Many Hands, One Pulse

(Edited 6/12/21)

It was a challenge for me to figure out how I was going to start to move forward and heal from the horrific shooting that occurred at the Pulse nightclub here in Orlando. It affected me much more deeply than I would have thought. I was not emotionally able to go visit my friends at the vigils that occurred. It took a few weeks before I could even really talk about it, and I talk a lot.

A friend of mine, Thomas Thorspecken (Thor) of Analog Artist Digital World, organized an event on July 3rd - Orlando (United) Drink & Draw, in which several artists would gather together on an evening downtown and together sketch portraits of each of the 49 lost in the tragedy. I knew as soon as I heard about it that it would be a perfect thing for me to do. I was admittedly worried about how emotional I would be, but something told me that it would be a personal venue to process what happened and begin to heal.

The day after the shooting, I was beginning a week-long art camp, and my art students had created a work on Yupo Synthetic Paper that reminded me of how I felt. It looked like someone had cried tears all over a rainbow of colors. 

It was exactly like how I felt. There is too much pretending. I had been, like many in our community, woken up in horror, wondering if friends were dead. I went to church but felt alone in my grief.  Everyone around me was standing and professing the faith, I was on my knees sobbing and I just didn't care who was watching. I was done pretending. It seemed in one morning I was feeling my own load, but now I just felt the sacrifice the victims had made, and I just chose to give up and trust that God would carry me that day. And what was the point, of hiding the tears...I let them fall.

So, in my first thoughts about working at the event, I decided I would work with watercolor on Yupo.  Like my students, I wanted to be able to flow with my thoughts freely, literally, without worrying about making a mistake.  I wanted my work to show the vibrance of the life in each person, and somehow bring them visually into a place that is better than here, and I knew that medium would do that for me. A few days into the thought process, I realized that I may have gotten in too deep with the cost, because I thought I may be responsible for at least half of the portraits, and that would be a big cost. I reached out to the Yupo company, who has been great on Facebook to acknowledge my work, and they offered a donation through their distributor Legion Paper. A week later I had 30 pounds of Yupo paper at my door, no questions asked. I knew that God was beginning to bless the effort truly.

So the evening of the event, I showed up at The Falcon downtown with my watercolor, brushes, and Yupo, and an open heart. But I would not nearly be ready for the unbelievable outpouring of energy that would surround me.

When Thor arrived, the owner of the establishment where we were gathered began writing on a marker board the names of the victims, and assigning artists to each one. I had seen a lot about each of the victims but learned more as the process happened that night.

The first name that I was given was Amanda Alvear. Each of the artists were to research the victims on our digital devices to get an image to work from. I looked up what I could find about her, and saw and amazingly beautiful young woman. I read that she was only 25, and loved her little nieces and brought them out shopping. I saw a snapchat she had taken inside the club and heard the gunshots ringing out. I read how she would not want hate spread from what had happened.

I could have read more, but a huge knot started up in my throat and I had to step outside and get some air. I decided to pray that God would bless my efforts. I knew I did not have long to complete things so I went back in and as I did, I saw that someone had painted the words, "We all have a pulse" on the sidewalk. Under the circumstances, this saying has many meanings, but to me, at the time, it represented the common energy of us all, living and deceased, and the connection between us.  As if to say, "We all have ONE pulse: together"......The electrical blood flowing through all of us.

I could feel it moving me forward and to work. It seemed to flow through my brush and on to the paper, one, two, three, four, five, and never stopped until my task was completed.

Amanda Alvear

There was something so bizarre about what was happening. So much energy, so much work. So many many people. The board would get filled up with victims' names, attached to an artist, completed, erased, and then more were begun. "Who is doing 39?" Was something you would have heard....Each life held in our hands and pencils and fingers and brushes. Too much responsibility to be sure. It must have been a million times worse for their doctors and nurses.

I moved around to a few different tables, and even a couch once, to get better light as the evening turned to night and my window spot turned dark. I read about each victim which I was assigned, one by one, fought back the urge to give up and cry, and kept going. Frank Hernandez, the beloved big brother. Akyra Murray, the youngest victim, a beautiful young woman just out of high school with a basketball scholarship. Luis Velma, the 22-year old with a terrific smile and amazing heart who worked at Universal Studios, and Jerald Arthur Wright, the handsome young man who worked at Disney. I don't have the words to give them the descriptions and honor they deserve.I just did my best at painting their smiles the best I knew how.

Frank Hernandez

Akyra Murray

Luis Velma

Jerald Arthur Wright

When I got to reading about Luis Velma it took me a lot to get past the familiar feeling of the night that I just wanted to cry.

And here I was, God was putting him in my hands, with the Yupo...I let my tears fall through my paint onto the Yupo.  I let them fall...

As the night wore on, artists came and went. We had figured 4 portraits per artist as things had started, but more artists came, some left, and we got all 49 accomplished. They were laid out on some tables near me, an incredible body of work. FORTY NINE. In one night. The vastness of the art was both a testimony to the vastness of the tragedy, and the energy and love of our artist community. And it was beautiful.

