Monday, September 25, 2006

Autumnal Breezes

Something in the air speaks of fall. As I make my way to the studio every morning, I walk along a street where floral vendors are making their way in and out of their shops with plants of all kinds lining the streets for the day's sale. In and out, in and out. I weave my way through the many people crowding the sidewalk, shielding my eyes from the brilliant sun reflecting off the wet cement. The colors of fall are beginning to show, and the air is beginning to smell of cool breezes that require coats and scarves.

The first month is gone. I have worked hard, but I do not know if my work reflects that quite yet. Much of my studio time has been spent working out ideas, or creating small drawings or paintings that will feed into my larger idea. I have 9 days until my midterm project is due...it hardly seems possible, i feel as if i just got here! I have fallen in love with this city. I am not sure if I could ever live here, at least not in the immediate future, but to have the opportunity to live here for one semester has been (so far) an invaluable experience.


I went to an antique market today and found this snapshot. I thought it was very beautiful and i could own it for the price of only $2. I found 5 old glass slides that have some great images on them, but i was unable to scan them in with much clarity. There were so many great things, I ended up spending two hours in this parking garage that is cleared out every weekend for the vendors. One vendor owns a large warehouse and supplied the props for "A Beautiful Mind" and "The Aviator."

This is a shorter post because I must get back to work...those 9 days are going to go by quickly. I will post images of my project soon.
Thanks for reading so far....

Friday, September 22, 2006

MoMA is great, and so is Colin Firth

John Silvis, the director of the NYCAMS program, is a professional networker. He has the magic talent of knowing people who are worth knowing, and because of this ability, he was able to get us a private tour of the MoMA conservation lab. I saw works of Matisse, Duchamp, Andrea Zittel, and Marden undergoing restoration. Our guide began his undergrad as pre-med with a minor in studio work...so odd. But this led him into a career in conservation, which sounds romantic and wonderful to me, however an extensive knowledge of chemistry is needed and unfortunately I fail in that department.

The tour ended, and Jennifer Mills (a fellow student) and I decided that we should get tickets and walk around the exhibits. Students at NYCAMS are required to get a museum membership card ($35) which allows us free and unlimited access to any museum in New York and even across the country. Each member is allowed one guest, so being the thoughtful girls we are, we decided to allow some unsuspecting person a free ride to the MoMA. We found our targets but when we offered them a free ticket, we received the oddest looks. Their english was broken and they didn't understand. I thought the word "free" was pretty universal. After we gave them their tickets, they didn't follow us through the guards, but looked as if they were going to stand in line for tickets!! I don't think our good deed was appreciated.

I was able to finally stand in front of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon which was an overwhelming experience. There was a room full of his works and it was full of admirers. I am the type of person that does not appreciate crowded museums. I enjoy being able to take my time in front of a painting or work and not feel interupted, but with many of the museums here in NY, you have to be patient with crowded rooms. Please do not take the latter as complaint, because i feel so lucky to be here and have hundreds of museums and galleries at my fingertips. I was thinking today about the ability to create and engage in a visual dialogue that covers issues that are essential to what it means to be human....and once again I was affirmed that being involved in the visual arts is what I was created for. In the film Chariots of Fire, Eric Littel makes the remark to his sister, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." I feel God's pleasure when I engage in the creative process. Although I may become discouraged or frusterated with a project, I cannot imagine doing anything else.

And now for some exciting news.....

I have always been a fan of the BBC Pride & Prejudice and could watch Bridget Jones' Diary over and over...primarily because of the handsome Brit who stars as leading man. As Jenn and I were exiting the Picasso exhibit she stopped and said very quickly, but not discreetly, "i think that guy is famous!" As I turned around to see, Mr. Darcy himself turned around and as our eyes met I swear there was music. Unable to speak I only gawked as Jenn said, "Isn't he the guy from Baywatch?" We will forgive her for this slip....I booked it back to the exhibit and tried to follow him, not very discreetly. There was no way to catch up with him without seeming obnoxious, so we walked to another room that he had to inevitably walk through. Poor Colin knew what we were up to (acting non-chalant was not so non-chalant).

