Grand Gesture

2006 found me at the end of a four year relationship. The breakup left me raw and reeling and years out of the grind that is the NYC single's scene. Dating, the thing I had once been so great at, was now something that had me looking like Alecia Silverstone in bad lighting. My first dip back in the dating pool was with a Brooklyn Heights dwelling lawyer, five years my senior. YES, FIVE YEARS, not twenty, not thirty...

On our fourth date I had decided I couldn't wait forever, things move fast in New York! I gave my bedroom a once over, making sure to gather all my colored pencils and pens. Today was a big day with Lawyer man, today I was going to finally let him...

COME TO THE ZOO WITH ME!

Unfortunately, Lawyer Man had been under the impression that the zoo was a euphamism... Haha, what a funny joke. Undaunted I snatched up my sketchbook and grabbed my metro card, "Let's get a move on, mister!" Lawyer man stood there confused, so confused. Poor lawyer man.

Opening statements were made. Members of the court took the stand. Things got heated, not in a way lawyer man had hoped. In what some may call an overly dramatic move, Lawyer Man raised his arms, waving them about his head and taking off around the perimeter of my home, a little toy helicopter in an ascott tie. It was later revealed that lawyer man thought he was simply presenting evidence to the jury. We at the Penthouse at Court knew that this was most surely his closing argument. Undaunted he asserted this gem,
"Look, I am not your babysitter."

He immediately knew that he was on his way to contempt, mapped by the look of well... contempt on my face. I gladly kicked his $400 pants to the curb, LBH, he was going to wreck them in the Gorilla Keep anyway. On a high-note, I had a great day alone at the zoo.

Flash forward a week and a half and what to my wondering eyes do appear but Lawyer Man, sitting on the stoop at the Penthouse at Court. The jury was not out. This case was closed. I stood there confused. So confused. "What can I do to make this up?"

I refrained from singing "True Colors" opting to instead step back and truly think. What would it take? I hummed the second verse of Cyndi Lauper while crystalizing the blueprint that had started to take shape in my mind's eye. This morning's prompt at Illustration Friday summoned this memory and resulted in this sketch. Needless to say, Lawyer Man never delivered, that is why I own a chicken and not a pony.

Most Everything I Artistically Am

I owe to my daddy.

I am reading 'The Alchemist' for the first time. For those of you who don't know it, sadly, like me last week, it's a book about a boy who travels to a far land in search of his Personal Legend. He is unsure of what to do, and where to go, when a king comes to him and sets him on course to follow his dreams. 

Growing up we often called my father "King Daddy".  I know that what I do here in New York at my perfect little studio is my pursuit of my Personal Legend. I know that this path that I sometimes think begun with a duffel bag and a plane ticket HNL --> JFK really started 28 years ago, when my father allowed me sable brushes, cold pressed paper and master tutelage for my childhood chicken scratch drawings.  

Happy Faddo's Day, Dad.

I love you.

Lady Bugging

Before we moved to Hawaii we lived in Astoria for a blink of an eye. Since I was four when we were NYC based and five in Hawaii, my memories of NYC prior to my epic return in the Fall of 2000 are hazy and magical in the way a very big big city is for a very small small girl.

One of the clear as day, pin point sharp memories I have of those New York days is of a ladybug explosion. My mom was pushing my baby brother in his stroller and I was walking along side her, sporting my go to sun hat. (Even in my youth I was fabulously stylish.) We turned a corner and walked smack into a fest of hundreds and hundreds of ladybugs. They covered the sidewalk, they covered the walk signs and the street lights. Ladybugs as far as the eye could see. In seconds they were in our hair and on my hat and dancing along my arms. In retrospect it was possibly rather macabre, but for me it was a moment of pure magic.

My desires to ride unicorns barebacked or sprout a mermaid tail and never walk on dry land again were just inklings at this point, but it's sure that this moment as ladybug tamer was a lead in to those life long fantasies. This print, Ladybug Love, is inspired by that blisteringly hot day when I was very small and covered head to toe in polka dot magic.

This is my Brain:

I used to love that commercial where that girl goes crazy and smashes her kitchen with a frying pan and the public service announcement is "this is your brain on drugs." When you're watching it you're like, "um.....no. This is your brain on crazy".

As a teenager this commercial freaked me out. I had lots of friends on drugs. They were not this psycho chick!

Ok. OK. Wait. I'm a gonna go find it for you.

OMG. Now I have found it it appears that this crazy girl is none other than Rachel Lee Cook!! Hmm... you'd think I would have retained that information....well my brain is full of lots of pop culture. I don't have space for everything. Well anyay, these days I'm ruining my friends and familiy's life with my addiction to Expensive Paint Medium, Watercolor Paper, New Pencils, Spring, Mermaids, Parties, All Nighters and Pre-Show Adrenaline. This is my brain:

Find out what your brain looks like @ http://www.wordle.net/

Ode to Chilly Dog Blog

It's once again the time of year where I get to do wild double takes over dogs in their winter finest. I have always freely judged and laughed at owners who dress their dogs in fancy fleeces. This year, thanks to the dog snuggie, my glee has run deeper than ever. One of the very first lessons ever learned at my mother's knee assured me that animals had their own coats and they didn't need ours. Thanks Little Bear (for everything). The thing is... I don't remember New York being as cold-cold as it was this last week!!!

