Gender

No way to win
When I succeed as a person, I feel like a failure as a woman
When I succeed as a woman, I feel like a failure as a person

Would I care less about my skin if I were a man?
Would I care more about how little money I make if I were a man?
Probably yes.

A submission for WHcreation. The topic was Gender.

A dream

I'm walking through a space that's sort of like a computer game - each room have a door that you can get through to another room, some of the rooms are very large, and some are small, some are out doors, but there's always a way in and a way out to the next room. There's no structure to this building, no exterior, just a series of rooms leading from one place to the other.

I walk to a room that's all white, there are benches made of the same material as the floor and walls along the wall, there's light, but no source of light. one one of the benches, I see a black sketchbook, without opening it, I know it belong to my little sister.

I move on through a series of rooms, then find myself is a strange space, the walls are black, it looks a bit like a cavern, a bit like an art gallery, there are candles, and a big black wolf skin on the floor, with his head looking at me, with those yellow glass taxidermy eyes. He looks angry, but also sad.

I move on and climb a bunch of stairways, and sfter a series of room, I reach the top floor, it's a large attic like space, with skylights and a lot of photography equipment lying around in a jumble, nothing is set to shoot with. My little sister is there, just dancing around. i tell her about the sketchbook and the wolf skin and we decide to go back and find them so she can draw the wolf skin in her sketchbook.

We find the sketchbook really fast, but can't find our way back to that cavern like space. in the meantime, it's getting dark outside, and all the rooms are becoming darker and darker, so it's harder to go on looking for it.

Then she stops and say "Oh, I totally forgot, I already draw that wolf".

She opens her sketchbook and there's a beautiful realistic drawing of that wolf, only it's not just the dead hide, but a living wolf, with the same sad and angry face.

Alone

Every time you leave the room I feel like I'm about to cry.

I fill the absence of you with tears.

The conversations I have with myself, the silences, are always sad, angry and full of contempt.

I wish you were here now, to dilute the way I see myself with how you see me.

Draw-A-Thon

Today, Ned and I went to Draw-A-Thon, which is a series of very elaborate figure drawing events, which are long, sort of crazy and very different then an average drawing class. They are organized by a very cool artist, called Micheal Alan.

Like a lot of the activities that we've been involved with since the new rule of not refusing any invite, unless we already have plans for the day, this is something I've been wanting to do for ages, but just never got around to it till now.

The session was 7 hours long, and we came in, not knowing if we are going to do 7 hours, stay our half an hour and leave or somewhere in the middle. Eventually we stayed for a little over 3 and a half hours then left.

I had really strong feeling through this, a lot of them was frustration and anger about the event not being the way I wanted it to, about all the distractions, about the models moving all the time and blocking each other, about people going into and out of the room all the time, about how drawing event should be planned in general. Half of the event I was writing a "helpful" witty and cynical blog entry in my head about all this.

Coming home and looking at the drawings, I realized that though there are about 20 pieces of papers with half of a nose or one breast or an arm on them, because the models moves, there are still about 16 drawings that I do like which is a lot.

Also and more important, this drawing session made me try new things, like drawing more then one person in a drawing (though non of those is a drawing that I liked), drawing men, and mostly, having to draw in a much looser way then I'm used to, because of how fast things moved and changed on stage.

I think that my anger and frustration was mostly just me feeling out of control, out of my comfort zone and trying to find someone to blame for feeling so out of my element.

Trying something new

Had this idea for a drawing last night before going to sleep, decided to try it in the small sketchbook before going for a large time consuming version. It's about 75% done now, but I still don't know what I think about it and whether this is going to be tried on a larger format piece or not.


Ned's doing some light tests tonight, for a shoot in the beginning of January. he's shooting me, changing the lights and shooting me again.

It's very strange to look at my face in the photos. I feel like I grew so much older in the way I look in the past few month, I don't know if it's due to winter, or loosing some wight or just from growing older, but I don't look like a girl in photos anymore, not even like a young woman, not like an old woman exactly, but definitely not like a young woman anymore.

I sort of wish it wasn't so,I'm halfway heart broken about loosing some of my youthful look. knowing that this will just get worst with time doesn't make me feel any better about it.
I never considered myself beautiful, and yet, I guess I'm pretty vain, it's hard to think of myself as old.

As Dark As Night

I'm really happy with how this painting came out, for a bit in the middle I was about to give up on it, Somehow the composition just wouldn't tie itself correctly, and I had no idea how to solve it. Eventually, I think, it came together really well.

This looks so much better Larger.

and this is how it all started:

Marry Christmas!

