The only way is up

I woke up feeling like shit this morning, I'm not sure why, maybe it's because my computer's system had been upgraded and I lost a bunch of information in the process, maybe it's going back to working after a week of doing nothing, maybe it's just that my period is in a few days. Whatever the reason is. I woke up at 11:00 after about 5 hours of sleep and was so anxious I couldn't fall asleep again.

Ned was still sleeping. I read the news in the computer, there's a war in Israel again, it's strange not to be there for it.

When I opened my eyes, a bit of a dream or a thought or a smell made me have a really strange craving for this chicken my mom used to make, with oranges, I haven't had it for years and I don't even like it, but at that moment - I would give anything to have a piece.

So I read the news some more, try to overcome this overwhelming sadness, this crushing feeling of panic despair. I have half a shot of Jameson's before I even make coffee. I read the news some more, then try to get my scanner fixed and do some Etsy work, feeling really crappy.

So then Ned wakes up, we get dressed, I tell him about the chicken craving and we decide to have breakfast at EGG, they have really great Fried Chicken, which though, not at all like my mom's orange chicken is the closest we could get.I wear my shoes, the shoe lace snaps off! I wear my coat, and realize I can't find my hat or gloves anywhere in the apartment. That hat is big! unlike other things, it never stay hidden for too long, it's just gone.

So we go to EGG and my hands are cold in the not-so-cold-weather gloves, and I'm pissed and there's a short line, so we wait. Or rather I wait, while Ned goes to where we had breakfast yesterday to ask and no, they didn't see my hat, so he comes back and I go the the dessert shop we went to in the evening, and no, they didn't see it either. I'm tired and cranky and really pissed off. I walk back to EGG and we still have to wait.

WE go in and sit in a table right by the window and then move cause it's so cold, and the very busy waitress take our order over another table's head and guess what?! no Chicken.... I almost cry, but I have a sandwich instead and it's pretty good. There's a woman sitting next to us who keep calling biscuits "scones" and though her friend correct her, she keeps saying "but it's just like scones" and I'm thinking " if she say scone one more time, I'm bashing her head off with the water bottle" I'm just not in people mood and there are a lot of people there.

We go to the city, and ask in Coffee shop - the waitress remember what my hat looks like, but she didn't see in, neither did the cashier in Strand. It's just gone.
Eventually I try the art store, though I'm sure it's not there and already trying to figure out what my new hat would look like, know that for sure it's not going ot be as cool and pretty as my old one.

Even before I reach the cashier, I notice my hat on the shelf with a note on it, they found it and it makes me so happy I'm dancing around the store and thanking them like a million times. Coming home I see that 2 things got sold in the store, and apparently I was on Etsy's first page.

There's a war in Israel and I feel a little embarrassed by being so emotionally effected by a hat, but really, the happiness and sadness I experience today with this hat thing was so extreme it's pretty mind blowing.

clandestine or Staying undercover

This is a drawing of the spy Mata Hari who was executed for espionage at the end of world war 1. I love the fact that she made her spying carer while not trying to hide herself, but quite the opposite - becoming a performer and being a very public figure.

I've been keeping myself in hiding in the past couple of days, I decided after the last trunk show of the holiday season, that since it's not going to be much of a busy Etsy week, I'm going to take some time off and just rest and, well, do nothing. It's hard when you are working from home and when what you love doing is also what you work at to just stop. Also, because promoting is a big part of my work, taking time off meant, for me, not producing art or blogging or going on flickr or doing anything like that.

I'm not quite sure what the purpose was, I think I just needed a break without feeling bad about it. And so, I spend the last couple of days on vacation - I played Spore for a couple of days, then watched Ned play it for a couple of days. I've slept in strange hours, I've eat junk food and snacks, and the house is even more messy then usual, including a bunch of pots still full of food on the stove which, since I didn't pack - I will have to throw out. I didn't answer any e-mails, work of friend related and basically just been wallowing in my own body, even though I showered - I feel like a mess!

I guess sometimes I just need to slow down and do nothing, even if it means 10 hours of stupid computer games. I'm trying not to feel guilty, and I fail...

AstulaBee

AstulaBee, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen (the artist formerly known as Lilly1975).

This artist is so amazing! I'm constantly surprised by her creativity, super subtle sense of style, and amazingly rich inner world.

You can read the interview at www.louchelink.com

After Trunkshow Blues

Today was the fact and fancy meet the artist trunk show in which I took part. I got so stressed about it all week that I made a massive massive amount of stuff. The middle of the gallery is taken by a beautiful dining table which I knew i would have to myself, in my mind, the more stuff i made, the larger the table became, I think that by the last day of preparing, it was actually larger then the whole store.