I've never had a New York City dog. My dog was all island.
I was raised side by side with the worlds noblest, greatest, most wonderful dog. He was more than a pet, he was a brother. Seriously, since the dawn of time there has been no greater mammal to ever walk on all fours... If there were any question in your mind I offer up the following:Here he is as the cutest puppy ever. See? Not up for debate.
He appreciated the years I spent undergoing obligatory french-braiding on my mom's torture chair, even if I could not.

I'm sitting on the our front porch steps surrounded by my brother and sister in one of our many hours of puppy worship.
Palette never saw the difference between him as a dog and us as humans. Why should he fetch sticks when we were all throwing sticks? No. He'd throw sticks with us. We could all run into the water and get our own sticks. Pal was all about playing fair.
He was wonderfully patient and willing to waiting his turn, whether it was a family board game or...

opening our stockings Christmas morning... We'd all be gathered on the floor sharing everything we'd found in our sox and he'd stand alert pointing at the last stocking hanging on the hooks. He knew that our stockings were our loot and he was not interested. He wanted that stocking. Somehow he just knew it was his.Pal lived for Christmas. Santa brought him to us when I was eight and Ashton was five and April was a mere three years old. He was a Christmas puppy and he was all about tradition. It's almost as if Santa really had bundled him up and driven him in a sleigh to Hawaii just for us. He would hop and jump and thrill the minute the holiday decoration boxes came out of storage. I truly cannot imagine my childhood without him. He always was and always will be the greatest gift of my youth. I miss him fairly often, whenever I see a good looking Retriever on my Carroll Garden Streets, or when I hang those first few garlands up in my apartment.

Pal's one and only flaw was that he was a wimp. In the middle of Hawaii's winter Oahu temperature might drop to a frigid 62 degrees on the coldest of nights. Pal would stand outside our double screen doors whimpering and whining. How could we be so cruel as to not make him a hat and a coat and some gloves to keep him warm in the wind?

If I were lucky enough to have him here with me today. I'd want him wearing a scarf.

These pups were drawn in freeeeeezing plein air at Madison Square Park.
OH and YES. That is a Scotty in a doggie-hoodie.

listening to right this second: "every breath you take" -- the police

Ring Out the Old!

Ring in the New!

This morning I arrived moody and upset at the airport after spending a hellish red-eye flight next to Neanderthal man and his lesser-half child bride. I was already a little homesick. I know that with my family in Utah instead of Hawaii and my brother working for Delta that I get to see them much more than any other time in my adult life, but the drama queen in me likes to wonder "When will we meet again?!"

I hailed a cab from the curb of JFK. Stepping into the familiar yellow taxi I shook out my snow covered scarf. We left Queens, keeping to Atlantic Avenue in a wild flurry of snow that blanketed everything in sight. I couldn't help but feel a deep satisfaction and calm wash over me as we made our way into Brooklyn. When we turned on Court Street and I felt my neighborhood get closer, that familiar warmth of belonging made my pulse quicken in excitement. I hadn't been out of the cab long enough to grab my suitcase when the grocer from the fruit market across the street yelled out "Ahhhhh Happy New Year Miss Amber!!!!" I lugged my "way over-sized" luggage up to my third floor apartment. At the top of the stairs it hit me, we're at the end of a decade! I hadn't really put it together yet. I took a moment to reflect on the past. I was senior at Kahuku High this time ten years ago. Now I am here. (picture a big red x on a map of awesome)

I CANNOT wait to kick 2009 to the curb, let's be honest, it's been seven kinds of lame. At the same time, I smile so broadly on the the last decade.

Ten years ago I rang in the decade of double zeros with my family, Pacific Ocean side. I distinctly remember chasing my twelve-year-old sister down a sandy stretch of beach with a sparkler held aloft.

at that point in my life

• I hadn't ever spent a night completely alone.
• I didn't know what it felt like to have friends that are like family.
• I'd never been in love.
  
• I'd never swam in the Atlantic Ocean.
• I didn't comprehend how a computer could do anything but hinder you as an artist.
• I had absolutely no idea how anyone could stand talk radio.
• I swam faster than I walked.
• My skin was about ten shades darker.
• I wanted to be a full-time animator.
• I hadn't lost anyone close to me.
• I hadn't graduated from high school.
• I was more interested in biology than I was in any other subject in school, including art.
• I had in no way embraced my inner-nerd. I spat at her, embarrassed when she showed her 'glasses-face'.
• I had no idea how to walk in heels.
• I was torn, wondering whether Blink 182 or Weezer was the best band of all time.
  
