She Sure is {Sketchy} - A Return

A few months ago I had a creative crisis that resulted in the symbolic breaking of a 4b pencil over my knee. I declared myself the un-artist. It was done in an eff-this-crap kind of way.
Here's the thing -- the low down is this:
IT IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD UNTIL IT SUCKS

Two months ago it sucked. I was so OVER it. I stopped blogging, I stopped drawing. I still had to go to my totally artistic job-job. While there, in one of the more creative adventures of my life, (an irony not lost on my Pratt friends) I built a video game with an amazing team of people. Other than that I declared myself NONARTIST.

My dad (a fineartist) was rather supportive. However, he also managed to piss me off by laughing at me.
--"Sorry, kid - It's too late. You're an artist. It's OK to take a break"

"NO! I am not taking a BREAK! I am DONE! I say who... I say when..."
(When I am truly lost I retreat in to quoting Pretty Woman). 

Anyway. They were right. I was wrong. I'll blog more about this later. I'm actually a driven and dedicated artist who had a total meltdown. It might help my readers to know that that stuff happens even when you're not painting starry nights or sculpting vaginas -- and on that warm and fuzzy note...

Yesterday I went to the zoo. I innocently thought I'd maybe take a pen. Then I thought I might want to take some written notes or write a letter. I'd need some paper. Last Spring Ashley Robison organized my studio to absolute dream perfection, making paper oh-so-accessible. Fine. I thought I'd tip-toe in to that scary space I haven't been in since May. She'd mounted some hanging clipboards for me up against a wall. I reached in to the room. This way I didn't have to fully cross the threshold. I ripped a pre-papered clipboard down and scampered towards the Bronx with it.

It started innocently enough. There was this polar bear. He was a show off.


I sketched him without thinking about it.

Later, on the monorail, there were some deer.

So  this just happened:

Totally understandable. 

We happened upon this expansive bramble of peacocks.


I watched them for a long time. So long, I absently doodled them on the edge of my clipboard.
Nothing wrong there. Sometimes non-artists doodle! Whatever.

We packed up at the end of a looong day of Bronxing. I stepped on the 2 train.

Then we hit 129th street. I thought, maybe I should just look at those sketches...

By the time we hit Carroll Street, things had gotten out of hand. Apparently I'm an artist, and I'm back. Expect more blogging.

(Credit for All Photos Goes to April Alvarez, my kid sister who is more than actively shutterbugging her vacation in NYC).

She Sure is {Classy} - Happy Birthday Nails

The nice part of living in NYC is the stuff that is just par for the course.
You have a birthday, you get your nails did.

 

  

That's how we roll.

She Sure is {Classy} -- Happy New Year!

Every year, just past the stroke of midnight, from the beginning of my memory, my family throws wax. Since I left home ten years ago, I have carried this tradition to every New Year's Eve bash I've rung out the old and rushed in the new at. Last night was no exception. It is my favorite part of new beginnings - something that never loses its magic and awe. There is nothing like a fortune cast in fresh white relief.  2012  will have dragons, or dogs... or something wild and animal like. Happiest of happy New Years!

I Cut My Heart on Paper

Never $plurge on something renewable. That is the life lesson I have learned from Sephora. This month of holiday cheer, when I am happier than yesteryear due to our brilliantly warm December weather, Sephora has reached into their hearts and given NYC their own version of a White Christmas.  I give you their show-stopping 5th avenue windows.

Paper, Silhouettes, Grand Scale, Birch Trees, Warm light and Girls! Girls! Girls! -- All my favorite things!

Now if I could only justify a life's supply of Hourglass...

Oahu Shore

Sometimes when The Duchess and I are exchanging pleasantries such as this....

Me: you know there's a taylor swift video, and also an episode of "The Secret Life of an American Teenager' - in which both girls are singing into the non-brush end of their hairbrushes
TheDuchess: yes! totally bass ackwards.
Me: thank you!
TheDuchess: it makes NOOOO sense
Me: totally counter-intuitive and uncool looking
TheDuchess): agreed, kids these days...
Me: you give me peace of mind
TheDuchess: anytime...

I truly feel like we are meant for better things... talk show things... reality television things.... luckily those things (or better things) come to those who wait. The Duchess and I have returned to the East Coast, well rested and tan after a thrilling and long Hawaiian vacation in a house worthy of prime time fist bumps.

If I were in a reality television series I would like to only live in Hawaii, exactly as and where I did for a blissful looong vacation in October. I'm still in recovery mode. What do you mean if it starts to rain I can't just enclose the patio and go back to my People magazine for ten minutes before I open the panoramic doors to bask in the sun and the sand?? What do you mean no one has made me a pre-bed MaiTai??

It's been rough.

I like these photos, even the ones that were taken with a salt covered lens. I look at them fondly from my Brooklyn apartment where I am wearing double socks. They remind me that once, I was truly, wildly and completely baller.

We're back to blogging. Sabbatical over.

