Maus Corderman exhibits steampunk, victorian edge

Sanford is home to Lake Monroe, which stretches all the way from Interstate 4 to East Street and ends somewhere out of reach.

Here you can find intellectuals, drunks, bums, rich yuppies, wealthy businessmen, pilfers, artists and raving bartenders who somehow trick you into enjoying the ride when your instincts initially screamed for you to “Run away!”

This lush environment is where the Sanford Art Walk takes place each month.

The kooky bar called Little Fish Huge Pond is where Mo Wisdom is the sole proprietor and director of Sanford-native artist Maus Corderman’s temporary gallery, Every Day is Exactly the Same, which premiered last Friday and runs through April 20.

The story lends verbal cues not unlike the visuals that can be seen in the smog-choked city that burns in the background of one of his pieces called “Toxic Garbage Island.”

“When it’s in someone’s face, it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s [messed] up,’ but it’s essentially the point,” Corderman said.

Corderman represents all things controversial, pure, shocking, true and false, also.

He invites viewers to lose themselves in the puzzle of life, which he exhibits through his personality and his art.

His work takes on an eclectic mix of emotions that make people scoff as well as relish in the audacity that blood and bare breasts evinced when seen in public.

The question is, do they look away in disgust or look closer?

“I have this triptych at home that I thought about bringing,” Corderman said, “but I wasn’t sure it’d be quite appropriate in this setting.”

A triptych is a piece of art that consists of three panels that bear pictures or carvings.

What makes a person decide whether one piece of his private mind is ready for public viewing and leaves others in a dark room back at the homestead?

“All together the piece is huge,” Corderman said. “And no offense to Mo, but I’m not sure if all three of the canvases can fit in such a crammed space.”

Fair enough.

Each of the works on display are vying for space in competition with the rest of the other knickknacks, paintings and chairs that Wisdom has collected in the five years Little Fish has been in service.

Not to the mention the old piano that serves as more of an armoire for the armament of decapitated dolls and little pony statuettes that rest atop its wooden frame.

His influences don’t just stem from his education from Full Sail University. Corderman also has his own band, Preacher, which is in between members.

Sitting at the bar are two alumni from UCF, Caitlin Ferrell and Kevin Harrell. Both were accounting students.

Ferrell said the artwork is “Dali-themed,” and her date elaborated.

“There’s lots of drooping going on,” Harrell said as he pointed to “This is a Trick.” “And the perspective is kinda skewed.”

“We live in a very creative environment here,” said Corderman’s wife, Shelly.

Corderman and his wife have been together for almost two years and she, too, dabbles in the most imaginative of faculties.

Her own exhibit, called “Inhale Corsets,” includes custom-made corsets, which hang pinned up around her husband’s work.

Shelly belly dances in full Arabian garb for the crowd next to the wall in which their art hangs.

Overall, the crowd was an exhibit in itself. One couple brought their talking huskies into the bar, while others drank merrily and ogled at the grotesque works of Corderman.

It was a night soon not to be forgotten.