Rough around the adges

Still feeling at least half sick and half out for the Benadryl I took last night.

3 good things happened in the last couple of days. I got an order for 6 cups from the company that makes the paints I'm using, a band who I met at "blackbird" contacted me about maybe illustrating a poster for them and I started a 6 weeks sales class for photographers with Ned.

Still I feel so raw, like I'm walking around without my skin on.

Trying to get back on track

I've been sick for a week, soar throat, swollen sinuous, tired all the time, no appetite and everything tasting like snot. For a week I did practically nothing. very little drawing, mostly finishing projects I started the week before. No going out farther away from the nearest lunch destination, no food in the house because I had no energy to go grocery shopping or cook.

Ned had to go alone to a couple of meetings with friends and a wake to a friend, mostly we both felt lonely.

So today, starting to feel a little better, I decided to start the week with Ned and not stay in bed anymore. We had a really nice and long lunch meeting with a photographer who published a book that had some of our photography in it. Then Ned went to therapy and I went home to mail a letter and go shopping in the Salvation Army store for some outfits for tomorrow's shoot.

I don't know why, maybe it's because I was starting to get back to life, maybe because suddenly the weight of this whole week and life in general fall on me, maybe because for the first time in a week I felt Ned close and was aware of anything aside of how crappy my body was feeling, but I got so so down and depressed. This whole working toward a career in photography and art felt ridiculous, like there's absolutly no way me and Ned can actually start generating enough money to support our life through that, I can hear the clock ticking in my head, money and time are running out and soon we'll be left with nothing.

We talked about it, both feeling helpless, sometimes it feels so close, like stars at night, like there's so much work out there and if we just reach a little higher, a world of fame and fortume will fall into our hand like a ripe fruit. Sometimes, like tonight, I feel like we are being stupid, immature and very irresponsible wasting the money we have on living now instead of saving for old age and getting a job.

I don't know what's going to happened, there is no magic trick, and I guess we just need to keep at it for now.

Feeling a great sense of achivement

Tonight we went to the Rev. Vince Anderson and his love choir show again, we were there a couple of weeks ago, to the day. Back then, this whole going out thing was a lot more new and I felt a lot more raw about it. I liked the music but couldn't stand being there, my mind kept hating everyone in the room - the too enthusiastic girls dancing, the band, the whole Jesus thing, people drinking, people showing off, and so on and so on. I kept making assamptions and build stories and cases against all of them. Mostly, I just wanted to not feel so uncomfortable and blamed everyone in the room for how I was feeling.

Last week, something changes, it was a sudden change, I was in a room full of people, there was a reading going on and I didn't mind just being a part of a crowd, I enjoied being there and didn't feel like it's a dangerous situation and that I should defent myself against the masses.

It was really wonderful to go to the same show and notice that this change still held, I had a wonderful time, we were there for 2 hours almost that went by in what felt like 20 minutes, I took a lot of photos. I didn't feel a part of the crowd, I couldn't dance or just loose myself in the moment (that takes a lot more beer then I had really...) and there were a few Jesus mentions that made my teeth grind, but all that didn't keep me from enjoying myself, and didn't feel like I should mesure everyone in the room to feel safe.

I've been neglecting a lot of other things with this new going out rule, I totally blew it on a freelance design project I said I'll do and never wrote, called or answered the guy who gave me the project even though he wrote and called me. My etsy store is having it's worth month ever (only 4 sales so far, it's really sucks!) but I do feel like I accomplished, or still working to accomplish something important here.

It was really nice to see that this relative comfortableness came from me and not the event I was attending. I hope i can maintain this tomorrow.

6 gallery shows in 2 days

Not quite sure how it happened, but I did go to 6 shows in 2 days! realizing how much I like the artistic vibe in my neighborhood even though I rarely take advantage of all the places to see art around here, it was nice to be out and about and get this feeling of saturation, from seeing so many different artistic endeavors.

This was my least favorite show of this art marathon, it was ery minimalist and conseptual, some combination of rocks, carpeting, sticks and other natural and non natural materials. Mostly, it felt like it was put up the day of the opening and thought of that morning. It wasn't very esthetically pleasing, but at the same time I couldn't see any other substance to it. the gallery is very small and it was very crowded, me and Ned left after 5 minutes or so.



The second gallery was just as small and twice as crowded, but there was a nice feeling in the room, people were talking and laughing, and the art was really nice. It was a series of paintings on paper of newspaper clipping, I felt like each piece was beautiful, but the whole collection together and how it was set in the space was creating a whole that's stronger then each piece separately.
Ned run into an old friend \ neighbor artist who was there who he haven't seen in a few years, who I heard about and never met before.