Big Waves... Close Together

TODAY SUCKED....

and then i turned my head to the left.

Also, at job-job I am designing animal crackers.

In exactly one hour I am going to acupuncture.

How are you holding up?

What's the fun stuff?

Seattle Days Drifting Away

It is a little known fact that nestled up along the region of America
nom'ed 'The Greater Northwest' lies an enchanted "Emerald City".

Two weeks ago I spent a blithe four days cozied up with The Benevolent Queen of all Bethtopia. There was dark chocolate to eat, animals to pet, REVENGE to watch and oceanfront strolling to be had for all. I finally crossed Puget Sound, a place I had never seen but have long loved. (Thank You Cynthia Voight

Beth and I spent the first two days of my indulgent Washington adventure with our asses stapled to her cozy little couch and the next two eating every cheese product we could find at the Pike Place Market.

It was wonderful. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been allowed such complete luxury. 

We ate out. We stayed in. We talked until our faces turned blue from forgetting to breathe.

We channeled magic and danced in the firelight cast by a glade of lanterns unlike anything I have ever seen.

Once Molly finally deigned to be my friend the couch got even cozier. I totally appreciate her willingness to extend her paw in friendship, even when it was scary to let some one new and unknown in to her doggy heart.

I had the chance to finally meet the famous Flossy. She is even better than previously anticipated. Man that girl can stink-eye. The Kahuku girl in me was impressed. Please, note this picture is taken on a completely different night, although I'm not sure if I had moved from the couch since the above photo was taken.

Oh wait, I take that back. This photo was taken after our divine dinner that we made from scratch. The domestic culinary goddess' that we are created something entirely new, 'Scrambled Eggs and Green Salad'. We ate fresh tomatoes from the garden and reveled in our brilliance. Everything I ate in Washington was a delight to the pallet.
 ...............................................
I got to see Seattle all proper like too. Beth is a Pike Place market superstar (a boy even hollered her name as we forced down fresh peaches from his cart after eating our weight in lunch-like things). Is it any wonder what with licensing designs like these?!

This first leg of my gargantuan trip of wonder, relaxation and spiritual happiness was exactly what the doctor ordered -- maybe for all of us. It was such loveliness to just be.  Beth and I are kindred.  I always believe that when you're lucky enough to find the people you just click with you need to force them to spend all day with you for days on end.

This trip was bliss. Special thanks to every member of this little family for making my Washington dreamz come true. Mad props to husband-guy too for letting me come and kidnap his wifey for days and days. That man is so too cool for school (in the best ways).

On my last day in Seattle, i turned a corner and there it was....

and keeping with the theme of my wildly indulgent and lengthy sabbatical...
that wish was a wish that came true too....

A New York Minute

I would like to journal, but it's something that never seems to get done. Instead I now bullet point my New York life, one minute at a time (well, kind of)

This week was all about Before and After.

This week I....
At the beginning...

• Took my bookshelf from this:
• To This: 