The weather was against me, it was very very cold today, probably colder then it had been this year, so I think not too many people were out, but the store was pretty crowded most of the time, and I had some a nice time just hanging out with Danielle and being there.

When I started the Etsy store, I really liked the way it allowed me to sell my stuff without having to actually be there, in person, to sell my stuff. I'm shy and anxious around new people and a really terrible sales person. Also, I realized through this how hard it is to feel like my whole self esteem, in that moment, is focused on one person browsing around a shop full of really amazing stuff and either choosing or not choosing to buy my art.

It's really hard to know when to talk to people, when to leave them alone, when to make eye contact and I kept feeling like I'm somehow messing up or not getting it or that there's some trick to this that I didn't get, and everyone else know.

At the end of the day, 4 things got sold - a small painting, a large painting, a sake bottle and a small tapas dish. Danielle told me that so far, this was the best trunk show day! which made me feel so good, I felt so grateful for her for letting me know.

On the train, on the way back, I thought about how, when I started selling on Etsy, I felt the same, like there's something to figure out that will produce an ongoing sells flow and will somehow make it all work. Then after a wile, I learned that there's no such things, some weeks are better then others, some really suck, you have to keep promoting and making stuff and getting better, with time it get a little easier, not cause I figured anything out, but because I got used to it, I make a sale and another and it all ads up somehow, and every little bit of effort, time and money helps.

This was the last Trunk show I did this holiday season, they were all small low-key events, 2 of which were organized by Ned's mom who was an amazing help and a much much better sales person then me (I have a lot to learn from her) and this one, which I did on my own. I'm feeling a little sad for not making it into a big Christmas market or trunk show, at the same time, I know those 3 experiences were very forming in the way of wanting to get over the fear and put myself out there more. I wish it was easier though!



When I got home, Ned and I fell asleep shortly after arrival, I woke up at about 10:00 PM and felt so lost, not quite sure what to do now, I made so much stuff for the trunk show that didn't get photographed yet that it felt silly to make more things, eventually I just set in front of the computer for a long time, reading the Israeli News and other silly websites till I got bored.

Eventually I decided to scan some of the sketchbook art that haven't been scanned in the past couple of weeks.

trunkshow prep!

trunkshow prep!, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen (the artist formerly known as Lilly1975).

Excited and nervous about the fact and fancy trunk show tomorrow, I was getting ready for it in the past few days and in some odd Jewish mother like attack, kept feeling like I don't have enough stuff to bring.

So then, putting everything together for the show was pretty impressive cause there were just so much stuff! I hope it'll look nice in the store. I'll be there tomorrow from 2:00 PM, if anyone wants to come - you are all invited!

Hope I didn't forget anything.

Or in another words

Which I just thought of while taking a shower (probably the first one in about 3 weeks...)

My fear is like my ass, I don't like it cause it's too big, and cause I got it from my family, howeve,r there's no way to "get over my ass" or change it. I can't get over my fear. All I can do is go on living my life and hope it doesn't get too much in the way.

Strange New Age mambo Jumbo

An answer to an e-mail I got from a friend about freedom and liberation through tuning your body with the universe (I think)

Hay.

I’m going to write you a different e-mail later or tomorrow, cause you asked for Hebrew and my laptop is showing some death signs so I’m trying to fix it now. But I did want to response to this thing so, while I can do that in English I will. I’m writing it to you, but since you send the first e-mail to a bunch of people, feel free to send it to them as well, maybe it will start an interesting debate.

I’ve read what you wrote a couple of times in the morning, and a couple of times in the evening, it got mixed up with a conversation I had with Ned, with the book I was listening to, with my computer being messed up, with a bit of luck I had yesterday and a bunch of other things, it’s quite possible, that if I got that e-mail tomorrow or last week, it would make me feel quite different, but I did get it today so I’ll try to write about it from how I see things now.

There is no road to liberation; there is no process in the path to enlightenment or freedom. In my experience, there is only the currant place where we are in life, a hundred million tiny choices we make everyday, and they are all my chances to be free and act according to my free will. Some situations allow me more freedom, some less, some choices will bare an ill effect on the future and so even though I feel like doing something I might avoid it (yes, I don’t really think my body would be too happy in the long run if I eat another piece of cake so though I really want one, I’ll have some coffee instead). Some of those choices I choose because it’s the right thing to do, some on impulse, some because I’m scared, or feel responsible, some because I forget to really ask myself what I want and just go with the flow.