When I went into the next gallery, my first reaction was "Oh no, it's video art" usually, I really don't like video art. It was toward the end of the opening and the gallery was pretty empty. After a while, I actually really got into it, and I found 2 out of the 3 pieces really interesting and beautiful (the 3rd was a 45 minute film) the first was a series of beautifully shot photographs documenting a trip to somewhere in east Europe, with portraits of people met on the road, landscapes and road signs - it had a really strong nostalgic feel, that was almost fairy tale like even though it was painfully realistic at the same time. The other piece was a sort footage (apparently from a German WW2 cinematographer) of a beautiful woman putting out candles, then played backwards so that she blows the candles back to light.

I got home feeling so saturated, I couldn't fall asleep till 3:00 AM, then crushed with my cloths on and the lights on, with an audio book on that kept going in and out of my dreams.


The next day, Ned was heading to the gym, and I was walking toward "blackbird", stopping at Pierogi - one of my favorite galleries in the neighborhood. They didn't rail me this time! there are 2 shows there now, and both are wonderful. Being that it wasn't an opening, I had the gallery to myself which was wonderful! one show was of small colleagues, very colorful and condense, with a lot of hand written type, and small images in the mix. they all looked like freak show posters, or strange ads from the 30's, but were very personal in content.
The other show was made to look like tiny old photographs or Polaroid transfer, but instead of photos, there were tiny illustration telling an odd story of some car-person-animal hybrid, which had, sex, violence and racial issues in the mix.
Both shows had a lot of sense of humor while, in their very different ways, were also very dark. This was the best show of the weekend as far as I'm concern.


I went to blackbird and draw for 2 hours, came across a friend, then Ned and I went to brunch at Diner, then, on our way to another opening, we saw a gallery that had something that looked beautiful from outside, so we went in. What I thought was very delicate looking botanical drawing, turned out to be computer print out of hexagrams and skulls and suck like done with typing different letters and keyboard signs. On the other side of the gallery, what I thought was small acrylics in bright colors, turned out to be colleagues that to me, never managed to overcome the materials that they were made of ,and the combination of imagery didn't feel interesting or original enough to capture my attention. There was a short video piece that was somewhere between creepy and funny (in a good way) but really nothing to get to excited about.


I've seen the "williamsburg art & historic center" building a couple of times from outside and always wanted to go in, and so their group show for the year was the perfect reason to check it out. And as I suspected - it's beautiful! really, the space and stairs and molding are so cool, as well as the strange collection of furniture in the first floor and the strange looking bathroom. The whole place is very "Alice in wonderland" like - small spaces leading to big spaces and not quite sure where to go or how to get there kind of a building. the pieces in the show run between total amateur and bad to beautiful professional looking art, some was boring, some was awesome, but the room just took over and made almost everything look wonderful.

I'm so so happy ot be home now though and not having to go out again tonight!

Dust of Snow - Robert Frost

About a week before I received the book in the mail, I was on a long subway ride, and as I usually do, I read all the ads and signs on the train. I came across this poem by Robert Frost in one of those "train of thoughts" posters. I tried to not forget about it till I got home.

I really like how simple it is and how accurate it is, I often feel like those random moments of beauty makes me feel like life is worth living for.

The owl and the pussy cat

When I saw the cat (or is it a lynx?!) Heidi draw, I had a whole drawing made up in my mind, it was supposed to have a rainbow and moths in it, and be very light in color.

Yesterday, when I opened the book, I didn't quite feel like drawing the moths and rainbow, so I moved to my first spread. This morning, I still didn't feel like it, I realized that the drawing I had in my mind, was beautiful, but not in my style at all, and that it worked well in my imagination but should be executed by someone else, so I end up googling "cat + poem" and the first thing that came up was one of my favorite poems - The owl and the pussycat and so, I changed my plan, and got to use my new bird book for the owl.

Nice day out

I just joined foursquare yesterday. It's a site that document places you go to, and show you who else is there, and in a strange way, give you points and badges for being in places (as if just going to restaurants and cafes and bars weren't a reward enough). It's sort of scares me to admit how much time I spend in coffee shops, how much I eat out (it's such a waste of money, I know...) and, worst of all, the fact that I hang out in the same places over and over again, being totally unadventurous and sticking to the familiar.

Today however, I got to visit an area of Brooklyn I've never been to before - court street, which is really nice, actually a bit too nice for my taste, it's all small cafes, gourmet food stores, small charming vintage stores and so on. Sort of like Williamsburg but without any grit, industrial feel or artistic vibe.

Ned and I went there for a reading by Kio, a teacher, writer and over all cool person. We've met her when we were talking in front of a class she was teaching a couple of months ago. She was reading the first chapter from a novel she's working on.

I love readings and being red to, and it was one of the first events and activities Ned and I attended in the past month in which I felt totally at ease and just enjoined myself. We end up buying 3 books - a bird guide to use as reference, an anthology of Brooklyn writer and a book about the history of motorcycle design.

Then went to eat at some non exciting but rather yummy Mexican place across the street.