• Saw my most lovely-of-all people-in-the-history-of-the-world-Acupuncturist who makes me happier than any person with the exception of Santa Claus, The Duchess, Beth Logan and Mary Blair. You can see her too: http://www.yelp.com/biz/tomomi-tanaka-new-york <--This is me giving you a hug wrapped in life balance, wrapped in therapy, wrapped in a rainbow and tigerbalm.
• Survived an Earth Quake. Well, kind of... All this stuff fell on the floor! MY SUNGLASSES! MY MEGAFAT SHARPIE I USE TO WRITE ON CARDBOARD! Let me tell you -- It was an ordeal. I was at work. If you have not seen my work, this is a picture of my work:That's the view from my desk. In essence I work in a NYC box. This winter it will be clear that I work in a snowglobe. Everywhere you look you see NYC. You can sit at your robot animation and see from the Bowery to the Cloisters. You can walk to get a drink of water and see the Statue of Liberty. On your way to lunch you see Macys. That is how we roll at job-job. So it's where we were all sitting when the earthquake happened. I felt the desks shake. I felt the windows shake. I saw the lamps swing. A few things fell. Small kine things. All my coworkers, aka. 'East coasters', having never been debriefed in an earthquake before, rose from their desks and ran to the larger than people windows without a hitch. They craned against them to see WHAT WAS HAPPENING!! It was amazing and... 
• I loved it.
• I read the Outsiders. 
• I watched the Outsiders.
• I openly awwed at several cimematic details. I have my BFA in film so I can say things like 'Oh woah. Patrick Swayze looks SO good' on repeat. It's critique and so I can say it again. In case you were wondering... Patrick Swayze looks SO good in this movie. Matt Dillon's got some pretty sweet acting chops -- who saw that coming?  You were of course destined to love Ralph Maccio forever. Tom Cruise sucks and is a complete over-actor. 
• I formed an odd little club with Miss. Rachel in which we read a book and watch a movie and then blast on the movie. Next up...??
• I shared an amazingly perfect middle eastern dinner at Zaytoons. It is the best. That is not debatable.
• I lost a half a pound.
• I had a crafty skill to the wall night with a bunch of girls. We shellacked plates with this weird epoxy concoction. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. It will probably be a monstrosity. Next week there will be pictures.
• I had a deep and late-into-the-night discussion with my gal Ashley. We just 'get it' because we both understand the pressure of being overly talented strong female leads and future millionaires bajizillionares. Also we are totes humble.
• Then this hurricane came and it was this is this and that is that... 2 points if you know I am using Flounder's voice to relay this story.(Ok that link is not to Flounder's voice but it is to the best voice in the whole perfect thing)
• I tried to buy batteries, but New York went crazy and ran on batteries and water. I realized that I could just take them out of my stereo if I needed them.
• I laughed at NYC's preparation for a natural disaster. Everyone freaked their faces off for something that was as common for me as a snow day was for them growing up. (Incidently snow days still really spazz me out) Awww look the boutique downstairs taped their windows. Presh.
• I was promised that when I woke up on Sunday morning everything would look like this:
• It did not.
• It looked like this:That's another before and after and the thing we're microscoping would be my anticipation.
• After the storm was over the electricity went out
• 'The apartment' had an influx of boys this weekend. 
• Nothing like a storm and some chinese checkers to keep things interesting
• I sat in the dark with the boy and listened to Johnny Cash because NO way in HELL was I butchering my stereo's juice just to have a little bit of flash light
• I made everyone take a minute to appreciate Irene. Was she a hurricane? No. She was a tropical storm with purpose. Did she still accomplish a lot of what she set out to accomplish? Were people scared into shutting down mass transit, evacuating thousands, and crying in the streets? Did my roommate still make enough rattatouli to feed an army? Did I skip a shower and instead bathe in a bath full of freezing cold water on Sunday night that I'd drawn just incase?? Yes. She did it her way. On her terms. That's kind of cool.
• I LOST MY SH*T when the tinsy leak that I thought was fixed (perhaps because I was promised it was fixed after it plagued me for eight months while fighting my landlord to fix it) split open in Irene's wrath (which let's face it, after collecting four inches of rain water INSIDE the theater my house was really minor in comparison to mine).
• In that moment of complete crazy and weakness with water pouring down in my house and Irene shaking the windows I may have been talked in to performing Britney's "I'm a Slave for You". sigh. Here's where you get the benefits of this being my version of a journal... because I'd never admit this otherwise.
• I documented said rainwater. Here we meet yet another before and after:ewww... gross. OK I know what's happening here. I went to Pratt. This is a bowl of clear water from the roof sitting on a yellow chair. So the water looks yellow. It's an illusion. I'll fix this...
   um. yeah.
• I still have this bowl of branch water. I got rid of the others, but I want my landlord to see this with his own macho eyes. I know that a) he will not care and that b) the amount of anguish I have keeping this bowl around is just stupid and I should toss it out but I also know c) that is not how I roll.
• The minute the storm was over I ran to Wyckoff  Street to visit my eighth favorite thing about my neighborhood:
• This mosaic house was one of my chief concerns when the wind was winding. In nicey-nice news the artist's husband was out cleaning branches and such from the tile and we had an 'everything is fine' chat. Irene made off with a few loose tiles and some sprinkled sequins and glitter but that is all. Celebrate.
• I went to brunch with my favorite girl to write-letters-to/consume-calories-with/fantasize-about-kidnapping-a-child-from... JenPal 
• Brunch happened at my favorite place to brunch so double plus. Seriously. Be jealous.
• I went on a looooooooooooong walk with the boy. We saw this: 
• Maybe we added something..
• Ok , OK we added the bike... It left me wondering. Earthquake? or Hurricane?
• I got some pretty bitchin' fabric samples back from spoonflower.
• I finally saw 'The Help'. I pronounced it good. Sometimes this BFA in film plagues me. I wonder if you have similar problems. Is there something you love LOVE love (in my case movies) that you persued higher learning in (be that college or other) that you now enjoy a little less for not being able to enjoy it without intense focus on details or things you would change??
• I watched 'Walk the Line' with my Brooklyn version of Johnny Cash.
• My roommate and I are becoming extremely well versed at using obscure music and movie quotes as a sole means of communicating. 
• I realized that I cannot let these New York Minutes go longer than a week. It's been a week and two days and it took way too long to pull this together. Those extra two days make this post craaazy. So expect something Monday from now on. 

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• Watching: suggest something. I'm out.
• Reading: Excuses be Gone by Wayne Dyer and Grief and High Delight by Brittany Warnock
• Listening to: Britney's Femme Fatal on loop
• Drawing: Penguins
• Eating: In love with pickles at present
• Learning: Italian
• Coveting: this bike in red
• Saving for: a Cintiq and a plane ticket
• Quoting:
  

In the meantime, I'm dying to know, what do you have to say?? How was your week. Spill like a two foot slit in a ceiling.