I’m scared, and I know, everyone I know is also scared, our life is flooded with fear – the fear of rejection, of pain, or being hurt, of messing up and being yelled at, of being held responsible for our own actions, being thought of as a freak, not being loved, being lonely, being alone.

For me, the only way to achieve anything that I have achieved in the past few years of my life, may it be a husband I love, living without the burden of a 9-5 job, a good relationship with my sister, a no relationship with my mother, an art show and some fame (though so far no fortune) friends and so on – came from accepting fear as a part of my life, but, still making the effort to choose what I wanted regardless to the fear. I’m also painfully aware of all the things I haven’t achieved yet - a good relationship with my family, financial success, fame, an art show in NY, better relationship with friends, an ability to fix my computer on my own, a regular (or any type of) physical exercise routine, a mid for business and so on, are very much not yet within my grasp cause I’m too scared to go for it.

And you know what?! That’s also OK, I might get there eventually, I might not, I know I have my own unique personality with it’s strengths and weaknesses, and I’m doing a little better on some days, and on other days, I’m doing worse. I don’t think I need to be perfect, all I can do or be in me – and sometimes that the best thing in the world and some times it truly and utterly sucks. And I’m happy to be me, at least, most of the time.
There is no road to liberation and there is no path to follow, don’t attempt to liberate yourself, be free! Don’t attempt to “walk the path to enlightenment” just turn on the light! Your life is being lived one minute at a time, whatever you do in that time is up to you. This is not a school there are no lessons to be learned, your life is a work of art that you are creating, a book that you are writing, it can be as short or as long as you choose it to be, it can be a well constructed plot or a stream of consciousness novel. How know, it might be a poetry book, or short stories, or a case study, or a shopping list – it’s up to you to live it the way you see fit.
Observing yourself and your life is mostly just a way to defend yourself from fear, being cynical, most of the time, is also, just a way to defend yourself from fear. It’s OK to use those methods, we all need our armors, and it’s also nice to find situations or way to take it off once in a while.

As far as I can tell, there is no god, there is no heaven and hell or reward or punishment, we create our own rewards and our own punishments. There are no distractions, there’s just life and what we choose to focus on, some times finishing studying for an exam is more important then going out drinking, sometimes a Metalica concert is more important then attending a funeral, sometimes, staying up till sunrise laughing in bed is more important then going well at an important meeting the next day, sometimes, the hardest thing in the world is picking up the phone, and the easiest is making 20 paintings in one night.

Staying focus on a target is just one way to perceive life.

Having a graceful sense of timing, a harmony with the world, though a profound experience, is just one way to interact with the world around us.

Being happy or content is just one emotion we can experience, it is not a goal, it is just that in this state we avoid fear, and the horrible feeling of not being good enough and emptiness, which are all, after all, also, just one more emotion on a large scale of what makes us human, and of what make us the individuals that we are.

Life is a constant struggle, because it changes around us, and we change in it, and I don’t think there’s some place or state of mind to aspire to. I know I hope to struggle and interact and be baffled and angry and sad and happy and silly and content and hungry and thirsty and in need of a stiff drink or a cup of coffee till I die. I don’t want to be enlightened; I just want to be me.

WOW!

WOW!, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen (the artist formerly known as Lilly1975).

check it out!

Oh my god! can you believe this?! Fact and fancy made it to some TV news show and my print is in there! how cool is that?!

Tethered to the Sun on Louchelink

I'm super excited about having tethered to the sun on Louchelink. They are one of my favorite people on Flickr and their photography is really amazing.

Read interview here:
http://www.louchelink.com/

News News News!

Well, the cool and big news in that I'm going to take part at the fact and fancy Holiday meet

the artist trunk show! Everyday, for a week there are going to host a different artist in the gallery and have more room for their stuff and I'm going to be one of those lucky people! Horay!

The Gallery in at 75 Hoyt st. in Brooklyn, and I'm going to be there on Saturday December 20th, I'm really happy and excited and now going into work frenzy to make enough stuff for this show. I'm making some hand painter ceramics and there's going to be some new art kits and reader kits as well as some original art and prints.

I really love their space and every time I'm there, I want to buy the entire store, get confused and buy nothing, but this time, I've decided that I got to leave the space with one gift for myself, so you can all come and help me pick what I'm getting.

Broken

Oh no!

Last year at about the same time, the exact same thing happened! a cold day, I touch my glasses and without any type of warning, they crack down the middle and break!

I'm not sure why, I'm glad I got 2 pairs last time I was in Israel and so I'm not really physically effected by this (plus, I was never in love with this frame).

Still it feels very disorienting and odd to loose something that's almost a part of my body.

