Unicorn Synchronicity

I'm a little behind on my blog, I have some updates from Halloween etc but they'll wait.

Because something very major happened today.

This afternoon my landlord called to offer me a new apartment.

A big 2 bedroom, in the same building.

It's on the top floor so no upstairs neighbors.

This eliminates a massive stressor and anxiety I have been living with for 20 years.

Noise from upstairs especially- and also the courtyard behind me- have caused me a lot of distress over the years.  My current neighbors now are ok, they are just doing normal life stuff but I hear it.  (I can even hear the guy upstairs peeing.) I just tolerate it because you just kind of have to.  It's the music-blasting that really wrecks my nervous system...not normal living noise. I still have PTSD from my neighbors from 2019-2022 who BLASTED their music, drums and bass taking over everything.
My current neighbors don't do that, I have no complaints against them.

But I still live in anxiety of what if they move and I get loud music blasters again?

And I just deal with the overhead noise.

In this new apartment... no one is above me.

It's an end of hallway apartment so I don't really share most of my walls with anyone.

It is a quiet apartment, and I am probably the quietest person in NYC so that fits.

It is a unicorn apartment and I happen to be a unicorn so that fits, too.

My rent will go up by $200 a month, but I can afford it.
I can make it work.

It's worth it.

I will be paying $600 below market rental value, and right now I'm paying about $300 below market rental value. It's rent-stabilized.

If Daya stays here she'll help with expenses too. That'll also be good for both of us.

I'm not going to worry about the rent.

I am always provided for.

And I get to keep everything I love about living here- I am happy in the building, it's well-managed, I love the location...all of that remains the same. And it won't cost me anything to move, aside from needing some things for the new apartment.

It is in my landlord's financial best interest to get me out of this apartment, and he knows I'm not going anywhere on my own.

So he made me a really good deal.

He'll gut-renovate, raise the rent to the legal rent instead of the below-market preferential rent I pay, and charge more for this one-bedroom than what I will be paying for a brand new renovated bright big 2- bedroom apartment on the top floor.

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I'll give him my decision on Monday, yes, and I'm ready to sign the papers and give the security deposit.

FREAKY THING: This came exactly to-date 20 years since I moved in here.

My first reaction when he called was extreme overwhelm.

But it's just such a good offer.

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Daya has been INCREDIBLE.

She wants to step in and take over all the things that scare and overwhelm me and that i just don't know how to do.

She knows how to do those things AND she likes doing them!

She told me I'm not alone this time.

She is gentle with me in my fear and anxiety and stress.

She also said this changes the way she thinks about living with me- I know she hates this apartment and it does hold a lot of years of hard history. I understand why she doesn't want to be here.

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On a personal note, I have been doing some intense internal clearing since mid-September.

I have been working with an energy healer who I have worked with since 2021- basically to clear energies that have been stored in the body. Release.

It works. 
I have cleared abandonment- personal and generational (that took 3 sessions), effects of my circumstance on being a mom, emotional effects of my eyes on my life, and I have one session next week in which I'm going to clear the stored energy I hold in my body from parenting from 2015 to present. And we'll do a final sweep and then I'll need a break, it's a LOT.

I feel different in my body and my frequency has definitely shifted higher.

I feel less dense, I feel space where those old emotional energies were.

But I'm ready to let go of old outdated life things and step into a new life phase- I just didn't expect my dream apartment- literally- to come with it!

So, this massive shift comes at a time that makes sense.

This move is a MASSIVE clearing out.

Also financially, I'll give Daya the last college tuition payment next month and then I'm done.

The new apartment makes some major dreams come true:

1. I will have my own bedroom, WITH A DOOR! That's been my DREAM!!!

2. Noise eliminated- no upstairs neighbors or worries about who might move in.

3. The second and larger bedroom will be my studio and guest room (probably).  I will have an actual dedicated studio room!

I want space for Daya, but she's insisting on this.  We'll make it work.  It's going to be fine.

I always want her to have a place here, a nice space too.

This is very overwhelming, but amazing.

I think my art will dramatically benefit from it as well, with new expanded space.
I feel so constricted in my studio right now.
It's time to grow and expand.

My cats are going to freak out, and I have to figure out how to get Furball into the new place....

All 4 burners on my stove will work! (2 burners on my stover never worked from day 1. I live with 2.)

My fridge won't be falling apart!

This is AMAZING!!!