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Viewer Discretion Advised

If you enjoy overhearing the conversations of others, like i do, this link should be a source of amusement. But heed the warning, there are conversations recorded that could make the innocent blush.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Fashion Week


I have had a very busy week. Monday night I received a phone call from a set designer who needed help with the Vena Cava show at Olympus Fashion Week. Early Tuesday morning I met him at a large prop store in Manhattan, he quickly gave me the rundown of the show, an envelope of money, and a list of things i needed to buy for him or source. I was about to loose it. WHAT in the world have I agreed to, and can I even do this? But in the words of FDR, the "only thing we have to fear is fear itself." So i hailed my first taxi and spent the next 8 hours managing my checklist and feeling very accomplished. Wednesday night was spent working on prepping some of the props, and I was given the opportunity to put my artistic training to task. Fashion Week is hosting the spring lines of the designers, so the Vena Cava show was designed with spring in mind. Rather than a catwalk, the set designer decided to bring in grass and create vignettes around the room that guests and press could walk up to and take photos. The "birdwatchers" needed to be 'sketching' birds, so out came the charcoal and newsprint and i created 20 sketches of birds to be used in the show.

This photo and many more can be seen on Style.com. Thursday morning did not afford any sleeping in, because I had to wake up before the sun did and run some last minute errands, such as picking up the sign i had printed, and be at Bryant Park for a 9:30 briefing. Rain in New York is not like rain in Seattle (which I can handle), but it seems to get everywhere. The doorman at the St. George is an old Jewish man who stays up late nights letting in the various college students who drag in at all hours. He saw my dismay at the rain, and the 10 bags i was carrying, and he not only gave me a garbage bag to put my things in, but he called me a car and proceeded to talk with me while i waited. I had a negative impression about New Yorkers before I arrived, but I find that most of them are really helpful. some are such characters that I feel as if i'm in a movie and these are all the extras. The driver who picked me up was a born and bred Brooklyn-ite (?) who kept me entertained in traffic with stories of when he was young and stationed in Seattle.

I had to purchase dry ice (to simulate smoke for the "the barbeque") from United Ice on W. 45th, family owned and operated for 5 generations by a family of Italians. Walking in I was greeted with "hey dollface, what can we get for you?" and "are you the fashion people? Hey, look at my hair, do ya think I could be a fashion guy? Do you think this guy could be a fashion guy too?" When I came out of that store, carrying 20 lbs. of dry ice and feeling like my shoulder might disconnect from my body, AND being short on cash for a cab, i proceed to walk up two avenues and over 8 blocks. Now when you are summoned to help with something as glamourous as fashion week, you better be sure that you look good, if only for your own self-esteem. But after I arrived for the briefing, my bangs (which had slipped out of my hood) were wet and drying in a curly, kinky sort of way, not to mention i almost passed out from walking so far with full hands (i guess this is the life of an intern).

The next 3 hours were mayhem. I got separated from our group and had to sneak in with the make-up artists and grab credentials. The show was very prop heavy, and the grass took a long time to unroll and measure, and cut. But in the end it turned out beautiful and I was able to sit and watch socialites, designers, press, and various glamorous people mingle with their wine glasses tinking, stilettos tapping, oohing and ahhing, and gabbing about the fashion displayed on anorexic models. Models look even thinner in real life, and some seemed to be no older than 14.

The designer I am working with, Andrew Ondrejcak, went to the Savannah College of Art and Design for architecture. But he abandoned that and began working with sets, and he also lectures at the MOMA on painting and sculpture. Oh, did I mention Vogue approached him during the Vena Cava show and wants him to style a shoot for them? So fortunately for me, this temporary internship is going to be extended into the long term semester deal. But my story does not stop there....

