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brooklynmuseum · 5 years ago

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Stronger Together

Weekend Roundup of Resources for our Community 

Ay! What’s good Brooklyn? How are you feeling?

As we enter the month of May still under social distancing, we know that the days are getting warmer and we yearn to be with our people more and more each day. However, once we continue practicing physical distance and social solidarity to keep our community whole, the sun, laughter, social engagements, and more will feel incredibly warm and beautiful. Right now, our community needs us and we should do what we best in NYC, spread love and help each other. Check out new opportunities to support and be supported in this week’s roundup.

If you have questions, or have more you wish to see or to spotlight, reach out. We want to hear from you so email [email protected].

Also, text 'COVID' to 692-692 to get important COVID-19 related updates sent straight to your phone. You can text 'COVIDESP' to get updates in Spanish.

Local Business Highlights of the Week:

Prepared foods, groceries, and bar items are now available for pick up from Glady's and sister restaurant, Mo’s Original. Pickups will be scheduled every Wednesday and Saturday. All orders will be picked up at Mo's Original in Crown Heights.

Tom’s Diner, our favorite family owned diner since 1936, is serving your favorite classic food options and breakfasts all day from 8 am-3 pm on weekdays and 8 am-5 pm on weekends. Take out and no contact delivery is available by ordering here.

Census

A reminder to complete the 2020 Census today at my2020census.gov.

Resources for families

NYC Children has created a resource page regarding family resources, parent/caretaker questions, family court and child care assistance.

The Arab American Association of New York (AAANY) has set up a relief network to assist families and businesses in Bay Ridge with the practical and financial challenges of the COVID-19 crisis through grants and distributions of food, supplies, and PPE (personal protective gear). TO apply for service, visit their survey form.

The Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) is a national policy organization that has developed a Language Resources page for the coronavirus. Languages include, Arabic, Bengali/Bangla, Burmese, Chinese, Chuukese, English, Farsi, Fijian, Gujarati, Hakha Chin, Hawaiian, Hindi, Hmong, Llocano, Indonesian, Japanese.

C19 Help Squad is currently taking requests for both financial help purchasing food, medicine, necessary supplies, bills, rent and other expenses as well as local assistance such as welfare checks or grocery/supply delivery.

If you are a Veteran, Military member, spouse/ partner or immediate family member or Gold Star Family member, fill out the Veterans Mutual Aid survey if you are in need of groceries, need help with housing. For more information, visit the NYC Veterans Alliance.

Resources for the Undocumented Community

We Speak NYC is offering FREE weekly online classes. Join a class to meet new people, learn about New York City services available to all New York City residents, regardless of immigration status, and practice speaking English. Classes meet once a week, every week at the time listed.

ActionNYC is for every immigrant New Yorker. It offers free, safe immigration legal help in a network of trusted community organizations and schools.

The New York Immigration Coalition has developed a resource page of newly released government information in a variety of languages. To find out more, visit their COVID-19 Community Resources.

Undocu Workers Fund NYC will de distributing $200 via Venmo, Zelle or Paypal to undocumented individuals who work in the food industry in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Visit their page to find out more information about eligibility.

If you are undocumented yourself or have family members who are undocumented and have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, click on the link below to fill out the request form provided by the Bentancourt Macia Family Scholarship Foundation.

Resources for artists, freelancers, and gig workers

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) is a federal program that was included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The program provides support for Americans who are unable to work due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but do not qualify for traditional Unemployment Insurance (UI).

NYFA is administering $1,250,000 in aid to Tri-State Relief Fund to Support Non-Salaried Workers in the Visual Arts. They will distribute one-time unrestricted cash grants of $2,000 each to: freelance, contract, or non-salaried archivists, art handlers, artist/photographer’s assistants, cataloguers, database specialists, digital assets specialists, image scanners/digitizers, and registrars. Please click here for a full list of eligibility requirements and required application materials.