My new frame is much lighter is if feels very odd not to have the weight of those on my nose and ears.

Shoot - Sierra

The first shoot we had in a while with an independent model who doesn't belong to an agency.

The experience of shooting a models is always surprising and fun for me. I always somehow expect them to "act like a model" which is my mind, I guess based on TV and movies, is somewhere between stupid and nasty - I'm not sure how I got so prejudgist, maybe it's jealousy or mistrust in beautiful people. Non of the models I've met were either stupid or nasty so far.

This girl was so awesome, she was funny and creative and just really fun to be around. She brought such great energy to the shoot.

New Site

We were sitting in Fornino Pizza this evening, Ned was feeling sort of low, and we were talking about promoting his work so he gets some more cool projects like the Law & Order shoot. I was thinking of how hard it is to find places to promote myself and my own work and how I hate doing that.

It made us realize that one of the things artists want the most is spaces where they can promote and show their art and personality. And that a good way to make people aware of you, is by promoting other people (I was thinking of Joy quarterly magazine, which is really lovely, but the guy who edit and produce it also take a lot of the photos in it, which give the magazine a pretty isolated feel and also, total lack of interest from other people).

And I Decided to make a new website in which, every 2 weeks Ned and I will feature another artist or photographer or musician or friend.

So now it's 7:00 in the morning and the website is done! it's called LouchLink and since I wanted to finish the layout today, Ned is the first artist who's featured on it (we couldn't get anyone else on such short notice...) but from now on, we'll be featuring other artists and awesome people.

If you would like to be featured, e-mail us some photos of your work and a few sentenses about who you are and what you do, or follow the "submit" button on the site.

Winter Wonderland

When I came to visit Ned for the first time, I came to New York a few days before Christmas, there were trees being sold all around Williamsburg, and snow that fall a couple of nights before I got there. There were Christmas decorations on the houses and while Ned showed me around New York, we saw the big tree in Rockefeller center and got to hear carols from the church across the street.

I don't know if that's why I like Christmas so much, because it's associate with being in love and happy, or if the reason is too many special Christmas episodes on TV shows, but every year in the past 3 years I'm so excited to see the trees and decorations.

I don't really celebrate any holidays, and I can't really bring myself to do anything that non-Jewish as to get a tree or decorate my home, but I guess I took all my holiday cheers as an artistic effort and made a bunch of winter related things for my etsy store.



A winter wonderland tea set.




A 4 animal print set (there's an owl, 2 playing polar bears, a couple of robins and a reindeer)




Butter fly Christmas ornament.

New coffee shop \ studio

Everyday when Ned go to the gym, I go out, sit in a coffee shop and do some drawings, sometimes it's stuff I later sell at the etsy store, sometimes it's stuff for the sketchbook. I listen to an audio book and focus really hard on drawing, usually, I don't even notice when Ned comes into the shop until he sits next to me or touch me.

In the summer, I usually went to the blackbird parlor, on Bedford street, which though pretty crowded, we eat at quite often, so I didn't feel so bad about hogging a table for 2 hours while only having one cup of coffee, but since it got colder and darker, I can't really sit there after 4:30 or so, it just get too dark and the place, though lovely with it's romantic lighting, isn't really practical for drawings and paintings.

So, I was out to find a new place around the neighborhood where I can work in. And while looking for one, I tried to comply a list of demands from a coffee \ studio space (surprisingly enough, good coffee isn't so far up the list).

1. Need to have good lighting!
2. Need to have more then 3 or 4 tables, or I feel too guilty about taking other paying costumers.
3. I don't like it when the tables are on the way to the counters so that any person passing by can look into my sketchbook - it's a little strange cause I like drawing in public places and I don't mind an occasional look or question - but when it happens all the time I feel too strange.
4. It's great if it's one of those places where other people sit with laptops or work, and then I don't feel so strange about sitting on my own.
   
5. This is a bit of a pet peeve but I'd rather not have to drink from paper cups.
6. Also, counter service is better for working environment then table service - I put all my socializing effort in the beginning and then I feel OK about not talking to anyone else for the rest of the time.
7. If possible - I don't like those huge American coffee mug and rather drink from a smaller cups - it's more a matter of aesthetic then anything else, but still...
8. and last - good coffee is always nice!

So today, giving a new spot a chance - the top 6 things on my list were fulfilled perfectly, I think I've found my new office, I might have to talk to the person in the counter to give me coffee in the cappuccino cups, but it was well lit, full of working people, and even had cool music and nice people, and I met an ex urban rustic waitress that I really like, so I didn't even feel like a stranger.

