-working and treated Janie well, but their marriage was loveless. The hope for love was crushed by endless chores for survival. Janie met and ran off with Joe Stark who was an ambition man who became the mayor of Eatonville. When townspeople asked to hear from the mayor’s wife, Joe cut her off and stifled her voice. His cutting her off ended any hope of mutual respect between the two. He wanted her as arm candy and dressed her is fine clothing that wasn’t to her taste.

Music stands were set up throughout the space and there was minor staging where actors could move closer together by moving their stands. I learned that the union requires very stiff staging for a reading of a play.   All the townspeople were standing when I first started the sketch, but they later sat down ad Janie and Joe Starks began their relationship. For this sketch I watched the full run through of Act 1.

The staged reading of Their Eyes Were Watching GOD is set to happen on October 30, 2026 and it already sold out. Carra Patterson was magnificently cast as Janie. Amitria Fanae was thrilling as Phoebe. She played with the dialect with absolute joy and a sassy attitude. Carl Hendrick Louis was authoritative and charismatic as Joe Starks.

The cast sang an uplifting spiritual, after the town of Eatonville first lit a streetlamp. The energy filled the small black box theater and I felt inspired. The people who were lucky enough to get a ticket to the show, are in for a rare treat. I am glad I got a glimpse at the creative process before the play opened to a live audience.