Volunteer Opportunities

Bed-Stuy Strong is a group of neighbors helping neighbors in a spirit of solidarity. Find out how you are able to donate, help, or in need of assistance by visiting their website.

#Brooklyn Shows Love Mutual Aid Project is a mutual aid project to any and all Brooklynites who need grocery/supply deliveries, medication pick-up/drop-offs, tenant/rent-strike organizing support, and other forms of material aid. For more information visit their website, and to sign up to volunteer click here.

Volunteer to support home-bound seniors with Heights and Hill in partnership with City Councilman Brad Lander.

Buildings & Residents

For Tenants/Landlords - Disinfection Guidance for Buildings: Check out these guidelines on how to maintain your building during COVID-19.

Property Tax issues: Got property tax issues? Check out the Department of Finance (DOF) who administers a number of benefits in the form of tax exemptions, abatements, and money-saving programs.

Remember to Follow Our Elected Officials For News:

Stay up to date with information provided by Governor Cuomo. Follow our New York State governor on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for up to date information regarding new health guidelines closures, and executive orders.

The Mayor has a new Daily Message available on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube every morning. If your constituents have questions, comments or concerns, they want him to respond to, they can send them using the hashtag #AskMyMayor

The Office of the Brooklyn Borough President provides the most up-to-date information and resources to Brooklynites. Follow these pages regularly and follow Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on social media for real-time updates.

Interested to see what is happening on the federal level? Follow New York State Senator Chuck Schumer on Twitter and Instagram for updates on COVID-19 and information on New York State.

Follow federal updates regarding COVID-19 from Senator Gillibrand. You can follow Gillibrand on Twitter and Instagram.

Proudly serving the Hudson Valley House Representative Maloney is working hard for his constituents during the current pandemic. For more information follow Maloney on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Congresswoman for the 9th District, Yvette D. Clark is working hard in Congress to support our local communities. Follow the Congresswoman on her Twitter to receive updates on what is going on in Washington DC and resources available in your ‘hood!

Follow updates from Council Member Carlos Mechaca, representing District 38-Sunset Park, Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, and portions of Borough Park, Dyker Heights and Windsor Terrace on Facebook for more information regarding COVID-19.

Follow updates from Council Member Stephen T. Levin on Facebook and Twitter. Levein represents District 33-Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Boerum Hill and Bedford–Stuyvesant.

Follow Updates from Council Member Alicka Ampry-Samuel on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Ampry-Samuel represents District 41-Bedford Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill-Brownsville, East Flatbush, and Crown Heights.

Deana Lawson (American, born 1979). Oath, 2013. Pigment print. Brooklyn Museum, William K. Jacobs, Jr. Fund, 2015.6.1. © Deana Lawson (Photo: Image courtesy of the artist)

#covid-19 #covid #coronavirus #strongertogether #brooklynstrong #brooklyn museum #brooklyn #resources #undocumented #artists #community #community resources

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cammiluna · 5 years ago

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Sorry I’ve been mostly gone for the last few months. 2020 particularly has been a wild year for me personally.

My story actually started back in September when I applied for the JET program for the 4th consecutive year, as that in itself took up a significant amount of my time and attention.

I got rejected once again.

About two weeks prior to the rejection, I applied for a new job in Washington state. I got a referral from a close friend of mine. Got accepted for that job in less than 24 hours, but I was still waiting for the JET interview results (and the timeframe between acceptance and the first day of work was undoable to me as a broke New Yorker going to MAGFest on a shoestring budget

I had to take some mad commissions for that. To this day, some of those commissions are incomplete still

Two weeks after my 4th JET program rejection and the wave of depression and anger that followed, I got another call from the Washington job asking to come in 7 weeks later. I took the offer. Back at this time, people and governments were still slapfighting over whether to take a certain viral situation seriously or not.

Around the time I got that second call, I had a meltdown at work when the server died and more was expected of me handling it than I was able to do.