Part of being an intern in a job like this is the delightful experience of making returns......... I returned an exorbant amount of stuff back to Anthropologie in soho. I think that all of New York was in Soho yesterday, which is bad news when you are pushing a cart through crowded sidewalks. I even knicked some guy in the back of the ankle..oops. And who knew that Broadway and West Broadway were two DIFFERENT streets? Not a girl from the west coast. It took me an hour of walking to find the Anthropologie (I had called earlier and Miss Sassy on the phone would not tell me exactly where they were...she was too busy). After I received the cash for the items, I had to book it up to Harlem where Andrew was shopping for African objects for a traveling booth he is designing for World Concern. By the time I made it to the subway station I was sweating like I had just completed a triatholon (excuse me, for those who say girls don't sweat...try running with a cart through New York. Let's just say i was humbled). There was no attendant in this subway station, which would have solved my problem, because I got stuck in the turnstyle with that damned cart. I am usually a fairly patient person, but Manhattan was faced with a whole different Lauren at that point. For those who do not know, once you swipe your Metro card, you cannot do it again for the next 18 minutes, or you must go to another station. Angry and crying I ran 7 blocks to the next station...the time was ticking. I begged the worker at the next station to let me through a big black door, because there was no way i was going to try and fit the cart through again.

This story ends well, because Andrew got his money and his Africa stuff before it closed, and I was able to pass off to him that ridiculous cart. So while fashion week was a great opportunity, and working with a designer is a good experience, I might just age a bit this semester with the stress I'll deal with being an intern.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

art art art

There is something intimidating about creating a project. A topic or theme may give more direction, but the artist must create something out of nothing. A discussion in the Faith and Art class made me think about bending the rules of art. No longer do artists have an academy or school of fine arts where set rules and styles are practiced. Artists now take creative freedom and our post modern culture (and perhaps we have even moved past this as well) has reduced everything down to process. or so it seems. But in order to break the rules, and do it well, wouldn't you have to really know the rules? I have seen some student work that is very naive and immature in it's development. Some people might say that this is their artistic style, but I see so many problems with it. This can be frusterating. So many artists are taking advantage of the loosly structured term "modern art" to excuse bad design or bad projects.

Art is a challenge; it is something that drives the creative person to creation and to solving problems with solutions that are meaningful. Shannon supplied me with this quote:

"When artists reach into their colors or to the notes of a musical core, into the developing solution in a darkroom tray or to the flow of words on a page, they are interacting with the eternity God has placed in their hearts. They are trying to be significant in their universe- trying to mean something more than a random collision of molecules" (although as Christians we have a clearly defined purpose) "Though modern philosophy tells them they are nothing, their hearts tell them something else. Because their minds cannot fathom what their hearts know, they fell the weight of the God-placed burden. Art often seems irrational because the heart is reaching beyond the mind. A modern art museum displays the heart reaching beyond what the mind knows, trying to find the meaning of its existence." -John Fischer.
So while i know that there is bad art, i can understand the need to express or find something and the desire to share that with others.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Oscar the Grouch never had it this good...

New York is great for dumpster diving. People are throwing away things all the time. Lumber, chairs, rugs, clocks, furniture, frames, and anything an artist could want. I found a link (thanks to libby) to a website that people use to report finds throughout the city: http://www.garbagescout.com/ny..#
It is amazing how much trash is accumulated here. NYCAMS students are coming and going from dumpster excursions. I have yet to come across any great finds...

Art supplies should be bought in progression. With an open studio class, the freedom to just work can be overwhelming. I will be slowly collecting the things I need. I made a trip to an art supply store a few days ago. It was a small 4 story building, but you had to pay for your supplies on each floor before you progressed up the next flight of stairs. There is no car with which to load up your purchases...everything must be carried back on the subway. This limits me in grocery shopping as well.