Also, it's really cool that the name of the place is El Beit - the home in Arabic.

A dream I forgot

A dream I forgot, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen (the artist formerly known as Lilly1975).

I've made this drawing a few months ago, then, I took the sketchbook on one of our motorcycle trips, we got soaked in the trip and only when we got to the motel, I realized that my sketchbook got wet. A lot of the drawings in it faded or got stained, this one was the worst of all, and since t was the newest, I didn't even get to scan it before it got destroyed.

I got so upset over this, I never used the sketchbook afterwards. It was in my bag every single day, but between getting ready for the exhibition and doing work on other type of paper that were meant for the store - I just sort of forgot about this.

Yesterday, I was thinking about a friend that lost her camera a couple of weeks ago and doesn't want to get a new one, feeling like somehow, the world should correct itself and give her her old camera back.

I decided to break the no use on the sketchbook thing, and used it for 4 new drawings for a project I'm working on, looking back on the destroyed painting, I sort of like it now.

Opinion

My illustration Friday for this week (haven't done this in a while) I think it's still an attempt to process the whole being deleted from flickr thing.

The day of the week was "opinion" I've tried to figure out what my opinions are, surprisingly enough non of it had to do with politics, and most of it was about the type of person I want to be.

Never Again!

A couple of weeks ago Ned and I saw this ad pasted on a light past in Wiliamsburg. Someone was looking for couples of all ages \ genders \ sexual preferences to kiss to a camera then was going to composite the footage together to make a short film. I'm not quite sure why I answered this ad, maybe because though my acting skills are non existing I still wanted to be in a movie, maybe because the phrasing was so endearing, maybe because it looked like a good promotion to the Ned and Aya enterprise... however, i did wrote back, and the guy who was making the movie wrote back, and we meet last Wednesday to talk about the shoot.



It turned out this was some film students working on a really cool school assignment to which the school gave budget and invested in, he was planning to shoot 5 couples in different spots in Williamsburg and said he had 6 minute of film for each couple. I though that meant about 1/2 hour to an hour and so agreed to take part. It was all exciting and the guy was really sweet.

My first sign of warning should have been the next line "I scheduled you two for 7:00 AM on Saturday. But I didn't yield to the warning and had a very positive feel about the whole thing.

Of Saturday, I looked at the weather report and for the time of the shoot, it said 25F and feels like 13. I wrote the guy to ask him if he still wants to shoot and he said yes. So I said yes, thinking that we'll do it quick then go back to sleep (or go to sleep at all actually, since the only way I'll be up at 7:00 AM is by not going to sleep till then).

Me and Ned got out of the house at 6:40 and were in the playground at 7:50, theres' nobody there. We walked around to keep warm, it's fucking freezing, we go around the block a couple of times, check the other playground, on the other side of the street, there are a few people out, walking around, their breath fuming in the chill. After 20 minutes we walk away, go to Aldo's for breakfast, coffee and defrosting and head back home.

When we get in there are 5 unanswered calls on my phone and as I sit down it's ringing again, it's some girl from the film and she's wondering where we are, so, we dress again, this time I add long underwear and walk, again, to where the shoot it supposed to take place. There are 4 people in, the director who we have meet, a camera guy and 2 other people, everyone's wearing hats coats and gloves and freezing.

As it turned out, 6 minutes of film doesn't mean 6 minutes of consecutive filming, No, the director shoot 2 seconds then stops then change tripod then figure out the light, then we wait for the clouds to go away and shoot again, from a different direction doing something different with the arm. We don't get off the bench cause we need to keep the same place. And it just getting colder and colder. Even with the big dawn jacket, and the long underwear and the motorcycle gloves, I'm getting colder and colder, Ned's even worst off, since he's wearing sneakers and a less warm hat, his lips are turning purple. The whole thing takes about 2 hours, we get some coffee at a strange Spanish chicken restaurant when the crew is changing hte film in the camera.

Eventually they run out of film and we take off.

In bed trying to defrost later, we try to figure out why neither of us said anything or just left. And we can't really understand our reaction, was in because we felt sorry for the crew, or because we didn't want to mess it up, or simply not wanting to be th first pussy to break down. Somehow I assume that just like when we are shooting and take responsibility for the model's comfort and take care of everything, I'll be taken care of when someone's shooting me. I make lists of everything this guy did wrong and how he could have do better, I'm angry with the director but even more then that, angry with myself for not speaking up.

This wasn't just 2 stupid hours, we were asleep all day, woke up for a few hours to eat and meet friends and went back to sleep. Still filling a strange numbness in the tip of my fingers and a strange coldness inside.