I had 7 weeks to find an apartment, downsize my belongings and find a way to get me, Kirby (my fish) and a tiny percentage of my belongings on a minimal budget. In doing so, I had to reach out to friends in private to avoid my former employer snooping around my social media.

I send in my 2-weeks notice and while I’m thankful I wasn’t fired right there for doing that, extra demanding work tasks were piled on me while I was preparing the move. Like having to teach computer-unsavvy people how to do my job and writing instructions on how to do these things; 99.99999% computer-related. I used up my vacation days to take days when i felt another meltdown coming and my former employer used that against me when they wanted me to make business cards with photographs for all staff members- something that would take several weeks when I only had four days left at work.

On top of everything, I’ve gotten a cold four times between November 2019 and March 2020 because the apartment’s heater broke down, the landlord would just keep smacking it to make it work temporarily, and my room wasn’t properly insulated so I froze all winter like I was sleeping out in the street.

So when I finally made it to Washington, I was a mess. Nasty cold, weakness, fatigue, everytime I tried to sleep, I had vertigo.

And $2700 in credit card debt from the move. My plane ticket was $150, but my [oversize/overweight] baggage fees were $400, delivery of my books and artist alley materials was another $150, setting up a new fish tank from scratch was almost $300 (not including parts that my friend had gifted him), and then some. I basically moved out here with my computers, 1/3rd of my video game collection (the rest were donated/sold), art supplies, Kirby, some rare/recent collecibles, and a week’s worth of clothing. Everything else had to be purchased after the move. Furniture, food, kitchenware, linens, etc.

A lot of items were donated from friends. I am beyond thankful to them!

And yes, Kirby came with me on a plane. You had to see the eyes bulging out of every TSA officer that saw me yoink a bag of live fish out of my carry-on, but I had a printout from the TSA website that indeed said that live fish are allowed through security checkpoint as long as they are in a sealed container.

yep.

Kirby also got sick. He had anxiety from the move and the new tank settings. We got him a cave to hide him, but it had a really rough surface and he injured himself bumping into it a few times. Cave was since removed.

So then I started my new job a week later. Four days into the new job, the office decided to close before corona could be a problem. I’ve been working from home ever since. The training was chill physical energy-wise, but very intense and full of information I had to retain. Also, this is my first customer service job, so I was super anxious the whole way. 2.5 months of training it was,

By the end of March, I had all the symptoms that Corona was known for. Nothing was severe, and I had no vehicle to go see a doctor (I made a dumb mistake and moved to a hilly suburb because the rent was cheap). It could have been corona, it could have been a venn diagram of my cold phasing out overlapping with anemia and anxiety, I guess we’ll never know. I found ways to get by while still working from home.

Kirby was also choking on his own air bubbles for March and April. I wasn’t able to get any info on why that would be. He is doing fine now.

Training is over now. I finally started seeking medical help last week because I’m still dealing with chest pain, fatigue, and shortness of breath which I was told could be anemia (worse than I’ve ever had it before). I’m still anxious because I’m on customer phone service full time now, but while it has a lot of challenges and I do get tired in the end (which could be anemic fatigue still), I’m a LOT less stressed out than I was at my old job. The pay isn’t much higher, but I’ve been able to live a much better life here. Got usable health benefits now and while the food is more expensive out here, you get a LOT more food for all those dollars spent. Also, since I’ve been too fatigued to cook much of the time (and I have a shitty electric stove that takes 45+ minutes to boil a pot of water), I can have healthy restaurant meals delivered via uber eats. Most of the restaurants in my service area serve REALLY TASTELESS FOOD, but some restaurants serve enough in one order to make for 2-3 meals.

but anyway. That’s what’s been going on now. Financial situation has improved greatly since I started getting paychecks out here. medical investigation is ongoing. I just need my energy back to start making regular art content again.

I have played Animal Crossing since the game came out. I will share the artwork I’ve managed to do soon, including some plague knight and mona/animal crossing crossover stuff such as the pic you see above.

