Morgan Library

This afternoon before Daya's party I met Kedrin and Susan at the Morgan Library to see the new manuscript show.  (If you are here in NYC you should definitely go!)

Here are some pictures (I took more but this is a good sampling).

There is also a drawing show in the next room, there is a Van Eyck on display:

In the gift shop, we found good books...

And brilliant soaps:

AND ALSO....

This is hilarious, I'm probably a horrible person for thinking so.  I don't drink soda but if I did, I'd be saying this.

Tequila Rose

I went to Brooklyn Botanic today to paint some nice fall foliage (again), and ended up not painting landscape (again).

There are still some blooms in the Rose Garden, so I found a rose (I think I have painted this rose bush before).  I wasn't really in the mood for photos today, a few people asked and I said no.... some days I really just am not in the mood.

Anyhow, florals are something I almost never do but I wouldn't mind being better at them.  An artist named Daniel Keys is doing a daily painting thing and his florals are astounding.... mine ar not astounding but that's ok, I have almost no experience with it.

Still, I approached things a little differently today and overall it was a good painting day.

8x10 oil

 

Here are the exit signs by the Eastern Parkway entrance.

The exit was not, in fact, between these signs but was way off to the left.

Kedrin invited me to come over after painting; she doesn't live too far away.
She made hot cider and we had a lovey time just visiting.

Kedrin has a fantastic apartment.

It is very Brooklyn.

Also, Kedrin has an electric stove.
It is the first electric stove I have ever seen in NYC. Like, ever.

Now I can't say I have never seen one here.

There is always a first time for everything!

A Shitty Day Only in NYC

I had a shitty day and I mean that quite literally.

And I woke up like that because I'm just fed up with Daya's teenage angst which I get pretty much all of and it sucks and it's crappy to live with.

But she had amazing parent-teacher conferences so I'm very glad about that.
She's ok with everyone but me.

********

So I woke up pissy and also hormonal and when that happens I need to watch out because it is a cascading effect.

I was going to go out painting but it's cold and I couldn't because all my fleecy underlayers were in the laundry, which has been piling up.

So I woke up early and did laundry.

Someone else was also in the laundry room and she had all the machines except the 2 I took.

First load in, fine.

Second load in, fine. Clothes, soap, baking soda... then I checked the lip of the washer as I always do for the stray sock or paper that finds it's way in there from the previous user.

There was a paper liner-looking thing, so I got a large wad of tissue from the laundry bathroom to wipe it out. There was brown goo under it.

It was poop.  Actual shit.

I freaked right the hell out.

I went upstairs and got my bleach spray and bleached it, what else could I do??

I seriously bleached it.

I ran the wash.

My clothes seemed ok except for one pair of undies that ended up in the rubber lip area and they did not smell good so I trashed them.

I REALLY smell checked the rest of the load and it did seem ok but I was so skeeved out I transferred everything to a different machine and washed it again.

Then I ran it through the dryer on high heat TWICE.

Industrial dryers get very, very hot on the high setting and I never use it but this time- yes.

That high temp heat does kill microbes. I spent a long time looking this up.

And THEN I put my candy thermometer in the laundry bag and 40 minutes after coming out of the dryer the clothing temp was 150 degrees.  So my clothes are ok, according to the internets. They smell nice and also should be as sterilized as possible from the dryer.

I wrote an email to the landlord titled Actual Sh*t in the Washer.
And followed that email up with a voicemail.

They have not responded.

*******************

This evening I had one more load of laundry to do, towels and bathroom rugs.

So I went downstairs and used a different machine.... a lady was waiting for the dryer and we started talking.  I warned her about washer #3. She said that's the one she always uses!!

I told her about the poop and the candy thermometer.

We laughed and she decided she liked me.
So we chatted.

******

She's 77 years old and has been in her apartment here since she was 12 years old.

I confirmed my cabinets are, in fact, the original cabinets from 1950, meaning that my kitchen is not only older than me, but it is also older than my mother!!

But my neighbor Toby wins the Old Kitchen Award- she still has the original stove which has no automatic pilot light... she has to manually do it!!!

Once years ago her next door neighbor got really drunk and had the gas on too long before lighting that match and the stove exploded.

Blew a hole in the wall, she was severely burned.

The hole was big enough to walk through.

She has a painting in her apartment from the 1830s and it was - thankfully- unharmed but if that hole was a few inches larger the painting would have been ruined.

We traded stories about crappy neighbors.

She told me about crazy roommates, like her "nice Jewish girl" roommate who married a guy who wasn't circumcised and her parents made him get that done. (I asked if he had to have a bris and mohel and everyone watching....! Wouldn't that be hilarious!)  They got divorced and she ran away to San Francisco with a Black guy.

Her current upstairs neighbor is crappy, he's also a mess and regularly causes leaks in her bathroom.
She thinks it's because he is too tall for the shower and the water bounces off his head and goes everywhere.

She gets a leak from him about once a year.

He's a record producer- a bad one- he makes-- get this, I didn't even know it was a thing- foreign elevator music.

And he goes around telling people he is a CIA agent so they don't steal his stuff.

Batshit crazy.

Only in NYC.

16

Daya turned 16 roday.

We went out for sushi.

Her party is this Sunday.

Synchronized Torties

Isis and Furball.....

Black Footed Ferret

It was raining today so for the first time in quite a while I went over to the Museum of Natural History to paint.

Even though today was a school day, it was oddly crowded.

Gouache in sketchbook

Paying for Scrubby

I follow Pratt Gossip on Instagram and a post came through about someone who wanted cleaning jobs.