What a stupid reason to loose an entire weekend! Never again!

Trunkt

Trunkt is sort of a portfolio site for artists and crafters, I applied to it twice in the past, and got rejected (actually, they don't even send a rejection mail or anything, you are just left to wait and wonder) which of course, made me resent the whole site.

This morning, for no reason what-so-ever, I decided to apply again, didn't give my application any thought and got in!

my impression so far:
The work flow in it is very unintuitive and hard to understand and there's very little you can do without a premium account that cost 25$ a month(!)

I might give it a shot, if there's anyone else here who uses it successfully, I'd love to get some tips.

It's very nice to not be rejected!

my portfolio is here

Submission

I have tried to get into Trunked a couple of times in the past, once when I just started on Etsy and the second time was after I started illustrating the tarot cards and sold a bunch. In both cases I thought I had it in my pocket - that I can get in quite easily, and in both case, I never heard from them. I really hated the experience of not only getting rejected, but also, not even getting an e-mail or any type of conformation for submission or of being accepted or rejected.

So for a while I just gave up on it, it's just one site and even being accepted didn't seem to be worth the emotional effort.

I'm not quite sure why, but today, I resubmitted. It might be that I'm too tired to get nervous, or it might be that the success of last week shoot and the exhibition opening made me more confident. But I just filled in that silly form a 3rd time.

In the two other submissions, I tried to show the diversity of my store, but this time, I decided to try and keep it more cohesive and I submitted Trust, Tenderness and what is the truth. All drawings from yesterday. Of course, right after I submitted I decided that it was a mistake and that I should have submitted some pottery instead. I guess I always feel like that.

Well, here goes nothing...

A day Off

After all the excitement of last week, the opening to my art show in Chicago, Ned's big shoot and then retouching and working on the images and being in transit for 2 days - taxis, planes and cars. It was really really nice to spend a whole day at home. It's super cold outside, past freezing temperature and windy. So today - I did nothing!

Well, it's not quite true, but it feels like compare to the action packed previous week, I did nothing.

I was tired, sort of sad, and I wore pajamas all day long! in that time I finished some Etsy listings that were long over due, made food and 4 new drawings, well, 3 and a half, to be precise, one of those I started last week, what now feels like last year, and finished today.

More flickr thoughts

Hi everyone!

Thanks so much for this beautiful thread. I'm really moved and touched by everyone responses.

Flickr basically doesn't moderate their site (strangely enough) they trust flickr user to do that. basically whenever people see something they think doesn't follow flickr rules, they can choose to report it.
There's a strange story of flickr stalking and just random nastiness that I probably shouldn't get into, anyhow, some guy reported my account multiple times from multiple accounts until they deleted me. My flickr communication yielded 2 things 1) I was deleted for posting an image that I didn't produce (which is probably the only flickr violation I didn't do...) and 2) There is no way to restore an account once it was deleted. Even if the photos are still on server, the comments, stats, contact list, and so on, are gone for good.

To me the most horrible thing about this is loosing a part of my history as wall as my day to day communications. Flickr's not only a way to document past and present, but also a lot of the way of how I experience Israel from afar. Also it's really sad to loose Ned's first e-mail to me, about 70 comments on our first married kiss and a bunch of other personal historical moments in my life. Not to mention the fact that I'm going through pretty serious withdrawal symptoms.

All the metaphors I used to describe the feeling I've had are really violent, to me, it's far worst then loosing all the info on my hard drive (I've had that happened at least twice before and it sucks). They mostly have to do with feeling violated, wrongly accused and judged without having a chance to defend myself. It feel like coming home one day and realizing that your landlord replaced the key and burned all your stuff because the neighbors complained that you are a drug dealer while actually wanted the apartment for their relatives.

It doesn't help that disappearing without a trace as well as being convicted in a crime I never committed are 2 things that really trigger anxiety attacks for me. I'm really happy this thing happened in a relatively sane and stable month in my life.

Yes, technology and the natural development of social interaction moves in the speed of light while laws and regulations seem to not move at all. It really sucks. There's really no way to make flickr reconsider. I can go into a whole huge argument and take them to court, but basically all I might get is my 29$ back.

As the flickr help guy told me "feel free to start a new account" - nice hu?!

Which sadly, I probably will, because I do get more out of flickr then I would like to admit, because there is not serious alternative and honestly, because it's too painful and lonely without it.

The only thing I've learn from this experience is that since this whole thing is so damn random, there's very little sense in trying ot actually moderate yourself and play by flickr rules. Basically, they say in their TOU that they reserve the right to delete any account without warning and for whatever reason they see fit.

