Commute

A New York Minute

Because I don't journal and because I would like to, I now bullet point my NYC existence.
This is what I did this week:

• I packed up five years worth of job-job in building A and prepared for a move to building B
• I found http://www.chictopia.com/ A rank your fashion sense site. Life significantly changed.
• I met my goal of posting to She Sure is Sketchy every day for one month. Something that hasn't ever happened in five years of blogging my sketchy thoughts.
•  I started a new 30 day goal.
• I managed to move my ergonomic office chair from 24th and 5th ave to the Penthouse at 302 Court. 
• I applauded my ability to move said office chair
• I listened to a lot of death metal and folk music, not together mind you. 
• I took a long, long walk through park slope to visit the various friends I have strung all along its distances. On that walk I saw this a kid wearing THIS:
  
  
   "Isn't it awesome?!!?" she crowed. Oh you have no idea, kid, you have no idea... I thought.
  In case you can't make it out. This nine year-old is rocking a shirt that says
  "The Unbearable Lightness of Bieber"

• I spent a full day with the ever lovely Rachel and her beautiful boy at The Morgan Library and Museum, one of the best things New York has to offer.
  
  
  Thomas took this one himself. Nice composition, kid.
• I made a trip to the sketchiest part of Times Square to pick up some event tickets. It reminded me of that planned parenthood scene in Juno.
• I totally watched Juno which led me to.. 
• dust off my Moldy Peaches CDs
• I caught up with an old friend, for some really important face-to-face
• I mani-d and i pedi-d with Rachel and Emily in preparation for Em's impending nuptials. 
• I moved two of my bffs, one from the East Village to Sheepshead Bay and one from Brooklyn to D.C. In both of these undertakings I was only a participant of the first leg of the transition. I made lots of supercilious jokes, then... 
• I came home and cried
• I booked a ticket to Florida for the end of this month. I'm expanding my health coach training and I'll be there for four days of sun and knowledge, two of my favorite things
• I had a full dose of sissy time. Kid Sister flew in on Saturday morning and she'll be here all week, we're gonna have some fun and some fights, but hopefully mostly fun.
• I puppysat my good friend Abby Labby for a few days. She came with a beautiful fairy garden. She has a facebook page.
• I spent a full day at Coney Island's new extravaganza of insanity (lunacy?) - Luna Park. I sampled all the various options that Coney Island now is. I shed an inner tear for my Coney Island, the old run down eerie place that I wanted my ashes scattered at.  Although, that tear dried quickly whipped away by the wind on this new ride they have called 'The Tickler'. It is the jam.
• I ate the most amazing pulled pork sandwich known to man as made by Tim Hanna at an up 'til dawn BBQ with good friends, irreverent conversation and an invasion of Sara Lawrence alumni. It was totally boss.
• I taught a lesson on developing your talents. What do you want to have in your back pocket? Right now I am working on taking my Italian from situational to conversational.
• Art wise I worked on my children's book
• Art wise: Inspired by the Lists exhibit I begun tackling
  Pikaland's list of 100 things to draw:
  
• I got closer to starting to clean my apartment (winky face)
• I danced in puddles but no rain at Rainbow City with my kid sis and an imagination candy jar of balloon people.
• Spent a breezy evening romping along The Highline. It was divine.
  
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• Watching: Ugly Betty from the first episode. It's all on Netflix Streaming, people!
• Reading: One Day by David Nicholls
• Listening to: predominately Amon Amrath and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan 
• Drawing: Fairies and Little girls with decisions to make
• Eating: at Sweet Melissa 
• Learning: Italian
• Coveting: this bike in red
• Saving for: a Cintiq

And that's this week's New York Minute.

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Bookish

New Fashionista East girl. Beauty and brains. I think she's going to need big horn rimmed glasses. I might be mistaken, but buckle shoes and a headband might be in order too.

I'm deciding which one I'll use. I always sketch lots and pick the best, but lately I'm thinking I'll start developing three or four at a time, so I have a quick and easy to go licensing collection. That way the next time someone wants them on ______ but all different by Thursday, they're ready to go.

Although, these girls don't look like they'll be rushed... Just one more chapter?