Christmas is always very strange for me, on one end, I don't celebrate it in any way, in another end, there's this excitement in the air I can't quite ignore. There's really no meaning for me for this special day, not even a day off work (since I don't work) - but still, there's this special feeling that makes it impossible for me to work and do my thing as if this was an ordinary day.

It's really cool, then, that tomorrow, I'm invited to a Christmas day party, and so I got to spend at least part of this evening of not feeling like working in baking cookies for tomorrow.

I used this awesome recipe, which is super easy to make the most tasty cookies. They don't contain anything healthy, just sugar and butter and good stuff like that. I haven't baked anything for maybe 5 years so it was cool to see I can still do it.

Stickers removal surgery

First and the most annoying part of painting on dishes - removing the price stickers from each and every one of those.

The trick is to pour a lot of GooGone on all stickers and leave to soak for a couple of hours or so. It has a nice (though strong) orange smell.

Breakfast Drawings

All those were made during breakfasts out, in cafes and restaurants while waiting for food, for coffee, for a check and talking to Ned.

Day

It's 7:00 PM and a day that never really began yet feels as if it's already over. All I did today was wake up, too lazy to make breakfast so we went out to eat, then, set for 2 hours in a cafe drawing while Ned was at the gym. Then took the train to the upper east side, stayed there for half an hour or so, then came back.

Now, sitting in a restaurant again, feeling totally spent and half way falling asleep.

Today feels like just dealing with my feelings, with Ned's feelings, with crappy crowded trains and freezing piles of snow, with this strange pre holiday atmosphere which seem to be catching even though I don't celebrate the holiday at all.

Family

Thinking about my family today, especially my mom. Her voice sound louder and clearer in my head then it had in months. The memories of childhood comversations, of confrontations, of feeling helpless and lost and not quite being able to tell why. Of that venear of normaliy being grinded one day at a time, knowing that one day it'll crack and break, and both expecting and dreading that day.

Like some strange aftermath of my trip to Israel or a strange side effect of this Christmas spirit.

Funny how distances between places and distances between pasts and present can crumble in a wink of an eye.

Craft Night

Today, Ned and I went to craft night at Etsy lab in Dumbo. Their craft night is something I have been intending to go to just about every single week, and somehow, never got around to, yes, some of it is cause I'm busy, but I think, mostly, it was the idea of meeting a bunch of people who I know from online but never met in reality. Also, just the motion of being with so many people at once is sort of startling.

As it turned out, it was awesome, and there was nothing to fear. I met old friends, new friends, got invited to a Christmas day party, learned some new stuff, interacted with people and made myself a cool scarf out of old Tshirt's sleeves (though Ned helped and actually did most of hte work).

I'm so glad we went today, I woke pu in such a shitty mood and was feeling fat, ugly and useless all day, it was really nice ot be in a place where I could run away from myself for a couple of hours and be around nice people and do fun things.

I want I want I want

To be excited, to be entertained, to be woed after and adored. To feel chased after. For someone else to make the plans. To be made love to, to be fucked.

To feel the vastness of the world, rather then the vastness of my inner world. To feel like I'm a part of things, to feel normal.

Not to think so much, not to feel so much.

To have a drink rather then a cup of coffee.

To dumb down and numb down.

Latkes

I had big plans for a Hanukkah dinner this year, having both Ned's parents and some friends over for potato pancakes of different types, the whole thing was planned in my head, all I had to do is send some e-mails, make some calls, cook the food and have a fun night.

Somehow, it never happened - Ned's mom got sick, then I got a little under the weather, we were busy with out going out more policy, it was cold - I don't know, a million reasons and it never happened.

Somehow though, the plans got lodged in my brain and at about 10:00 PM tonight I had the strongest craving for those potato pancakes I was planning to make. I really couldn't imagine eating anything but, and so, Ned had ot risk his life in climbing into deep storage and finding those food processor attachment we've never used before, and within half an hour we were eating yummy, fattning and totally unhealthy potato pancakes!

And they were sooo good.

Practically painless

Even though it was very cold outside and even though I was feeling under the weather all morning (enough to sleep in till 3:00 PM instead of going out drawing when Ned was at the gym), we did decide to go out today in our new "going to everything we get invited for" policy.

And I'm really glad we did.

There were 2 exhibition openings I knew about and a Jazz concert, and deciding on this one was mostly because it's the only thing that didn't requier any traveling aside of a brisk walk to Roebling and South 2nd street.

Like the Spice is one of those galleries I always forget about, the building it's in is so unremarkable and the specific street corner is just a little off my way I sometimes forget about it all together, however, I have yet to see an exhibit there I didn't like.
Marissa is a really impressive curator and I love her taste in art and the way the space always look with art in it.