Fuck flickr!

Why? because I miss it so much and because this situation suck and because I feel like all the joy was sucked out of my life without the ability to share my feelings and experiences with others.

This was such an amazing week, we had a lot of successes and also, a lot of fun. A great many wonderful things are happening, among them, the opening party to my exhibition in Chicago, and Ned getting his first big commercial project in a couple of years. We were in meetings and errands about that all day yesterday and will be shooting on Thursday, A lot of it is still secretive, but it does involve a TV show and male nudity...

It feel like my life was hijacked by a much cooler and successful person then I am, sadly, that person seem to not have a flickr account and so somehow I feel like without being able to share, the experience doesn't really exist.

It's very humbling and even disturbing to come to term with the level of my flickr habit and how much I'm dependent on it ot both communicate with people and not feel so alone in the world.

Ned posted my e-mail to flickr help and the whole communication in this thread, the responses went from banning Ned from some biker group, to practical advices, people being sad for me and some telling off. It's both encouraging and depressing, I feel resentful toward all of them just cause they still have their flickr accounts and I don't.

I realized how me and probably everyone I know are so used to expecting fairness and justice in any type of interactions we are involved in, may it by in the election process or in not being pushed on the line to buy grocery in the store. How we expect, without ever questioning it, of privet companies to play fair though no where in flickr term of service they promise to do this, in fact, they pretty bluntly say that they reserve the right to delete any accounts whenever they choose to without a reason or explanation.

Somehow that makes me appreciate democracy a lot more. The realization that fairness is totally taken for granted in my life and the lives of people around me - to a point of not being able to even conceive the notion of organized unfairness.

The hardest thing in all this is the isolation, the second hardest thing is knowing, pretty much without a doubt, that in a couple of days I am going to just give up on my anger and nasty feelings about flickr and just start a new account, because there's really no other alternative.

Fact and Fancy print show

On Friday, me, Ned, our friend Mike who was staying without this week, Chava, Persiana and Andrew and their friend Lindsey, and Ned's parents all went to the fact and fancy gallery on Hoyt street to see some my vases and a special series of prints I've made for the show. It was so much fun! I love that place and it was wonderful to go there with a large group of really supportive people.

Even though the gallery is so small, my group filled almost the whole space, it's so overwhelming to see this amount of cool art!

It's the second time I'm in the fact and fancy and both time I wanted to buy something to support the store. Each time I went from wanting one thing, to wanted everything to being to overwhelmed and wanting nothing. This is what I really wanted to get and next time, I might:

This amazing flowers and minerals print:

This awesome fox:
One of those beautiful bears:


And then we all went out for dinner

This is my first attempt using google's picasa web album. I really hate living without flickr. A lot of nice people encourage me to write to people in Yahoo and flickr and try to solve this account being deleted thing. Though Flickr let me know that the information is gone.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. I just want everything back to what it was. The idea of opening a new flickr account and having to pay for the service again makes me grind my teeth, though I really don't like the google thing and find myself feeling very sad and isolated without my flickr contents and constant communication.

This situation really sucks.

A letter to flickr

Hello flickr help,

My account was deleted today without any type of warning or even an e-mail to let me know. I actually found out by trying to check my activity and not being able to log in, then got a worried and very emotional call from my best friend, who, by the way, I met through your site.

I know there were some violations on my page, I also know I have, over the past 3 or 4 years drove over a million people into my photo stream, got at least a 100 people to flickr most of which probably got pro accounts, I've gotten numerous amount of e-mails telling me my art and photography is inspiring and that it encourage them to take picture, or make art or express themselves in other means.

I'm not writing this to beg you to give me my account back, I know I bended yahoo rules or whatever more then once, by following what I consider proper flagging and probably not what yahoo think is proper tagging, I'm very aware of flickr being a privet site and that you don't really owe me anything. I'm mostly writing this in hope that somehow this e-mail make it past one of you probably-part-time-flickr-worker-part-time-student or whoever work in there in the deleting account department, or maybe I just write to get this off my chest.

In the past few years of my life flickr played a major role in my life. I met my husband on my blog in in the year we spend apart, me in Israel and him in NY, flickr was one of our main arenas of communication as wall as a way for use to express our love publicly and share things. I've met a lot of my current friends on flickr and got involved in a couple of art shows through it. more then the practicality of keeping in touch and sharing art, it became my community, I'm very socially anxious and being able to take part in people's life and sharing my own life with them really gave me a window into the world. I now, because of flickr take interest in the lives of people I never even met, and people who never met me take interest in mine.