Peace, Love and Sandy Feet

In recent news: I was shocked to learn that the Duchess was willing to put aside her differences with NYC's Fire Island and deign to return to its sordid shores.  

So she, Tess and I got in the van with some of my favorite NYC imports, sorry Rachel, you're Canadian now so it's true, eh? We drove to Fire Island, hopped on board a boat, sung several verses of the Lonely Island song most likely to get stuck in your head, felt the wind in our hair, befriended a dog, got annoyed at people who were not us and coveted the houses that lined the shore on our way to our destination.

Once there we made a bee-line for the beach. It was hot, and as you can tell from this picture,
so were we.


The water, however was freezing. Dave and I were happy to brave the waves and the cold

Thomas, not so much.

We napped, noshed, laughed, read magazines and loudly mimicked the obnoxious behavior (and Long Island accents) of the one party that had to sit next to us on an almost deserted beach. We marveled in awe at the world's largest beer belly and split our time baby slash Sun worshiping all the live-long day.

We spent the late afternoon walking through the town. Boardwalks span the entire island. Fire Island's terrain varies from jungle fever to beach couture. Everyone (and I mean everyone) rides bikes to get to and fro. There is lots of to and fro to be had.

The island is so laid back. It was an ideal place to chill with Rachel. She is one of my top three people to beach with, and considering my background, that's saying something. We fell in love with a thumbprint of a shop on the most leisurely walk I could desire.  I longed for Hawaii and an excuse to buy ocean things to furnish a sandy house with a view of the pacific.

I sketched on the sand. Once the sun fueled me enough to lift a pen, I abandoned sand sketching for my sketchbook. I penned lots of little thumbnails, each tiny line mocks of people far enough away to look like they were shot with Super 8. These were my favorite.

The day's end found us walking along the boardwalks or sitting, exhausted at the edge of a pier. People watching was prime and the company was grand. That evening on the boat back to shore, the sun waved good bye - a sunset cherry on our sundae of calm and happy content.

It's Aloha Friday!

No work 'til Tuesday! Well, hopefully that's the case. This weekend we're celebrating Independence in the U.S. Word on the street is that I'll be heading to Coney Island with my kid sister. If you'd like to play our Show and Tell Game, you can! Here's what we're talking about this weekend.

#1 - Link us to something you'll do outside this weekend:

I will for sure be riding 'The Wonderwheel'. If you're like me, and you're always trying to pick between your two favorite rides:Roller coaster or Farris wheel? Roller coaster or Ferris Wheel?!!? The pain of having to choose is over. The Wonderwheel is both. Yep. It's practically the greatest ride ever.

We're hoping for delicious weekends!

#2 - What will you get or make in the kitchen?!

#3 - What kick back thing will you do inside?

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#1 - Something you're going to do outside?
#2 - Something you're making or getting from the kitchen?
#3 - Something you'll be doing indoors?
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A Bit and a Little

Today feels like Saturday! Guess who isn't going to job-job today?!

GUESS WHO HAS A FIVE DAY WEEKEND?! The offices of job-job are moving. To highlight the FREEDOM of their employees and to get their move-on, my employers are spending these days being highly benevolent. On July 5th I report back to work, never again to look upon the hasty space I've occupied for the last five years animating a rather precocious robot in. Instead I look forward to new dawns and new horizons. It's good I have five days to clean my visual palette to be best prepared for the fancy mcShmancy space they've been designing since July 2010. I woke up without an alarm and now I have plans for fun and fabulousnes from here until Monday at 9am.

So for starters. I drew a page of surface design:

OK. I drew many surface design pages. This is the one I am showing you.

It's been thirty days of blogging without a hic-up an accidental goal I made on the 5th of June when I realized that I'd posted every single day. It has been a treat and pleasure. I feel like if I miss a day now, I'm failing in some way. So in short: Watch. This. Space.
More to come, much much more.

My Creative Space

I'm at the beginning of a pretty big project (well a new pretty big project). 