• I didn't know how to ask for what I really wanted.
• I was often paralyzed by my fear of the unknown.
• I didn't know how to stand up for myself.
• I trusted so easily.
• I wouldn't ever guess that I'd live for tough contract negotiation or that I'd thrill at the challenges that come with new clients.
• I didn't have an identity or a style as an artist - I was fairly sure I wouldn't ever find one.
• I was terrified at the idea of disappointing my family and my community.
• I hadn't yet made the decision of Brooklyn's Pratt Institute over Valincia's Cal Arts.
• I was sure I that no matter my choice, I would want to work for a huge company in California as an animator after I graduated from college.

I had no idea that a decade later I'd be in love with my life, confident in who I am as an artist and an individual. How could I know that I'd be thriving, making a living as an artist in New York City? I didn't know that I'd have so many rich experiences or that I'd live through so many hard lessons. I didn't know that I would have so many people in my life who make living fun, exciting, challenging and oh-so-rewarding. Who could know that I'd love Brooklyn as much as I loved my sprawling white-sand "back yard"? When I'm here, I am home, my soul knows it.

I wish I could go back there for just a moment and really see my seventeen-year-old self. I know how scared she was and how worried she was that she couldn't make it in this big world. I know how terrified she was to leave her family all the way across the country. She loved where she was but she needed to go somewhere new. She wondered if it was a mistake to fly off to a totally new existence in a far off place where she knew nothing and no one. She wondered how New York could be the right choice. How could you ever feel at home somewhere so big and urban? Plus, what if she didn't make any friends? What if college at an art school was as hellish as high school had been? What if she wasn't even that great an artist? What if she couldn't do it?

I'd go back and hold her hand and tell her that she was in for such an 'effing-fantastic adventure. I wish I could let her know that in ten years time, at twenty-seven, she wouldn't change a thing about the path she'd taken. It's been a Robert Frost journey. I wish she would know not to care when people tell her she's throwing away huge opportunities. Then she wouldn't be so nervous when she turned some things down for other chances that just "feel right". I wish I could let her know that broken hearts mend, that career crises subside and that the people who matter most are the people who let you be yourself. Most of all I wish she knew that New Year's Eve 2009 would find her shimmying into something fancy and scrubbing India Ink from under her nails before running out into the night full of glee and anticipation for everything that is coming now, without a smidgen of worry. Then she'd know that it's a wonderful life and that everything works out the way it's supposed to. I wish she knew she'd be giddy about staring down a New Year, excited to get started on a new decade, "a new day with no mistakes in it yet."

Happy New Year, my loves. I hope it finds you and everything you love, healthy, happy and ready to pop the cork on a bright new future. Let's see what the next ten years brings us, shall we?

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

listening to right this second: "run" -- snow patrol

A Dip in the Shallow End

Yesterday I came back from the hot springs - yes. the. hot. springs.
Montana, seriously, I love you.When I got back, invigorated by the natural healing water that's pumped in from Yellowstone, and overcome with euphoria -- I opened a suspicious file in my backup drive. A swim in steaming purified spring water followed closely with the blinding bliss caused by a Snuggie, Tracy Champman and a toasted Idaho Spud can do that to you - make you crazy enough to open a folder labeled: 'Scans_Fall 2001' Apparently I used to draw in my teens too. Looking at the vast majority of these old bits of me, several themes are evident. Still going through velvet-poster-collection detox - unicorns were big. Real big.

I came across a plethora of weird cartoony-pain/torture-drawings - these are two of the 'real keepers'. I guess I was nineteen and into boys who cut themselves, so um... yeah....

This one actually got a chuckle from me. This is a portrait of my ex-boyfriend, Adam. He's usually referred to by my friends as "That tag artist that was obsessed with 'The Real World?'" Embarrassingly enough, It's an accurate description. This effect was accomplished with sharpie on napkin after a particularly loving moment in which Adam brought me a flower. It actually captures him pretty well. Luckily, my tastes have changed post apocalyptic straight-edge punk.

I try to ignore the fact that sketches I used to think were phenomenal then are cringe worthy now. Shallow. So Shallow.

listening to right this second: "Just Can't Get Enough" -- The Saturdays

Retro Moment

Sometimes late at night, when my eyes water and I fight sleep I like to pull out old stuff.

My watery eyes make it look glam-fab and I have ideas about it I didn't have when I originally penned it.Tonight while streamlining my office I unearthed this old everything book - Circa 2007
These designs were all tossed aside as 'meh.' Something about them make me happy now though, two years later. So I'll develop them and use them to wow my clients.I also like going through my old everything books because they help me ready my answer when people ask me "Have you always been so cool?" After looking back at past me with future me eyes I can quickly answer,
--"Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!"Now I'll turn these old sketches into current, hip, sassy, sexy, sweet bits of sought after design.But first to bed.