Carl Knickerbocker Film Screenings

Urban ReThink hosted a screening of two Carl Knickerbocker animated puppet short films as well as "The Painting Lesson", a live action film that is loosely based on Carl's art and life. I really liked "The Painting Lesson." In this film an artist who really looks like Carl was painting in a night club to make ends meet when he meets an alpha business woman who asks him for a painting lesson. One thing leads to another and they end up sleeping together. She has a dream about Carl's blue and green dogs. The animated dogs circle each other sniffing butts. She is rude to him from that point on. They fight. He paints her pooch green and in the end she creates a huge angry mural on the street in front of his home. He realized this is the best painting she had ever done. She didn't need lessons from him anymore. The media embraced her. I absolutely love this film. It is a shame it was never distributed.

"A Dog Goes from Here to There" was a short animated piece that Carl wrote and directed. His vibrant Urban Primitive paintings are bought to life to illustrate a whimsical poem written for children. Carl's most recent film, "SP #2" is surreal and non-linear. He just recently finished the production and is now sending it out to film festivals.

Cocktails & Cosmos

Terry had purchased tickets to Cocktails and Cosmos at the Orlando Science Center. After we got our arm bands we wandered into the main room on the second floor. Terry made a bee-line to a table that offered clothing for sale and I was immediately intrigued by a mural that was in progress. A guitarist played all night near the mural as guests took red plastic cups of paint and brushed their chosen color onto the canvas. The canvas had two guitars painted in vibrant warm colors and an all seeing eye dead center. The company that organized this community painting was Harmonious Universe. The company's motto is "Be it Share it." They say the motto is alive in the moment. So whatever "it" is to you, then that is what you are to "be." To fully "be it" you must "share it." I identify with the motto since each sketch is incomplete until I share it's story.

There was a fashion show which featured men and women's fashions from the 60's to the present. Peter Murphy introduced the show by telling everyone in the audience to put their hands in the air. He then said hug your neighbor to your left. I was at the end of the row so I had no one to hug but Nikki Mier gave me a warm hug. It was a fun and lively show with each model walking in character from demure 60's flower child to surly rock and rollers. I spoke to Nikki between fashion decades and it turns out she is a store manager for Fairvilla Megastore. I informed her that I once planned to sketch in this adult mega store when a porn star was in town offering autographs. I chickened out or didn't consider it blog worthy at the time. Nikki and Wendy Wallenberg were texting important information throughout the fashion show. I asked if her store contributed items for the fashion show. Unfortunately they didn't, but some of the fashion items in her store are similar. She suggested I sketch Fairvilla before Halloween because the store gets crowded with people trying on costumes. I enjoyed telling her about how I earned money to get myself through college by working as the art director for Oui magazine. I was perhaps the only virgin to ever art direct a Men's magazine. I never discussed this darker side of my career when I worked for Disney.

Carl Knickerbocker was at the event and he wanted to see the iMax movie "The Ultimate Wave Tahiti." I joined him downstairs as the women chatted upstairs. Jelly fish sculptures made from found objects were suspended from the ceiling. They were the work of local artist Doug Rhodehamel. I bet they glow in black light but unfortunately only florescent lights were on. The movie in the three story high theater was mind blowing. I got dizzy a few times as helicopter shots flew over the ocean. I was constantly twisting my neck trying to see everything in my peripheral vision.

Terry, Wendy and a group of women kept laughing as staff rushed around folding chairs and putting away tables. We were the last to leave. I felt like I was watching an episode of Sex in the City. I snapped a photo of them in front of the mural that everyone at the party had helped paint. I take that back, Carl and I never lifted a brush.

Red Fox Louge

Amanda Chadwick and Matt Simantov first introduced Terry and me to the Red Fox Lounge (110 S. Orlando Ave, Winter Park). On the night they took us to the lounge, only Mark the was there behind the keyboard. Amanda boldly insisted that I not sketch until I had a chance to see the full act with Lorna. She claims that a Saturday Night Live writer had seen the Lounge act of Mark Wayne and Lorna Lambry. This writer then wrote a series of lounge act skits build around this couple. Urban myth or fact, this lead Terry and me to return. It was Saturday night and we decided to go to the Red Fox Lounge after an open house at McRae Art Studios. The dark inviting lounge was packed, except for a small table for two right up front.

