43-365 Nude Nite 2011

Holy schnikes, bat-kids! It's been a YEAR since our last Nude Nite outing?! My, my, my how time flies.

For those of you who've joined the Lane more recently, last year as Vince and I were starting our journey we discovered Nude Nite, an art show in Central Florida dedicated to the human nude. If you want to learn a little more about where we were a year ago, click here. It rolled around again and man, did it really show what a hell of a year we've had! It also made me realize I missed my one-year blogosversary; I'll write on that soon.

First, the bad news; Vince couldn't go with me this time. He has a gig in another town this weekend so I was on my own. But not entirely! I went out with one of my spicy-vanilla girlfriends and we had a ball. (FYI -- "Spicy-vanilla" means folks that I know who are artsy and pretty freakin' broadminded, but who have no idea about our private interests.)

The place was crazy-packed. We had to wait in line 20 minutes to get in and then, since I didn't have the presence of mind to use the restroom before we left the bar we'd been at, I stood in line another 20 minutes or so for the, ahem, facilities. The event is usually held in a warehouse and this year's was larger than last. I think there was at least a thousand people there. (And four toilets.)
The quality of the art varied. Some of it was fantastic though WAY out of my price range. Most of it was "pretty" but mediocre. The rest, I swear to god if there hadn't been tits on the canvas NO ONE would ever show it in a gallery. It was just, bad.

But here's a piece of really good. This is a collage created entirely of newspaper and magazine pages, ripped up then decoupaged onto the canvas. If you stand close, it's hard to figure out what you're looking at. When you stand back, the image is revealed. Price tag? $5,200.00. The thing is though, I think most of the works were overpriced, even the good stuff. In the entire show I only saw one item marked "sold" and it was a nice piece on a modest sized canvas, in the $500 range.

The other challenge is that either very few artists do works of the male nude (I swear 13Messages, you could make a killing here!) OR the curator of this show is all about females. The piece below was another wonderful series; the were four large canvases and it's a charcoal drawing. The form is almost life-sized.

This was just fun! The tagger created the art on the wall and the woman throughout the night. But I gotta tell ya, some of these folks acted as if they've never seen a naked chick in their lives. In addition to the paintings, photographs, and sculptures, (and I'm not referring to this artist who was working) there were nude performances throughout the space -- a pole dancer, burlesque dancer, some woman in a cage (WTF), nekkid people just walking around. The crowd would mass around these performers every time they showed up, snapping pics, and being generally in the freakin' way. Sorry I couldn't elbow my way to the front to get a better shot.

This is another piece by my favorite artist of the night. Again, it's made up entirely of newspapers and magazine pages but this thing is HUGE. It's hard to see, but it's actually a total of twelve 4'x4' panels, so it's eight feet wide and sixteen feet tall. But it's also gorgeous, gritty, and above all interesting!

Vince and I were texting back and forth throughout the night. He was at a club surrounded by stylish and sexy ladies, I was wandering around a sexy and provocative art show, and both of us wished the other was where we were. I had fun with my girlfriend and he had a great time with the band, but being together just makes everything that much funnier, sexier, more enjoyable. As I was wandering about I recognized a number of swinger-folks from the website, though none that we're interested in. There were a lot of people who were there for the scene -- and to be seen at a "nude art" show -- who you could tell were more about posing and pretentiousness than anything else. Vince shares my sense of humor and my sensibilities. He takes the edge off my aversion to crowds. He entertains me when I'm stuck in a line for the bathroom. We just .... suit each other.

It was an enjoyable night, but one thing would have made it better -- my beloved Vincent by my side.