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!