Mark and Lorna are a married couple who have been performing in the Lounge every night for over a decade. They perform Vegas style with complete control of the audience with a high dose of campy fun. It is obvious they are seasoned entertainers. The room was darkly paneled with a strange neon light beside the bar. A single spot light illuminated Lorna as she sang. A table of women was right next to us and it was obviously a birthday celebration since the birthday girl was wearing a tiara and there were balloons. Mark shouted out, "I need two of you girls to come on up here!" The women hesitated, then three of them got up and began dancing behind Lorna. They laughed and had a grand time. Mark's laser beam attention focused on me for a moment and he said, "It looks like we got someone taking notes on everything we say!" I smiled and kept sketching. Later on a break between sets he looked at the sketch, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "You are my kind of guy." An older couple sat in front of us and when Lorna sang the next song, they got up and started to swing dance. They were good! Everyone was hooting and hollering!

A guy in a red T-Shirt was asked to sit next to Lorna for one of her songs. As he got up, he shouted out, "Lorna, you are so sexy!" He sipped his drink as she sang, "Fever". Then she pulled his head down on her shoulder and she sang softly to him. Mark shouted, "Watch where you put your hands buddy!" Wendy Wallenburg and Carl Knickerbocker showed up. There was literally no place to sit but we squeezed in a couple of more chairs in the doorway. Terry and I left soon after I finished my sketch. Then Wendy and Carl snuggled around our little table. I forgot my hat on the table and only a day later, Wendy was at an event with Terry and it was returned.

Carl Knickerbocker - Suburban Primitive

I bumped into Carl Knickerbocker at an art opening at the Peacock Room, we started talking art and I asked him if he would mind if I visited his studio and sketched him at work on one of his larger canvases. He told me he had a canvas ready and planned to paint the Annie Feiffer Chapel which is at the Florida Southern College in Lakeland. He suggested I should get there myself someday to do a sketch. Frank Loyd Wright had designed the chapel and he personally supervised its construction. Students from the college who Wright referred to as "Children of the Sun" had helped in the buildings construction.
Carl lives out on the East side of town in Oviedo. When I drove up to his home I knew I was in the right place because one of his Honda Element Art cars was parked on the front lawn. The second I walked through the front door I knew I was in the home of a serious working artist. The living room was used as a storage space for Carl's huge canvases. Rather than having them stretched, Carl had a seamstress sew loops on the tops of the canvases so that they can easily be hung like curtains.
His studio is located right off the living room in a sun porch. Most of the painting was complete. He just had a few oranges that he wanted to add to the painting as I watched. He used a large painters palette to lay out the pure florescent orange acrylics. He quickly used a palette knife to lay in the color with bold strokes. He then used a hair dryer to dry the paint a bit. He then re-attacked the surface with the knife to get the impasto texture he was looking for. Carl decided he didn't like the color of Frank Loyd Wrights building so he changed it to a cool blue. He was infatuated with the red steps which lead into the building and these became a very important pyramid shaped element in the final composition. He felt that the building resembled a UFO and so he had it floating above a black ground into which are scratched two Gator-Men.
I asked him how he first came up with the idea of using 3D glasses to see his work and he told me about an artist names Key Scramble Campbell who was a bit of a hippy and a psychedelic artist. Campbell had done his painting to be seen with a black light and he also experimented with the 3D glasses. Carl bought 60 3D glasses for his show at the Museum of Florida Art. This show exhibited many of Carl's larger pieces. One painting of Mermaids of Wicki Wachi, is stunning when viewed with the glasses. The mermaids seem to float above a sea of deep blue pigment as if you were seeing down to the bottom of a pool of water.
On shelves next to me while I sketches were a bunch of objects which were used in the making of a 6 minute short film called "A Dog Goes From Here to There." Heather Henson was pivotal in suggesting Carl make this film so she could have it shown in her Handmade Puppet Dreams Film Festival. Carl's bold painterly style is used as the basis for this amazing short. This film was first shown in NYC on December 6th of last year. It had since made its way around the film festival circuits, including Providence, Atalanta and Prague. Carl said he will submit the film in a few more festivals this year.
Carl showed me around his home and when he opened the door to what was once a guest doom, I saw hundreds of paintings stacked against the walls. He has enough inventory to fill the Menello Museum several times over. He said that now that he is getting older he is focusing more on exhibiting his work in large museums. He recognizes that as he gets older these large paintings will become harder and harder to do. He is racing against time to make his mark. As I got ready to leave, He gave me a car magnet of one of his Crocodile-Men. I now proudly exhibit it on the back of my truck. When viewed with 3D glasses the painting floats magically.