Stay tuned and thanks for your patience.

#updates

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putanauhere · 5 years ago

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so me and @foxesmouth are writing an art forgery au eh, tentatively titled by me only (didn’t run it by amy - you’re probs good with it, right?): a portrait of the artist as a con man. here’s our first scene.

Theo slips out of Hobart and Blackwell, walking two doors down to his own studio, just minutes before his 3 pm appointment. He takes more private sector work these days than working with museums, partly because there aren’t too many new masterpieces popping up out of obscurity these days, but mostly because he always gets the feeling he’s flying too close to the sun.

This is the last of his appointments before he ships off to Boston for a restoration residency on a few John Singer Sargents as a favor to Peggy at the Gardner, and he’s anxious to see it resolved quickly. That must be why the thought of the appointment buzzes uncomfortably in the back of Theo’s mind, the same frequency as the persistent worry that he forgot to turn off the oven before leaving the house.

His fingers pick through the code to disarm the alarm as he shrugs his coat off one shoulder, not at all elegant as he turns to the coat rack and shrugs the other arm off to hook it up quickly. As he sets the coffee pot in the corner brewing, Theo tries his name out a few times, trying to find the cadence of it so he doesn’t embarrass himself, and settles on something that sounds familiar, if not correct, just as the buzzer goes.

His 3 o’ clock is younger than Theo expects, shorter than Theo is, and dressed far warmer than Theo thinks is necessary. Theo is given a swift onceover, then a slower one, both immediately disarming, before Theo remembers himself and steps aside to let him in. “Mr. Pavliovsky, it’s good to meet you.”

He looks amused by this. “Sure.” He has the painting tucked under his arm, wrapped in what looks like a linen sheet, to Theo’s horror. He’s already seen what Mr. Pavlikovsky has in the way of provenance, and his hopes aren’t high, but in the off chance that’s a real Renoir he’s got in there - Theo is already sweating with the thought.

Theo hangs his thick winter coat and rests the Renoir - wrapped in a pillow case, he realizes - on the intake table, itching to yank it free from its cotton prison like a grand reveal, ta daaa, but he’s a professional and lets his showroom do its showing.

Mr. Pavlikovsky’s dark, critical eyes carefully scan the studio, eyes lighting on Theo’s work bench with its array of lights and magnifiers clamped to every available edge of the desk, surrounding like a frame to the Pissarro reproduction he has lying in wait on an easel. He moves toward the work bench with interest, leaning over to survey the painting closely but keeping his hands tangled together behind his back. Another win for the showroom. “Is this restoration?”

“God, no, I have a separate temperature controlled studio upstairs. This is… practice.”

His eyes flick up from the painting to the shelves of paints and small buckets of brushes stored above the bench where Hobie would keep chisels, hammers, and pliers. “You practice your craft in foyer of business instead of fancy art studio upstairs?”

“I - ” Theo stutters, never having been challenged on that.

“Is okay, I understand. You don’t sell art, you sell skill. Can’t frame a restored or debunked Pissarro on the wall, but you can leave gentle suggestion of experience on display.”

Theo stops up, irritated at having his intentions read so quickly, so easily by a stranger, but he doesn’t like the way it sounds almost nefarious on Mr. Pavlikovsky’s lips. Theo’s clientele often work on blind faith and reputation, and no one is allowed in his studio. Gentle suggestion is the only ammunition Theo has access to.

He turns to Theo, misreading Theo’s surprise about the easel’s placement for the easel’s content. “Did I pass the test?”

Yes, technically, yes, because everyone else tends to guess Monet, which is frankly insulting. But instead of answering, Theo smiles his customer-facing smile and gestures to Mr. Pavlikovsky’s painting. “Let’s have a look?”

He liberates the frameless Renoir from its slumber once he dons a pristine pair of white gloves and all six of its sides a quick scan before placing it down on the intake table. He knows immediately it’s a fake - one made with a lot of heart but a less than acceptable amount of skill. Nonetheless, he pulls his stool forward, switches his glasses for a specialized pair, and switches on an overhead light.