For me, having my account deleted and especially in the way that it happened - with no warning or even an e-mail telling me about it, feels very much like coming home to realize that my keys has been changed and not only I'm not allowed in my own home, I've never even lived there. I have a history that has just been erased, a million comments, interactions, people, images, feeling, thoughts, and emotions, that were documented this afternoon and are now gone for good. I feel like my home burnt down and I'm left with nothing.

Your site gave so much and by my account being deleted, took so much from me.

I'm thinking back on my photo stream and remembering so many important moments of my life, which the documentations and interactions of are now gone and all is left in my own memory.

I'm angry, and sad, and I want to never go on flickr again, and at the same time open a new account now.

Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be more careful about flagging and nudity and paintings and whatever, maybe I'll just have an easier time next time I get deleted.

Flickr - you used to rock and now you suck. I know it's probably not the fault of whoever is reading this e-mail, but still, that's what I feel.

I had an opening of an art show I was in today, I took my camera and took some photos, it really hurts me not to have my way of sharing it with the supportive flickr community who's been following and encouraging me through my artistic career, I feel a great sense of loss, not so much as if someone in my life died, but as if I died, and am now buried and isolated from my world of the living. It's really a horrible feeing.

I know that my best case scenario now is getting some stupid form answer and my worst case scenario is not getting any answer. I don't really think this will help anyone, I guess i just wanted to have the final word or whatever, a closure of a sort.
It's really sad to me how a site and an organization that was so much about community and self expression became so much about restriction and obedience to the rules. I'm really sad about the loss of the people I've had on flickr and my own personal documented history. I feel like I just got deported from one of the only countries I actually felt at home in.

Aya Rosen \ Lilly1975

Chilly

Chilly, originally uploaded by lilly1975.

I found the recipe for this great, quick and easy dish at a wonderful Israely blog and modified it to a vegetarian Chilly, I'm not so found of cooking meat (though I will eat it out). It was super easy and quick to make so I thought I'd share.

Ingredients
For cornbread:
1/4 cup of regular flour
1/4 cup of corn grits (sometimes called polenta)
1/2 tea spoon of baking soda
1/2 tea spoon of salt
1 egg
1 cup of yogurt

For chilly:
2 cups of sprouted beans (if you don't sprout beans this can work with canned beans, which I personally don't like, or dry lentils or dry munge beans)
A spoon of flour
A small can of tomato paste
1 onion
2 carrots
2 chillies (I used jalapeno but any type is good)
Chilly flakes
cumin

* I used carrots cause that's what I had, this can also work with potato, mushrooms, corn, peppers or any combination of those.

How to make it:

In a small bowl mix all the dry ingredients for the corn bread (2 type of flour, baking soda and salt) then ad the egg and yogurt mix as little as possible till the mixture is unified. Then put in the fridge.

Chop the onions and chillies and other vegetable and fry in a pan. The pan later on will have to go into the oven, so don't use one with a plastic handle. mix and add the beans, then add the tomato paste mixed with about half a cup of water. mix again by now you'll have a pan full of red stuff.

Mix a table spoon of flour with a cup of water and add to the frying pan. mix for about 5 minutes, the mixture will thicken and look really yummy, add a pinch of cumin and, if you like spicy, some chilly flakes. turn off the stove and then, with a spoon, put dollops of the corn bread mixture on top. I fitted 6 of them in there.

Put the pan in the over for 15 set on about 300F then under the grill for another 5 minute (just so the corn bread will get a nice toasty color).

That's it really, the whole thing, including cooking took about 30 minutes to make, it made a huge lunch with leftovers for me and Ned.

Print Parteeee

Print Parteeee, originally uploaded by Fact & Fancy.

Come and meet me and a bunch of other awesome Brooklyn Based artist in the "Fact and Fancy" art gallery in 75 hoyt Street, Friday at 6:30-8:00 at a great charity show for a bunny Shelter.

More info here:
fact and fancy

Wonderful gift

I got an amazing package today from NestingEmily's from Etsy. We traded a painting for this amazing pottery box and I just love it! and the way she packed and presented it. I feel so lucky to get something this awesome!

A visit to the zoo

Well, not really, because I don't like the zoo, it usually makes me feel sad about the animals and I hate having to deal with this strange imitation of nature.
However I do enjoy books of photography about animals when the picture is taken in their natural habitat. It makes me appreciate 2 thing - animals and how beautiful and free they are, and photographers and their patience and proficiency if getting the right shoot in the right moment.

I made a whole series of animal drawing for the fact and fancy store \ gallery in Brooklyn, and what was left is now in my store!