Union Square

Here's a painting of Union Square, 8x10 oil, 3 hours-ish.

I am out of bright opaque yellow paint so I substituted Indian yellow and lemon yellow.... not my faves..... (Jerry's order arriving on Tues)

I also forgot my tape and that was....challenging.... I need it to hold my palette papers. (I knew I was forgetting something...)

The temp dropped and I got so cold despite gloves and hand warmers that I couldn't apply the paint properly... and my verticals on the right are not so vertical and this is frustrating. :/ This is a bad tendency and I need to fix it.

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Definitely a challenge, and I can't get this painting out of my head from a few years ago.

It is an 8x10 (!!) oil. This is a sick painting.

I even pulled up David's painting on Instagram and went to where he was located.....and...... I think he moved stuff around. Like buildings.  I was standing near where he had to be and it didn't line up.

That's some real ballsy awesome stuff, moving buildings around in Union Square.... I move trees and rearrange nature if needed, everyone does, but rearranging Union Square is something else.

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So I decided to try the chaos of Union Square.

My painting is not as fabulous as David's, not even close, so... goals.

But it was a nice day out.

Many, many people came to say hi and admire my painting.

One, I have just found out, is my Facebook friend but we have never met in person!

One man- who looked like he's had better days- carrying a guitar covered with stickers came over to inspect the painting. He said, "It looks.... happy." I told him it is a happy painting.  He said "You don't know Union Square." To which I replied yes I do, it's all in how you see things.

Here is what was going on and why it is a happy painting:

I painted this smack in the middle of:

• A Black Lives Matter protest
• 2 women selling ashtrays shaped like vaginas
• A man singing Allah Akbar- the call to prayer that happens at Union Square
• A crazy lady spreading fear protesting against children wearing masks (they will get early childhood dementia from lack of oxygen she says)
• Kids skateboarding
• Artists selling art
• People being people
• A man wearing an inflatable T-Rex costume bouncing around and making people laugh

And I felt so at peace with all of it.

I love that there is a place where all that can come together and happen at the same time, and it was peaceful. Even though I don't think anyone else felt peaceful, but I did.

Level-Up Day

Today was a quiet rainy day.

I went to the Met to hang out for a while and find more craptastic toddlers from the 1800s.

What I really wanted to do was go to The Cloisters.
But I couldn't get a time slot for suggested donation.

Here's how admission to The Met (and Cloisters) works:
If you are a resident of NY, NY or CT, you can pay suggested admission.
Whatever you want over a penny.
Otherwise it's $25.

There was plenty of availability at The Cloisters for people paying full price..... in fact, the only days they will let people in online at suggested admission are next Mon and Thurs.

But there is "good availability" for ALL times if you pay!
This is very wrong, the museums need to be accessible to residents.

So I went back to The Met.

On the way over I realized I forgot to bring a few coins to give them.
Then I thought maybe I should renew my membership.  Then I can go anytime I want, no nonsense, and I don't have to wait in ticket lines.

So that's what I did, and I let them hear it about The Cloisters.
I'll also call them tomorrow because that's just very wrong to shut residents out like that.

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This is *exactly* something like me to do.... I absolutely refuse to pay $25 admission for one day, but I will give them $110 for the year instead.

I had a membership years ago but never renewed it because of suggested admission...although AMNH is suggested too, but I keep that membership because I don't want to wait in the lines.

And I don't mind being a member of the museums. I like it, actually.
They need the support especially right now and there's something (small) in it for me too.

So now I'm going to The Cloisters this weekend.

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My birthday has been ok.  Very quiet.  And Daya did remember which was nice.

Weds Drawing

Drawing sessions are only once a week now, and I haven't been able to go for the last couple weeks.
But I went tonight....wasn't really in my zone.

20 mins

1 hour-ish

Back to the Met

I have been in a bad funk all week.

I don't know if it's because of my upcoming birthday, or girl-days, or just.... stuff in general or all the above... but I have had a hard week even though everything is ok.

Today I forced myself out and went back to the Met for the first time since...everything.

I really wanted to visit my favorite Memling painting and say hello but all the Renaissance galleries are closed due to no roof. (!!) The guard said they will reopen in December.

So instead I wandered up to the 19th century galleries to see what I could find before my timed special exhibit entry.

Sometimes I like to go to the Met to look for specific things, which I usually determine on-the-spot.
Today was small paintings, particularly landscape.

These are all pretty small, 9x12ish range, no larger than that.

I had fun using the Measure app on my phone which.... measures stuff!

I like to see paintings that have a parallel to what I do, it helps me see things in a wider perspective/possibility. So, I studied these small landscape paintings to see how the space was used with all the elements fitting in there nicely.

Paintings are little windows into other worlds.

Here is, of course, a Degas.

This is also a really small painting! Also 9x12ish size range if I recall correctly.

Seeing paintings in-person gives such a different perspective than pictures of paintings.

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There is a very excellent exhibit on right now for the 150th Anniversary of the Met.