He’s joined at the table by Mr. Pavlikovsky, which is rare these days - even if his typical intakes are ten minutes or less, his clients are still glued to their phones or important business papers or a copy of the New Yorker. Theo’s not wild about having someone sit over his shoulder, he finished with that once he graduated from a formal university and from Hobie’s crash course in furniture restoration, but Theo allows him to stay in the name of customer service.

“Do you enjoy Pissarro?”

“I have seen - they have many of his paintings at the Met, is local, have you seen?” Mr. Pavlikovsky asks, and Theo’s heart shudders like someone has just walked over his grave. Shaken, he blinks his eyes firmly a few times and refocuses on the task at hand. Nobody has cared enough yet to draw the connection, and Theo himself has had no interest to check if the New York Times has immortalized the article with his name on it on the internet finally now that all copies of the paper should have been disposed of over fifteen years ago.

Thankfully Pavlikovsky doesn’t wait for an answer - he doesn’t seem to need one. “Beautiful painting of Montmartre, looks exactly like the boulevard! Have you been to Montmartre? Incredible, some things, they never change, you could paint same paintings today, same views, but with cars and tourists on cell phones instead of horses and carriages.”

“I’m sure I have seen it at some point. I am a fan of his landscapes, as you can tell.”

“Yes, you have a way with them.”

Theo’s cheeks heat up and he can’t quite figure out why, so he disguises it by lifting the canvas and taking a careful inhale down the right side of the canvas. If Mr. Pavlikovsky is concerned by this behavior, he doesn’t say so.

Theo frowns as he sets the painting back down. It’s a shame he won’t even have to get his x-ray out to get a look at the layers, but maybe he should - he could charge more for this session, and the longer an investigation, the more legitimate he seems. But from the way this conversation has gone so far, Mr. Pavlikovsky doesn’t seem like he needs the whole song and dance.

As if on cue, Mr. Pavlikovsky says, “I should leave you to work - I will come back later, no?”

“No need, I have made my analysis.” He strips his gloves and switches his glasses back out before turning his focus back to Mr. Pavlikovsky.

“Already.” It’s not phrased like a question, but the way he sounds impressed sends a wild thrill through Theo’s chest for a reason he can’t name.

“I’m sorry to say, Mr. Pavlikovsky, but this is a fake,” Theo says and braces himself for an impact that doesn’t come. Ordinarily there’s screaming and spitting, the unchecked pride of rich men bubbling over at being duped, and because they likely won’t be able to find the dealer again, Theo is the unfortunate sole recipient of their ire.

Instead Mr. Pavlikovsky grins and says, “How could you tell?”

There’s a lecture’s worth of material in this canvas, but most don’t want to settle in to listen to Theo drone on and on like the worst of his professors. Theo taps to six different problem areas, each of them having lit up like a glowing red sore as soon as Theo had laid eyes on them - poor blending, wrong paints for the time period - is that acrylic? really? - thick careless strokes that indicated speed and not care, and more. “Here, staples here, this is wrong, no fraying on the canvas edges is immediately suspicious, this issue with the verso here. And Renoir typically signed his paintings with a signature tail at the end of his r - this, at its most charitable, is a smudge - and he almost never connected his o to his i.” He snags a piece of paper and fountain pen from his desk and works out a quick recreation, the bold r, the diamond-shaped o, then taps at it. “Reno-ir.”

Mr. Pavlikovsky leans in close to Theo’s shoulder, peering seriously at Theo’s scrawled signature. His proximity is enough to make Theo stifle a shudder. “Perhaps he was drunk this day.”

“No,” Theo says bluntly.

Mr. Pavlikovsky laughs, tracing his bottom lip with his thumb thoughtfully as he leans back. “It is fake,” he says, but in a way that almost sounds like he’s confirming what Theo has said to be true, instead of mulling over this new discovery.

