June 2023
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| VOL 18 ISSUE 6 | June 2023 |
I started doing bodypainting around the turn of the century and quickly found opportunities to do live demonstrations of the art form at conventions like LepreCon and CopperCon and then eventually Phoenix Comicon starting in 2008. Each year I chose differnt themes and each year the audience size would grow. In 2014, I took the demonstrations up a notch by including multiple bodyartists painting models in their individual style, while conforming to a common theme for the final photoshoot of the painted models. My event came to be known as the Bodypainting Extravaganza and the convention came to be known as Phoenix Fan Fusion. After a few missed years due to fire alarm issues and a pandemic we were back last year with the theme of "Villians" and this year my team of four artists and four models took on the challenge of "Animalyze"! I probably only had an audience of about 20 people back in 2014, but this year we again packed a 400-seat ballroom.
The artist/model teams this year included Brandon McGill/Seth Colvin Powers (painted as an angler fish), Brandy Wish/Savannah Wilson (painted as a peacock), Carrie Sasser/Griffin Maria (painted as butterflies), and I was joined by Lacey Vargas (painted as a dragon). We each had about 2 hours to complete our paintings before the models did their runway walk and then the photoshoot. A secondary challenge this year was to also include some UV responsive bodypaint on the models this year and the results were stunning. Click the image above to see the webpage I crafted for the event, check back in the future as I may be adding more pictures in the coming months.
I wrote this song in October 2021 as part of a songwriting challenge based on including the phrase 'is this cheating.' I produced a decent demo of my song back then, but knew the vocal needed to eventually be revisited and maybe a little more tweaking of the lyrics might be beneficial. The demo featured a "Fender Rhodes" synthesizer patch, but now that I own a real Fender Rhodes, I thought the time was right to dust this one off and re-record the track. Quite a few lyrics changed, but the phrase is still intact, split between the first and second line..."What kind of love is this? Cheating on each other." I updated the vocals, drums, and of course the Rhodes and added a little synth motif in the breakdown, but all of the original guitars and bass are from the demo recording. I have no idea if this song will connect with anyone since it is in a unique style that's a little hard to describe, but it has come to be a song that I really like to play on YouTube and Spotify. I hope you will consider giving it a spin and add it to one of your playlists! Click the picture above to listen.
I'm proud of many of the lighting projects that I have had the opportunity to work on during my career as a lighting designer and formerly as an electrical engineer, but I must say that this one was pretty special. I was the lead designer for the complete reimagined Arizona Biltmore Resort here in Phoenix. The history and legacy of this place is truly incredible and the opportunity to spread my wings and deliver truly innovative and robust lighting was a thrill of a lifetime. I'm not sure I'll every get a project this special again so I am considering it my swan song project. This month, the Phoenix section of the Illuminating Engineers Society gave the project an Outstanding Achievement award at their awards gala. A second award was also given for a restaurant there called Renata's Hearth. It took a team to make this come together and I really appreciated working with the architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and of course my team at Creative Designs in Lighting. Rumor has it that both of these projects will also be receiving awards at the national level of IES later this year. These brings my total to 24 awards for 17 different projects. Click here to see the list of other projects (note this page is still under construction as of this writing, I hope to add more photos of each of the projects someday soon).
E-ya later,
Mark Greenawalt
[email protected]
My gift to you is my music. Please kindly accept by going to these fine streaming services to download and stream! I hope you like some and consider them for your favorite playlists!
copyright Mark Greenawalt, Future-Class X Publishing - Phoenix, AZ 85044
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