Peas and Pickles is cute..but expensive. Most places take cash here, even when dining out. Small restaurants will often seat you next to strangers. Though everyone is in close proximity here, people find a way to create their own personal space. Listening to iPods, declining eye contact, and even a way of walking gives an attitude of independence that others recognize as a personal boundary.

This subject is what I am studying through my work this first half of the semester. Personal vs. Private space is our first assignment. This may be looked at in many different ways with many different mediums. So while it seems a big subject to tackle, I will be working up to my "big idea" by creating sketches and small projects that will be due every Monday and open for critique.

Yesterday Professor Romaine took us to the Jewish Heritage Museum where we saw the work of Eva Hesse.

She uses fiberglass and latex to create her structures. She was responding to Minimalism in most of her work. I could say much about her work, but I will let you find out more about her.


We went to the Guggenheim and studied the work of Pollock and Kandinsky. While I am not a Pollock fan, I can appreciate what he was trying to accomplish with the recording of action and the process his work took. However the museum itself was my favorite work of art there. Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect behind this building that takes you progressively upward on a spiral ramp.

Must get to work, but will write again soon,
Lauren

Monday, September 04, 2006

Pineapple and Henry


I can barely catch breath after arriving here on Thursday…I have been shuffled about the city and spend most of my time (or so it seems) riding on the 1,2, or 3 between Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. I am living in the St. George Hotel; a building that was once a middle class hotel and is now residence to students from all over the country. I live on the 6th floor overlooking Pineapple Street and Henry. Low-lighting in the pumpkin colored hallway reflects off the walls creating a dull glow, but my room is bright from the light of two large windows. An old fire escape and the rooftop gardens of the crowded blocks meet my view, while the steady Brooklyn Bridge stands tall in the distance. Shannon, my roommate for the semester and immediate friend, greeted me as I shuffled four large suitcases into the room.

My dad decided to visit this city and to help me move in. Several of the girls from NYCAMS live next door, and upon seeing an adult, latched on and traveled with us on our trip to the only Target in Brooklyn. I have never been in a more crowded Target, and when I am traveling with a crowd of people, in an already crowded place, I tend to find my patience waning. After 45 minutes in line we made our way back to the St. George.

Early on Friday, Dad and I walked to Battery Park where we met a ferry that took us to Liberty Island. And though I am embarrassed to admit, I grabbed the audio headset for the self guided tour. Ellis Island was a three story, two hour trip that was an information overload. The man-made island served as the immigration center for New York. Most of the newly arrived immigrants were made to wait on the island for days, and sometimes weeks before processing was finished.

Broadway on a whim is instant gratification…that is if you can find tickets right before the performance. Dad and I were lucky enough to get two tickets on the main floor for the showing of Wicked at the Gershwin. Well worth the money…it is an enchanting play and one I will remember for a long time.

The NYCAMS building sits on 28th and 6th. The 7th floor belongs to the school and is complete with studio space, a gallery, woodshop, darkroom, computer room, and a student lounge/kitchen space. My studio has a direct view of the Empire State building and lets in plenty of light.

The students here are varied. There are those from small towns, and those from the West Coast. Shannon is from APU, but though our schools may be rivals we get along really well. I have enjoyed seeing how people react to one another. There is a slight
one-upmanship that is slowly fading. We do not know each other as artists yet, and there seems to be a desire to throw out names or articulate ourselves well in order that others may see us as established artists. I had to fight the desire to do that…because in the end, I know that I am only trying to convince myself of my own abilities and no one else.

If you take Henry street up a few blocks and turn right on Montague, you are placed on a quiet street (relatively quiet) with used book stores, restaurants, a deli, and buildings with fires escapes and molding that seems straight out of a movie. I am sitting at a Starbucks as I write this. The coffee company has successfully done their job…no matter the city, you may find a Starbucks and instantly feel a recognizable, and welcoming feeling...I made a beeline for a table. There is so much to report I will have to end here. It is time for dinner and I must stop at an ATM. The price of groceries and food here is another story entirely…