I'm attending a five week children's book intensive 

On Saturday I pitched a book, in rough thumbnail form to a class of mega-talented artists who are working on their children's books in the intensive too. I had forgotten how nice it is to be in a safe place with talented people. I get that at job-job but it's in a robot direction. Saturday was remarkably refreshing. I read my manuscript and showed my thumbnails and they wrote things on their copies of the things I was reading. I got a lot of feed back and that was a good good thing. Here is a smidgen of the things they said:

• I think you can make this really funny. Right now it's pretty funny, but I think you could make it hilarious
• I'd like to see more emotional humor in the pictures
• Can you make this shot 'over the top'?
• I really like the tone. I can hear four-year old talking through this book. Don't lose that!
• I can tell you know how to empower kids. I think this book will really resonate.
• I am obsessed with the elephants in your portfolio. Maybe it would be good to have a similar change of scale and composition here?
• I love your patterns, I can't wait to see them in backgrounds (This hadn't even occurred to me)
• I want the tension to build. I would love for this book to be ridiculous by the end.

 There were a lot of other things we talked about and that I learned, but these are the things that I want to work on before my next workshop two Saturdays hence.

So tonight my creative space is this:

 And a little of this:

Then I started to pout, because I am high maintenance wanted to make this closer to scale and I only had an itsy bitsy bit of clay. Also: under the light the clay was starting to bake. Fail.

A light bulb appeared above my head and I ran off to craft closet. I return victorious mere moments later. Yes, somewhere between being handed my diploma and arriving here tonight I forgot that I used to spend forty hour weeks with my peers stop motioning some animation. Of course clay bakes under high light and of course you need this, if you are going to get anywhere

This play will never bake. It's permanent grease and sculptural plasticity. It can be anything you have in mind. Think it's cool? Then you can try to move it in undetectable increments until you regret waking up. Luckily tonight I am building a one night only kind of thing.

As you were.

Here On the Street Where I Live

I love my neighborhood. If you google 'Carroll Gardens' it is not hard to see why. 

This weekend, after my eight hour Children's book intensive, I walked a new friend to the train. She could not stop gushing, 

"It's like you live in EUROPE!" 

--um...Yeah, I know.

I've said it before, but this is the best part of sharing the best part of New York my home with people. I look at it with fresh eyes when I am explaining its significance in my life.

Today I was going to review a book I bought a while ago on a visit to Community Book Store, but I decided -frack that. Instead I'm going to start by telling you about Community Book Store. I'll review the book later, and you'll appreciate it more, knowing that it was a diamond in the rough.  First, Let's look at this beautiful picture of my favorite neighborhood bookstore, taken in 1972....

LIES.

This was taken two weeks ago.
Have I mentioned that I love it here?If you make it through the front door, this is what you will find: 

This is the sorted part. As you fight your way further into the recesses of the store, things get sordid. It smells like dust and like books that have been well loved.

The part I like best is that you will never ever know what you will find. Like, for serious.For instance, I once found a turn of the century porno. It had a lovely dove blue cover and a letter pressed title. Five pages in, petticoats were being ripped off in hot passion, or excuse me in piquant moments of rapture. It was published in 1902. I've never used the word "score!" more appropriately as when it I unearthed it from a box of dusty tombs.

I have found long forgotten, terribly important children's books from my past here, cook books that fill me with glee (and butter), instructional encyclopedias that later assisted me in the fixing of sink pipes and the kind of monumental beautiful picture books that are made with hand etched plates.

The store is owned and presided over by The Bookman of Cobble Hill. I was going to put a picture that I took of The Bookman here, but Jacob Murphy, always does it best. See the rest of his beautiful series here.

The amazing thing is that even with the chaos and depth of The Community Book Store, The Bookman, knows where everything is. 

I showed up there a few weeks ago needing a copy of 'A Town Like Alice' for a birthday gift. We had one of our typical exchanges:

Me: 'Do you have A Town Like Alice?

Him: "A Town Like Alice, A Town Like Alice... A Town Like Alice............"Nevile Shute?"

The process is ten kinds of wonderful. He will give you a brand new copy, new releases and stuff publishers are releasing now (usually for 10-20% off list) are up front behind his 'desk'.

If a new copy isn't in his possession, he'll climb deep into the store, moving boxes, re-stacking piles of hardbacks, sometimes even reaching behind books in the shelves, they're stacked two deep. Then he'll simply hand you the volume you're in need of. 

A lot of times if I know I want something new, I'll have him order it for me. Afterall, I'm always looking for an excuse to stop by and see what's 'new' on the corner of Court and Warren.