This specific show was by 2 artists, who's work I really liked, and I loved how 2 different styles worked so well together and the similarities and differences between the pieces were just right.

Ned and I started talking to Marrissa, who we know from around the neighborhood and we both had a nice time, and I didn't feel at all like a stranger or an outsider. We looked at the art, talked to another nice girl who works in the gallery, I just can't remember her name now, looked at the art some more, had a glass of wine and left.

Somehow being there and not feeling like a total alien made me feel really acomplished and good about myself.

New Sketchbook

Well, sort of, I started working on it right before my trip to Israel and went back to it about a week ago, I also have a smaller one I'm working on now, though at the moment, I'm more excited about this new format.
Those 2 painting are very inspired but what I've been learning from Moleskine exchange, I feel like the need to work on both side of the page and in double spreads rather then single page, made me relate to the whole page in a different way and also, to the whole book in a different way then I did before.

It's really nice to discover new stuff about art, after doing it for so long.

Those looks so much better larger then small - and you can see them at full size, or just about, here and here.

She danced herself into a dimond

Keep pushing the volume of my MP3 player up, keep trying to focuse on the audio book I'm listening to. To build my fances and walls out of words and stories.

Not to let the music in or the feelings out.

In my own element

For today's outing we went to 3rd ward for a "drink & draw" - what was supposed to be beer and a nude model, and and up being beer and a half nude person working in 3rd ward cause the model didn't show up.

I love figure drawing and I haven't done it in a while.

Drawing made me think  about a lot of art related thing, they all started with "I should do..." after a while I thought "It's OK just to be you" and that made me happy.

I wish I was more sociable, and that conversations with strangers came more easily, but it's simply isn't and that's OK to not be.

There's a really interesting conversation about flickr taking place 3 feet away from me, and yet I rather sit away from it and blog. And that's OK to.

Want to cry

And don't know why.

Because the weather is so cold it doesn't feel vaugly familier outside.

Because I miss my sister.

Because I can't ascape my thoughts.

An outing

Last night, we didn't get ourselves to any event or anything. We both didn't dress warm enough to go to the city and after a couple of hours of arrends, we were tired, freezing and just about ready ot quite for the day.

Tonight though - no excuses and so we had to go out.

I had some invite to a comedy show \ music show in DUMBO, but didn't feel like it and really didn't feel like having to commute anywhere to get to a show I didn't feel like seeing. So, I decided ot check out what's going on in our neighborhood, and eventually decided on a live show in Zebulon - a pretty cool bar I haven't been to in about 2 years.

Ned and I walked there at 9:00, the show was supposed ot start at 8:00, so I thought we'll probably miss the first song or two and get there when it start getting better. When we got in it was just us and another table, plus a bunch of people sitting at the bar.
The show didn't start yet, so we set and watched the end of "the mystery of Picasso" with the sound of, while Jazz music was playing. Both Ned and I felt so socially awkward, we didn't even mange to talk to one another. We just set there, feeling inadequate, like kids in an adult party. We were both thinking of all the stuff we could be doing now, work, taking photos, writing e-mails, and so on. Not so much cause we wanted to do all those things, but because we didn't want to be at Zebulon.

Some drunk Japanese guy on the bar, dressed in a red leather pants and a red leather hat started shouting at some other guy who went backstage. The show didn't start, the movie ended and "downtown 81" started. It was very strange to see footage from New York in the early 80's - all falling apart, dirty and gritty. We tried guessing what scene was shot where.

The bar started filling up, but our 30 minutes were off and we left.

It wasn't a success as far as networking or interacting went - we didn't talk to anyone. It wasn't even a good practice in feeling uncomfortable out of my safe zone - just a half hour spend wanting to be somewhere else.
But I'm glad we went out and we didn't fail our plan of getting out more.

Anxious

Still feeling anxious.

Not those blinding panic attacks that makes me unable to sleep, eat and makes me wish I was dead. Just some annoying gut wrencing feeling, like a cronic pain, that makes me feel like everyone I know are somehow angry with me.

The silence in my mind get filled with words, long speaches in my own voice, my parents voices, and other, all describing how hurt they are but something I did.

I replay every minor social mishap I made in the past couple of days, a slightly racist jokes, a hesitent handshake, a strange phrasinf in a blog comment, a million times till they intensify into horrrific acts of social inediquaty and I feel like I don't fit to live around other human beings.

It's not so bad, but it's bad enough.

Success #2

So today, encouraged by yesterday's success, and knowing that in the evening we'll have to clean the studio for a shoot tomorrow, we decided to go to the 3rd Ward craft fair, which was stepping up on yesterday's outing, because it was sort of out of our way - we actually had to leave the safty of walkable distances and take the train to get there.