More info/virtual walkthrough is here:

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2020/Making-the-Met-1870-to-2020

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Girl with a Dove is in the Exhibit.

This ancient Greek grave stele was a Freshman art history assignment at Pratt.

I had to visit it in person and observe from life and write about it. 

It's so funny how objects hold time.... it's ... I don't know the words.... surreal? strange? odd? to visit the same object which remains constant while my life has changed so much.  She has remained unchanged for many hundreds of years. In a weird way, she is like an old friend.

Maybe this is part of why people go visit art, part of why it is so important to humanity.  In their own way, they are alive in a timeless way. They have presence and hold so much energy- both from the people who made them to all the people who have taken the time and space to give them attention and contemplation over so many years.

Anyhow, she holds time for me.

I have visited her many times through the years.
And here I am so many years later writing about her again.

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Sargent's Madam X is there, so is Winslow Homer.

(Kandinsky is also there but really belongs in the garbage.)

A lot of the art we see today is due to the sugar industry:

More Degas

Teeny wonderful illuminated manuscript... the pages are about the size of an ACEO (2.5 x 3.5 inches!)

One of the first acquisitions:

The goldwork is exquisite in this manuscript:

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Here is the most fantastic craptastic painting that shouted from across the room due to it's sheer.... weirdness.

This is a painting of some rich Baltimore toddler from 1805.

At first glance I thought this child was standing next to an enormous glass of wine, which I had a lot of snarky thoughts about.

Then I went closer and it's a massive berry glass. (If the kid eats all those berries it will probably have the shits for days...)

So, this painting:

The kid looks like it is 93 years old.

That berry glass... !!

That fabric is pretty good tho.

I have been through the American wing many times and either missed this gem or it was in storage-hiding and brought out for the exhibit.

The painting is so compellingly disturbing I had to read the plaque.

Ok, so despite the sheer weirdness of this 93 year old looking toddler, I have to give props to the artist....a Black man who was the first documented Black person to make a living at painting. In the early 1800s! So that's cool and significant.  He was apparently self-taught and was considered to be a genius. I question the "genius" bit, this painting is not better than it's peers, but I'm all for artists marketing themselves.

(UNRELATED SIDE NOTE: a lot of the ridiculous nonsense about oil painting materials is just centuries-old marketing from when artist studios competed with each other.  So they tried to make their paintings magic and mysterious thru materials.)

I looked up a few other paintings he did, all very scary toddler portraits.

He must have copied a lot of Byzantine faces because they all have creepy Byzantine features.

So, even though the artist backstory is cool and significant, I still think this toddler portrait is weird and craptastic.

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I was prepared to sketch but just didn't feel like it so I left after the exhibit.

This pigeon was napping on the steps.

I thought he was dead at first but then he blinked.

I waited on the 5th ave train platform FOR A WHOLE ENTIRE HOUR because the trains were messed up.  There is an unfortunate crime against typography stuck on all the pillars.
(I know it is stickers because I pulled one off.)

I'm in that station a lot and never noticed it before so it must be new.

HRH Queen Isis of the Fur

I finally finished the painting of Isis in the Reuters group tonight.

Same palette, all Rublev oils.

5x7

Pebbles Takes a Nap

Alice, Finished

Here is the finished painting of the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park.

7 1/2 hours over three days.

I'm very happy with this painting.... it was a stupid amount of work but worth it.
It is also the first time I have painted a plein air over multiple sessions.

Many, many people came over to say hi, everyone likes the painting which is nice.

The boy in the blue coat is a specific child named Charles. He is 4 or 5 years old and likes to paint.

He and his mom were just... gorgeous people.  And they wore matching face masks. I haven't seen a lot of parents and kids wearing matching masks.... if Daya would let me, I'd absolutely mask-match with her!

Charles kept coming back to see updates and also to point out I painted the mouse’s butt. 

So I put him in the painting but he left so he doesn't know it. I hoped he would come back again before I left but he didn't.

8x10 oil

                             

Day 1

Day 2

The In-Between Shoes

Daya's Russian Pointe shoes are unavailable for at least 3-4 weeks.

She needs new shoes..... a week ago.

Absolutely for today.

So we went to Freed for yet another fitting, which she has emphatically NOT wanted but now she thinks these will be ok until her Russians come in.

There's really not much choice to be honest, she needs them for class tonight, and has to go find somewhere to sit and sew them right before class.

Dancing on dead pointe shoes is very dangerous; I'd really prefer my daughter doesn't snap her ankle.

To illustrate in real terms just how much force is involved.... Daya told me a story the other day I didn't know.... she pointed to a spot in the hallway of our building...apparently a couple of years ago she was doing fouettes in the hall and she kicked the wall....in ballet slippers..... and broke it. She broke the dang wall wearing only ballet slippers. Big dent.

At 12 years old. Doing ballet.

Half-Done

I went out painting again today!

I have been wanting to paint Alice in Wonderland, so that's where I went.

It is a complex scene and I had a meeting for LaGuardia at 5pm, so had a bit of a time limit.