“I don’t wish to presume, I’m sure the price is not an issue - if you would like me to perform the standard x-ray and microscopy to confirm, I am absolutely able to. But in the interest of preserving your time.”

He nods, like fair is far, and picks up the painting to stuff it back into the pillow case.

“Sorry - I - my apologies, Mr. Pavlikovsky, would you mind? I know it’s not a real Renoir, but it is still. You know. I’d hate to see anything happen to it.”

He gestures an invitation. “Please.”

Theo quickly trims foam for the verso and wraps the whole thing in paper like a present. He presents the secure package back to Mr. Pavlikovsky, but neither of them move to complete the transaction. Something about the thing feels unfinished - yes, the money, Theo’s brain helpfully supplies - but Theo doesn’t think that’s it.

Mr. Pavlikovsky digs out a tight bundle of cash anyway, too many hundreds stuffed into a straining silver money clip that he peels their agreed upon fee from and slaps onto the table. It feels almost dirty transacting this way, Theo used to wires, money orders, checks, and the like - cash feels uncouth. One of Pavlikovsky’s hands repockets the money and the other doesn’t go for the painting like Theo expects, but rather squeezes at Theo’s shoulder. “Well, if I can’t reward your speedy expertise with more money. Do you want to join me for drinks?”

“I’m not - um.” Theo swallows his initial objection, the way his mind leapt to that conclusion feels too telling. “Sorry? Drinks?”

“It’s not fun to pretend anymore, let you talk talk talk, Mr. Pavlikovsky this, Mr. Pavlikovsky that.” He raises his eyebrows at Theo. “I will say it hurts my feelings you don’t remember me, Potter, though I know it was very long time ago.”

It’s the Potter that does it, the fuzzy sort of familiarity with the nickname born from a cultural phenomenon he’d missed almost entirely with the timing of it. The only way it had nudged itself into Theo’s brain was through some drunk coed at a party he was desperately trying to fuck at a houseparty holding him by the waist and telling him firmly that she thinks he’s a Ravenclaw, whatever the fuck that is. And, of course, also through Boris.

“Shit, Boris, sorry, man, sorry,” Theo says, his face widening with a grin. “God, it’s been forever since Vegas?”

“You look good.” Boris pulls him into a hug Theo isn’t expecting, but allows himself to be collected into. “It’s good to see you.”

He hadn’t exactly kept tabs on Boris at the time beyond the few classes they’d shared together, the rare times they’d found each other in the same places, nodding affably from where they’d each stood at opposite sides of the room.

His last memory of Boris had been at this party at some girl’s house - Hadley, maybe - and the two of them had straddled their legs over either side of a diving board over the winter-emptied pool, and tried to lean forward and take lines off the laminate, giggling and knocking heads and clutching at the sides, at each other, every time the board would shiver and shake with their movements. Theo had already been fucked up on something he’d stolen out of Xandra’s purse just to give him enough motivation to leave the house, letting the world grow opaque in front of his eyes like it’d be easier to live in if he just couldn’t see it, but he remembers Boris at the time, clear as day, like his nearsightedness had transfigured into Borissightedness.

He remembers Boris being taller than he was at the time in a way that burned jealousy into his skin - a non-contest he is too secretly pleased to have won out in the end now - and the way Boris would wear his hair in the style that his mom used to call Needs a Haircut and his dry, calloused hands that held onto Theo’s wrists when he risked toppling over into the pool and the urgent way he’d whisper I got you like it wasn’t anyone else’s business to know.

Looking at Boris now, things shift slightly until they click into place, it’s like the sensation of sliding on glasses for the first time and realizing the world was not an impression, not muted, but all sharpness and defined edges and tangibility. Of course it’s Boris.

“Come get a drink with me,” he presses.

Yes, technically, yes, that’s what Theo wants, but. “I can’t - I fly to Boston tomorrow morning.”