So I thought, MY KITCHEN!

My kitchen is big and while I do keep up with the daily stuff like the dishes and stove and some counter areas, it really needs a big scrubby clean.  A serious one.

The problem is I REALLY don't want to do it.

So I hired a girl from Pratt to come clean my kitchen!

Never before in my life- including childhood- have I paid someone else to clean for me...... this was a new experience!

And I have to tell you I sure was glad it was getting done and it wasn't me doing it!!

My kitchen is very, very old- this apartment has never been renovated.

Upstairs was renovated when I got new neighbors, and I saw it- it's GORGEOUS! new floor, granite/stainless steel, new cabinets, tile backsplash.....

Mine? Not so much.

I have what was "normal" 15 years ago, which means old crappy nothing.

With rent increases over the years, amenities have also increased and have become expected.

It wasn't like that not too long ago.

Seriously, my next door neighbor has been here for more than 40 years and we have the same cabinets- and so I think my kitchen (except the dishwasher) is older than me.

My kitchen will never look good but it's at least clean!

One day I will live in a place that also looks nice!

So anyhow I gave this girl $100 and thought she'd be here for about three hours- a good deal for her since the going cleaning rate (I asked around) is $20/hour.
But no, she was here for a little over 5 hours!!

She's a little OCD with cleaning, I think that's why it took her a long time but it was a pleasant experience for everyone.

I wanted her to scrub the cabinets (also the tops), counters, swiffer the ceiling, do the whole floor, clean the appliances....it was a big job. 

Daya came home from dance and since the kitchen was out of commission I ordered a pizza and fed everyone. The Pratt girl is 19- just three years older than Daya!  I treated her the way I would want someone to treat my own child.

Honestly, I'll probably hire her again at some point, but it will be an hourly job and not this crazy clean, just a couple hours to do maintenance cleaning so I don't have to.

Abigail as a Hobbit

 Abigail did hobbit poses tonight!

7 mins

20 mins

55 mins

******

Also, I didn't win the Fearless contest and I'm bummed about it, but the painting that won really was spectacular.

I don't know how it was "fearless", but it was beautiful for sure.

A Bunch of Wacky Stuff

THING 1: 

I don't give a crap about handbags.

(or shoes)

BUT THIS ONE.... omg.

I want one.

Except it will never happen because only 100 were made and they are reselling from $800 - $2,300 putting it solidly in the Hell No! category.

But......

OMG it is AMAZING

I want a pasta purse quite badly!

Thing 2:

I met Kedrin and Bitz and Janet (Boathouse people) (and some of Kedrin's friends and niece) at the Met.

Since I had painted earlier today I decided to take a break from arting but Kedrin brought her ipad so I brought mine which meant a tote bag....

AND SECURITY DID NOT EVEN WANT TO CHECK MY BAG!!!!

I even offered! They said no!!

Security had ZERO interest in my bag!!

It's stunning.

One day something is ok, the next it isn't, and another day they don't even bother checking.

AND...... people had LARGE backpacks on!

I have an adorable little leopard backpack purse (It is cool but not as cool as the pasta purse) and when I have taken that to the Met before they considered it a backpack and wouldn't let me wear it on my back, I had to carry it.

But I guess backpacks were ok last night too????

I cannot take them seriously at all with such inconsistency.

THING 3

My Memling painting is still not on display. :(

I miss her.

THING 4

Robert Henri says hi.

**********

Bitz and I contemplated Greco-Roman statuary.

We want to know if this lady's head is hair or a headdress.

I decided I like her though, whichever way.

The sculpture court always looks better at night.

Kedrin has been wanting this book for a while and I gave her my 20% coupon for renewing my membership).

It is a wonderful book, I looked through it.

Also, in the bookstore we found a book called "How to Wear Socks"... in case you can't figure it out.

Gapstow Bridge

I am meeting friends at the Met tonight but I wanted to paint and not go too far... so I decided to go over to Gapstow Bridge.

It's not really possible to paint this bridge too often, and the fall colors are pretty ok right now.

Not as good as New England but they are nice.

So here is a quick 2 hour painting, and I left the small palette that goes on the right side of my box at hoe! Oh well, it was a little weird without it but not the worst thing ever.....

8x10 oil

Autumn Cactus

I went to Brooklyn Botanic Garden today to paint some fall foliage and I painted a cactus instead.

For 2021 year-to-date this is my 50th plein air painting!

(That's not counting all the other stuff I have done, like the church paintings and studio work.)

50 outdoor oil paintings this year so far, wow! I have been busy.

*********

This painting will not photograph no matter what I do.

So here are 2 versions, the background is better in the first one and the overall color is better in the second one.

I did not realize BBG closes at 3:30, I thought it was 5... and I got kicked out about 15 minutes from the finish so I had to do it at home.  I don't like doing that but it was only the cactus spikes and the stone ground texture. 

I had the ground colors mixed already and just brought paint home, and the spikes were scratched in with my palette knife.

So, minimal.

I really am a purist where plein air is concerned but this painting is telling me to be flexible when needed. I didn't do anything I wouldn't have done outdoors and most especially I didn't allow myself to refine this painting as if it was a studio painting.  So it's ok.

I have to ask my friend Janet about lighting set up for photographing paintings- she just invested in a good setup and even knows how to use it.  I might need an umbrella or something, I dont know...

But she has a house in NJ and I have a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC so there's also a space issue....

Photographing paintings is really difficult.

Jo on Tuesday

Tonight's drawing session was really, really good... Jo modeled for us and she's fantastic.

20 min pose, graphite

40 mins graphite