This is about 2 1/2 hours of work, it's maybe half done, and it seems like I have- for the first time- been thrown into multi-session plein air paintings.

So I have to go back. I will not work on this at home.

Unfortunately it will have to wait until the weekend, since I'm working all week.

8x10 oil in progress....

Saturday in Central Park

I went out today and painted.

It was a lovely day.

I found a nice spot away from people with nice thick grass.

There is nothing quite like standing barefoot in the grass in Central Park and painting.

8x10 oil

Pebbles says hi.

Some True Words

 A friend posted this on Facebook, it's really true.

A wise friend said to me the worst times in a woman’s life

are when she was a teenager 

and when her daughter becomes a teenager.

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It has occurred to me today that Daya is perhaps the first person in 4 generations of my direct family to have a stable childhood.

Yes there are important things missing but she has had stability.
I have provided that to her by myself.

I don't know about anything in my family before my grandmothers.

My father knew about his side, I had to to a genealogy project in high school, but I don't have that information anymore and I don't remember it.  It was all people I don't know and never heard of before or since that project.

My maternal grandmother did not want to talk about it and I was asked after that event to never ask her again.

I don't know anything about my paternal grandmother except for when she was an adult.  

I was scared of her whenever I saw her as a young child.

So, my grandparents had it bad when they were kids, I know my maternal grandmother did, and I knew that even as a child.

My parents had it rough too. It was a bad scene on both sides.

My entire childhood was engulfed by everyone around me viciously fighting.

My parents did absolutely everything you are not supposed to do when getting a divorce and there are kids involved.  Every single thing.  And it never stopped. It lasted from before I started school through to my college graduation.

Even though I am divorced from Daya's father, and the absence of a father is significant, she never bonded with him so it is not so much a trauma as an absence.

But she has had stability.  

That much at least, I have done right, and I know it even if maybe she can't see it right now.

Goodbye Times Square

Yesterday an announcement came at work that we will not be going back into physical offices until *at least* June 2021, and probably later.

That's six months later than projected.

Also, we are moving downtown in the Summer of 2021.

This means I will never work from 3 Times Square again.

It's done. This part of my life is over.

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Through the years I have wondered many times how and when I will leave Times Square.

I have been scared during many, many layoffs that I always survived through an evolution of three companies in one place.

I wondered if I would leave on my own or if I would be part of layoffs.

Daya has visited building throughout her entire life, from the childrens' holiday parties the company used to host, until earlier this year in high school. She was 5 1/2 months old when I started work at Reuters.

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Today after the eye doctor I went to get the rest of my personal items from my desk.

I walked over from the doctor's office.

The city is so different.

It isn't empty like it was in March, but it's just a fragment of what it was pre-covid.

It feels completely different with no office culture, empty restaurants, and no tourists.

Rockefeller Center

The TKTS sign announcing there are no shows.

Times Square feels weird and different.

My work home from May 2006 to March 2020

Last Elevator Selfie

My badge doesn't work on the floors anymore.  I can get through the main turnstiles but they have turned off floor access to everyone.

I'm so glad I went those 2 previous times; no appointment was needed, no one cared, I did what I needed to freely.

Not this time; I had a security escort the whole time which was very weird since I am still an employee.

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My last desk.

I started on the 21st floor, went down to 9 (or was it 8??), then spent 10 years on 15, had that dreadful desk on 3 that I said NO to, and came back up to 21.

Full circle.

This is the last dedicated desk I will have; when we do go back to the office no one will have a permanent desk anymore, and it will probably only be at most 3 days a week in-person.  I have been expecting this for a long time; the trend already started a couple of years ago in London.

Goodbye desk, goodbye 21, goodbye 3 Times Square.

It's been a good almost-15 years.

How to Clean a Bench

I had an eye doctor appointment today, just a follow up after the last month's lasering.

Because of Covid I had to wait outside on the street.

Appointments were late so I was waiting for a long time.

There is a bench on the corner so I sat on it.

Then three people came over and kicked me off the bench.

They then proceeded to clean the bench.

For 25 minutes.

It takes three people 25 minutes to clean a city bench.

They just kept spraying it and wiping it down over and over and over again.

Pretty sure the logic was the longer you spend cleaning it, the longer it stays clean...

Batty Tuesday

Daya made dinner tonight.

She found a pizza crust recipe that is made entirely of eggs and cheese.

It's really, really good!!

Beth invited me to her class tonight as a guest artist.

It's a lovely group of women and I enjoyed the time we spoent together.

We painted bats in pastel, here's mine:

It's .... I don't know what size it is.  Half a 9x12(??) Richeson sheet that Tammy gave me.

I can't believe I forgot to post this.

This is from last Sunday when I was at Cathy's.

It is so stunning I have to put it here to be remembered forever.

My teenager actually admitted she missed me!!

10th Grade Part 2

Daya got to go to school in person today for the first time since the lockdown started.
She only goes in-person twice a week for dance, everything else is remote.