Actually it turned out to be very near a restaurant we have walked ot in the past, though not in this weather, so we took the train.

I've only been to 3rd ward once before, it was for some artsy party that was both very loud and cramped with people and totally not interesting. I had a sort of bad memory from that night and so was a bit apprehensive about going there again.

The event itself was actually very nice (though just as crowded) with many vendors and a lot of buyers (which made me a little sorry for not knowing about this and getting a booth myself).

We walked around, brought Ned a really beautiful cup from a beautiful artist, and a small potted plant. It was fun. And I did feel less awkward, though still very awkward. I manage to introduce myself to a few of the vendors (it's very odd to say "hi, we are photographers") and pass 5 business cards to different jewelery designers who I thought might lend us some pieces for fashion shoots. After a couple, Ned took my lead and passed our cards to 2-3 more vendors.

We spend about 50 minutes there, in whole at the end meeting a guy we know from one of the restaurants we go to, and talked a bit about the diffrent vendors and what we are all up to for the day.

There is a whole dark side to this.

Though writing what I wrote, I do feel accomplished and like i did what I wanted. I'm also very anxious about it. I feel like it's all a big waste of time, like it sucks that I practically have to beg, well, maybe not beg but initiated an interaction in order to be allowed to do someone a big favor (taking photos of their jewelery for free) - I resent them for not writing already, though we did hear from the nice girl who made Ned's new cup.

Also, I came across a fashion designer I knew who was one of the vendors, Ned and I shot some of her dresses a couple of years back, somehow, I couldn't bring myself ot say hello or even acknowledge the fact that I knew here.

Third - I somehow feel resentful toward Ned for buying that cup. It's a stupid thing, I know, but I felt it was too expensive and I keep making the math of how much etsy stuff I have to sell to make up for it. We that I suddenly get stressed about money in general, and how much we spend on food today and coffee and pizza after the craft fair.

There's really no reason for it, I guess I'm just anxious about taking a chance today and things maybe changing in my life as a result.

Still I am really happy that we went even though I'm feeling anxious about it now.

Success!

Or just about.

Though there was nothing I wanted to do more then stay at home, finish a tea pot I started working on and play "farmville, and though it's about 20F out there. Ned and I left the warmth and safty of home, walked all the way to Kent ave and N2 to be in an opening reception to "Asesinos" - a really interesting and thought provoking exhibition.

We shared a beer, talked about art with each other, then left.

The goal I set was achived - we went out and spend 30 minutes in the company of others. It doesn't feel like success cause we didn't  talk to anyone. But, we did went out, and we stayed and that's what count.

WIP

I inteded to work on an illustration Friday piece today, but forgot my watercolors at home. So, working on some linework in an old large painting instead.

Fail (already?!)

Well, in the morning my idea of randomly going to every single event I get an invite for seem no short then brillient, not only it'll get me and Ned out of the studio and interacting, the whole tedious proccess of deciding where to go was gone.

Then, of course, it didn't.

We spend the morning in the city, Ned had a catch up session with his therapist while I was shopping for some shoot accessories. Then headed to the upper east side to pick up my trunk show left overs and lunch. We came home to drop the bags, knowing we had to leave in 2 hours for Ned's group.

There were 2 parties invites in the mailbox, one in SoHo for some magazine, the other in Brooklyn for NAG. Both started at 9:00. That meant that if we decide to go to the one in SoHo, it'll be 3 trips to the city in one day.

So eventually on the way to the city the 2nd time, I decided that we'll go to neither and start this new thing tomorrow.

Damn, even feeling like a looser doesn't equale the relife I feel for being allowed to spend the evening at home.

Outgoing

Ever since we came back, about a week and a half ago, we haven't met any friend, we went to a couple of events and either left before we even got in or 5 minutes later. We spend some time with Ned's parents and talked to some restaurant equivalences, but most of the time, we were home, on our own. Together, but very solitary.

We are sitting at union square coffee shop, and talking about needing to be out there more, network and interact, to get the artwork seen and make work relations.

I really hate that. I don't want to have to interact, but I know it's important. I decide, just for practice, to try and accept every event invite I get for the next month. To get myself out there more.

The thought is a lot more scary then fun.

Cold and rainy day

We went to sleep late and woke up late. One of those mornings in which I just don't want to get out of bed. It's started raining last night and hasn't stopped till now. The streets are wet and cold.

We just dropped 4 art pieces at the post office for 2 different art shows, and now, having a first cup of coffee before heading out to the upper east side.