At the end of the night, I was finishing up the last portrait, and Thor and I left while my last two paintings were still wet at 1 am. It was surreal walking downtown to my car at that hour, holding the two wet paintings flat while Thor and I noticed how bright the sky was. A bright, royal blue color at 1 am with bright puffy white clouds, and it was so quiet on the streets. What time was it?..Had we stayed there till sunrise? I felt like I was holding two souls up in my hands, and I just had to keep walking,  no matter the time. I had to keep them safe.

Thor walked me to my car and I passed the paintings to his safe keeping. He carried them the rest of the way, and it was like a weight was lifted from me.

But I know, so much that we all are holding passing on the load of this and so much grief in this world, helping each other along the way. It feels here in Orlando since the shooting that a lot of us are much more aware, caring, loving toward another. Working together to make things right, somehow. I'm really glad that I was given an avenue to contribute my way, and I truly hope that somehow the work brings peace.

Thor is looking into showing all of the portraits from that night at an appropriate venue. Please let him or me know if you all have any suggestions or a connection for this.

Thank  you to Thor, my fellow artists, to Yupo and Legion Paper for their donation, but mostly to God for truly blessing our efforts there that night.

I'm melting!! A Greek Exploring the Ancient Process of Encaustic

Recently I have decided to dive head-first into encaustic painting. Encaustic basically means making pieces of art with melted wax. This technique, which was found in art as early as the 1st Century BC, incorporates heat to create layers of pigment. The word originates from the Greek word, "Enkaustikos", which means, "To burn in".

I've found it to be an absolutely LIMITLESS medium. It's so much fun to put layer upon layer, and using sculpting tools to remove layers, revealing things underneath. It also allows for some pretty fun incorporation of many many other media, including but not limited to- photographs, drawings, oil pastel, chalk pastel, alcohol ink, found items including metal, wood, etc. plastics - just about anything you can imagine. I also loved what I learned about applying wood glue to the wood and using a torch to burn it. It gives some amazing texture to work with.

Over the past few months I've been experimenting with some fun works. This first piece came to me when I was looking at pencil shavings on my desk. I was submitting for an art show titled "Viva la Diva" at the Orlando Museum of Art, and had done some concept sketching for female figures with a frill. Little did I know as I was conceiving this idea that right in front of my face, I would find my perfect material from discarded remnants of another project.

My vision turned at this point to a ballerina. My concept came from my own memory as a dancer when I was young, and my love for nature. I wanted to convey a connection between the young woman and the energy of the outdoors. 

In doing this, I decided to allow the wood of the substrate itself to show through and represent the wooded scene behind the lady. First, I drew the lady onto the wood base, and used my woodturner to make a basic outline of the figure and the trees so that I could keep an eye on where everything was and possibly keep some of the lines in the end.

I had seen a video online which showed "wood glue burning". Basically, painting something on using wood glue, using a torch, and allowing the glue to blister and burn. This then creates an interesting texture to the surface, and in my case, actually created the look of bark on a tree, and even allowed for the actual wood to burn, which I wanted, to create a double earthy effect. 

The following photo is actually from a more recent project, but it shows what happens to the wood glue really well. 

In the case of the ballerina piece, The wood glue was the tree trunks and barre. I allowed the fire to burn parts of the wood itself as well as you can see below.

After the burning of the wood and the wood glue, I added several layers of encaustic medium - which is basically  beeswax mixed with a resin. As I did this, I added piece by piece, the pencil shavings that would become her tutu.  In between the layers, the heat gun is applied - to fuse the layers together. In some cases I used my sculpting tools to pull off wax in order to create the layering effect and dimension I wanted. I also sprinkled some of the colored actual pencil parts - they almost looked like "confetti" and I wanted them to create a magical effect to the natural background.

 From there, I decided to actually add oil pastel rather than the pigmented wax that I have. I did not want to overpower the texture or burn effect on the wood. I just wanted to add a bit of color to bring out the color of the pencil shavings on the skirt and to add some depth and interest. Again, every layer of oil pastel covered in wax medium and then heated with the heat gun to burn in the layers. Using clay carving tools to pull layers off when I chose to. More medium. Heat. etc.

I added in some ground to the dancer, reflection and shadow, a wall to the left to rest the barre, all with oil pastel, worked with pulling off layers and putting more on some more, each layer covered with wax medium and melted with the heat gun. Below is a photo of the final piece. 

I was so proud to present the piece at the 25th Annual Orlando Fringe Festival. It got special recognition in Watermark Online, which listed it as one of the "Top 10 Fringe-iest Pieces at Visual Fringe", and describing it as such: 

"This abstract depiction of a ballet dancer on a fiery and bold background combines two key aspects of Fringe: dedicated performance and courageous passion."

It is always an amazing thing when a complete stranger sees your vision just the way you did. How incredibly grateful I am for the whole experience. Since this piece I've made several more and learned even more about what encaustic can do. I hope to share some of that with you in the not-too-distant future.

Encaustic is a messy, interesting, baffling, frustrating, beautiful, challenging, limitless medium.

And I guess that's why it seems to be one of the best thing I've found so far.