Boris checks his watch in an outrageous flash of silver. “Is sixteen hour wait at the airport, or what? You can’t take night off your busy schedule and have a drink with an old friend?”

Theo would hesitate to call them old friends. He’d hesitate to call them anything, but there’s potential humming under the surface now that had always been there back in Vegas. He hadn’t known what it was, what it meant back then - it was just shared snorting at the dumb puns Mrs. Mullin would say to get everyone excited about earth science, sitting silently beside each other on the bus when there were no more empty seats left, and holding each other by the waist only when they were wasted at a pool party on the weekend and acting like it never happened on Monday morning.

But Theo knows what the humming is now - the desperate desire to have a friend and the fierce inability to let himself have one. Boris leaves the painting on the desk and scoops up his coat. He holds the door open for Theo, his way of telling not asking again. So Theo grabs his coat as well and thinks maybe he can let himself have something now, maybe just this one thing.

“It’s good to see you too,” Theo says, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

#like a proper au!!!#i wrote #the goldfinch #boreo #portrait of the artist

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alexisginesphoto · 2 years ago

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Final Project Field Plan

Goals/ Objective:

This photo essay is a branch off of a personal project I have already been working on this past year about native New Yorkers that give and are part of the “street culture” of New York City. The project aims to highlight the native New Yorkers (that I personally know) that make this city the cultural epicenter that it is. By being a part of their respective “scenes” or subcultures, these people by proxy inspire tourists worldwide to flock to New York City with the goal to take part and meet others of these urban subcultures. My friends are the people that inspire other skateboarders, BMX riders, alleycat racers, urban explorers, or graffiti artists to come here and be recognized on a global scale, as New York City is a scene that everyone from around the world pays attention to get a pulse on what’s happening in the scene, and the direction it’s going.

That being said, the premise of the project was to remove people out of the environments of their respective subcultures (the skatepark, a subway tunnel, the stairs of Union Square) and take their portraits in more intimate environments such as their home, their art studios, a place sentimental to them, etc. Essentially stripping them of their “titles” and just photographing them as “normal people”, posing questions of identity. Are these people as “relevant” in their “normal lives”? Do these portraits have the same ability to captivate the viewer as if they were viewing a photo of this person within the context of “Thrasher” magazine, or across the finish line, or in a graffiti zine, or at their art exhibition? What is the actual identity of people whose lines are blurred between “just a hobby” and complete personal identity?

For my personal project, I seek to go a bit deeper than a simple portrait, and instead create a photo essay about “F”: a good friend of mine, a father, a husband, a son, an architect, a graffiti writer, a New Yorker. Specifically I seek to examine in greater detail this division of identities and the intricate balancing act of them all, as only some overlap exists between certain identities, while others are fiercely compartmentalized and protected. I plan to continue examining how “F” gives to “street culture” of New York City by working on the buildings that create our visual landscape while contrastingly writing graffiti on separate architecture, and finally, what he takes home from it all at the end of the day, if anything at all.

Tentative Field Plan from November 1st – December 12th.

Week 1: 11/1 – 11/7

Meet with “F” in his home located in Harlem.

Portraits of “F” and nuclear family (son and wife).

Photography Direction: home life taking place in the living room and kitchen.

Map out the specifics of future “actions” in the coming weekends and making equipment decisions for future “kits”.

Supplies: Pentax K-1000 and 3200 speed film (the apartment does not receive much direct sunlight and I am expecting to meet more towards evening time).

Week 2: 11/8 – 11/14

Develop photos from week prior, begin making selections and edits.

“Action” 1

Tentative date: weekend of 11/11, 11/12, 11/13. Midnight hours.

Location: NYC subway tunnels, exact location undetermined

Vision for graffiti; undetermined

Photography Direction: action shots using flash, long exposure atmospheric shots, “double” exposure long exposures devoting half the exposure time to portraiture and the other half to action, normal portrait shots (flash use TBD depending on lighting), photos entering and exiting (safety permitting), photos of preparation and clean up.