Also I will have an actual living room and I truly have no idea what to do with a living room.

Daya's job is to figure that out tho.

She's awesome like that.

The Crazy Plein Air Workout

David Nakabayashi texted me and said "Join me on the 7am ferry to Governor's Island and let's paint."

(He has an artist residency there right now.)

Oh, I won't turn down a chance to paint with David.

I steal his painting vibes.

His work has been enormously influential in my growth, the osmosis is very real.

That's why it's important to be around people who are more advanced.

(It's also why I like my egg tempera class so much- the balance of slowing down, and also I'm not the best in the room, so it is the right room.)

So, I woke up at 4am and was down at Pier 11 at 6:45.

David chose the spot- I know Governor's Island ok, but he knows it very well.

There's a very high hill overlook area on Governors Island I never knew about- wow, what a view!

We both knocked out two paintings each in less than 3 hours.

It was very windy in the morning but we persevered.

I painted the Statue of Liberty (again).

Start time 8:01am, end time 9:26am.

8x10 oil

The important thing about this painting I learned is dealing with the sky being very boring.

I did move some clouds over (David painted the good clouds to my left) but mostly 3/4 of this painting is empty sky space.

Not too long ago I would have really obsessed over the gradient- and instead I decided to make that boring blank space more interesting through brushwork.

I am realizing how much my painting approach has changed- especially when dealing with subject matter I've painted several times before.

Speed is not the goal- I track the time for personal data purposes, but it's something that comes through experience and repeated problem solving.

We both painted the skyline for painting number 2.

This second painting took.... 1 hour and 20 minutes!

Whoa!

This is a milestone painting for me.

I have painted the skyline a bunch of times before but never like this, and definitely not at this speed.

The World Trade Center is always tough to paint, it's just tricky.

Well, for me at least, and of everything in this painting, I spent the most time on that.

You have to get the shapes just right and of course the light is always changing which makes a big difference in particular on that tower.

And then I just knocked in shapes of color instead of drawing everything.

Indicating, values, and spots of color.

It's a loose painting but still has all the information it needs.

It stretched my head out.

I can see just how far I have come with my plein air work- particularly with the skyline and how to handle the complexity in a simplified way.

My thinking and ability to resolve complexity has improved significantly.

This isn't something I could do in the studio from photos- not at all.

It has to be done repeatedly from life.

I'm so proud of myself for keeping and growing my art through all these difficult years.

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After painting we went back to the house where David's exhibit is on display.

He's so weird!

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Other assorted pictures from today:

39 Panels

I'm working from home today and it is also a recovery day from the weekend.

And I have 39 panels I could tone...

I don't always tone panels, I'm fine painting on white, but if I get around to batch-toning I'll do it.

I like toning panels in natural earths, spread in a physically thin layer on the panel... no solvent unless absolutely necessary.

So, I got out several tubes of Rublev natural earths and some of those Maimeri d'Italia paints from forever ago...also natural earths.  They are seriously perfect for beautiful toned panels.

My new size 16 Rosemary Ultimate brush is officially my new favorite panel-toning brush! You can scrub and scrub with the Ultimates and they don't even notice!

I toned 39 panels in various natural earths and laid them to dry on Daya's floor.

(I think this is a good use of her room!)

This should keep me stocked probably until next Memorial Day.

This brush is amazing... it's also fun to just... carry around!

Rosemary brushes are actual magic wands!

Painting Sunflowers & Dave's Boat on Lake Keuka

Teresa has a friend who has a cottage from the 1800s on Lake Keuka, which is one of the finger lakes.
It's about an hour and a half south of Rochester, in Amish country.

On the way down we stopped at a local general store, where I found an amazing present for Daya- more on that in another post.

Teresa's friend Carol has land and a stunning garden.

She's a landscape architect and knows everything about plants, it's amazing!

Well except stapeliads, so I told her all about them and showed her pictures!

I painted the sunflowers in her garden.

Here's a fun thing: a couple of days ago I saw a plein air p[ainting of sunflowers that I really liked and I thought to myself, I'd like to paint sunflowers en plein air... and here they were!

I have not painted sunflowers on-location before and mostly I didn't know what I was doing but it came out pretty ok, I think.

I definitely need more practice!

8x10 oil

Some pictures from Carol's garden:

Then we went on Dave's motorboat for a ride on the lake.

The water was turquoise, it really was!!!

I could paint up here every day for a year and still not paint everything I see that should be painted!