Simply adding to the eccentricity of this dusty shop of horrors/wonders, The Bookman doesn't really keep typical hours.

On  breezy Summer nights you'll find him smoking his pipe on the  open store's steps well into the late hours of the night. Other times there will be a hand lettered cardboard sign in the window saying something like 'Gone until August - Vacation'. That is what I wanted to tell you about the street where I live today.

New York Minute

Because I don't journal and because I would like to, I now bullet point my NYC existence.
This is what I did this week:

• I passed on my most sacred t-shirt stencil knowledge, mother-to-daughter, but in this case single-20 somethin'-to-gay, face it - my most sacred knowledge is wasted on the straight.
• I lined up a Pratt Institute intern for Fall 2011! You know I got game. This is my biggest big-girl round robin moment. It's the circle of life people, and it moves us all.
• I got pinned and needled at Tomomi's. My bi-monthly acupuncture appointment is the most spiritual I get.
• I wrote this paragraph: "I stood there, shocked. It was like that moment immediately after you get sucker punched. In the abyss of numbing pain caused by colliding tables turning, I had come home. Between '93 and '95 my brother worked really hard at perfecting his sucker punch technique. I was only so happy to help him practice, what with existing and such."
• It was in an epic letter to a very good friend.
• I begun 'The Thank You Note' process
• I attended a reunion of people with I once worked with at One Lincoln Plaza/One Sesame Place
• I did this and put it on Etsy and then someone put it in their online newspaper. OH and I put more stuff in that brand new Etsy shop. So that was a good thing.

• I bought Bon Iver's new album and locked myself in a room with a sketchbook for an evening-time to commune with it. I was soooooooooo excited.Then I decided 'meh.'
• I attended a pretty cool panel about the role of women in the world today
• I took an 8 hour Children's Boot Camp Class led by Pat Cummings. It happened in her gorgeous Red Hook Studio. It's part one of three and I am already enchanted.
• Speaking of studios, I took a tour of job-job's new offices
• I went swimming at my Brooklyn outdoor pool, something I hope will be recurring frequently.
• I was fist bumped by Amy Correia (who I have been obsessed with for a decade) at the Bowery Electric.
• I was engulfed by rabidly happy strangers at Stonewall on an intensely historical night. I immediately turned tail and escaped with nary a moment to lose. I later asked my gay who had dragged me there,
  "Is it like being a turtle?" When they find out that something has happened do they all need to return to the homing place? I can't remember being anywhere more crowded! Well there was this one time in college at a Blink 182 concert in the direct center of a mosh pit, but seriously, other than that I'm out. 
• I saw From Brittan with Love at the IFC center and swooned.
• Upon recommendation from the Duchess, I read the most beautiful book. "The Alchemist" will be making a stand in my permanent collection.
• I got my dad to read the Alchemist.
• I got my mom to read the Alchemist.
• Hopefully, I got you to read the Alchemist.
• I ate some street meat, because I was starving at 4am after a night of crazy magic fun.
• I said a silent prayer that I wouldn't run into anyone while buying said street meat. I ran into the worst possible person to run into that situation. High five!
• I spent a few beautiful hours with my bff Rachel and her baby on a late-late night in her tiki torched garden.
• I witnessed a first-ever first kiss. The girl was on wrist crutches and about fourteen, and the boy was wearing a Radiohead T-Shirt. He looked exactly like who you would want a first ever first kiss to be with. The look of total shock on her face was a Mastercard moment. It happened on the corner of Court and Degraw and he walked down court after it was decided that they would see each other on Tuesday. She is going to ask her Mom... She waited until he was out of sight and then practically flew with glee down Degraw. It was better than a movie and maybe the best part of my week.
• I attended my first street fair of the Summer season.
• I did a lot of artwork and it was fun.

and that's a wrap.

Classy Fish

I am reading a deliciously inspired book.
Every page makes me want to readdress my favorite thing.

I have also playing with these fairies.
Their exquisite little features and feminine touches have had me start thinking about my favorite thing. 

So a lot of things in my life have me thinking about my favorite thing....

Fish are my favorite. 

I have brought you some classy fish. 

I hope you like them, because manners matter to these friends.

They hope they are your favorite too.