Supplies Required: Spraypaint (amount and colors TBD), Backpack, face masks, respirators, gloves, Pentax K1000 camera, tripod, fill flash (need to request from department), 2 rolls of Kodak TMax 3200 film.

Week 3: 11/15 – 11/21

Develop photos from week prior, continue making selections and edits.

“Action” 2

Tentative Date: Weekend of 11/18, 11/19, 11/20. Midnight Hours.

Climbing atop the Williamsburg Bridge

Weather dependent ***

Plan B- Tunnel Part 2 (specifics TBD)

Required materials will be same as “Action” 1

Photography Direction: long exposures of architecture/infrastructure, long exposures of the cityscape in the distance most likely using bracketing techniques. Closeup portraiture of “F” against the backdrop of the beams/ infrastructure (hoping to have sufficient light to not require flash but will use if necessary), portraits from farther back showing full body and location (long exposure), portraits of “F” with cityscape background (long exposure), action shots ascending/descending the bridge (no flash, lighting should be sufficient in the lower parts), the walk on the way to and from the action (before and after), quick action shots of “F” writing graffiti.

Graffiti not intended to be as involved as “Action” 1. It functions on this occasion more so to simply mark, “I was here”.

Supplies Required: 3 cans of spray paint (colors TBD), backpack, gloves, face masks, Pentax K1000 camera, tripod, fill flash, 2 rolls of32800 speed film (Kodak TMax).

Week 4: 11/22 – 11/28

Focus on continued development of photos and heavy focus on printing this week.

Thanksgiving Week **

Not much time for shooting this week due to holiday.

Will visit “F” and nuclear family in their Harlem home briefly over the weekend to spend some time, give thanks, and shoot minimally. I do not plan to use more than half a roll of 800 speed film.

Required supplies: 800 speed film, Pentax K1000.

Week 5: 11/29 – 12/5

Friendsgiving

Location: New Jersey

Date: Saturday, 12/3/22.

Photography Direction: Portraits of “F”, nuclear family, and close friends. Photos are planned to be a more intimate view into the personal aspect of his life and the bond shared amongst friends, and the love and warmth created around sharing a meal together. Atmospheric photos of the table settings and layout, the food and drink provided, and the celebration as the night goes on.

Required Materials: 800 speed film and fill flash (use is light dependent— some parts of the house have sufficient lighting and others do not).

Week 6: 12/6 – 12/12

Continued development and selection making and editing of photos. More final edits pulling the entire project together.

Office Visit scheduled for December 10th, Saturday.

Will be receiving tour of “F” architectural firm.

Specific name of firm will be purposefully excluded from the documentation.

Briefs of current projects under works

Visit of one work site after office visit

“F” to show the work underway personally from the ground level; entry onto lifts/ scaffolding not permitted.

Conversation with “F” as to his interpretation of the work he does during weekdays versus the work he does for hobby and how they interrelate.

Photography Direction: Atmospheric shot of the office, closer shots of his desk/workstation. Shots of plans, blueprints, computer workstation, materials brought back from site, materials used for building inspections. Pictures of “F” dressed for a day of work. Full body shots of him leaning against his desk. Close up portraits sitting in his work chair, him answering emails. Work site direction include taking photos of the work in general, and perhaps a photo making a physical representation as to the work being done (a pointed finger, a closeup detail of façade if possible). Work site specifics TBD depending on access.

#HUA230 #alexisginesphoto

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thesuccubuskitten-blog · 7 years ago

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As a worldwide in-demand illustrator, Andy Rementer has placed his colourful, cartoon-like figures to do the job for the likes of the New York Times, Urban Outfitters, MTV, The brand new Yorker and Warner Brothers. The top honchos in the Republic of San Marino's philatelic bureau are evidently fans as they've briefed Rementer to make stamp collections on two occasions within the last couple of many years. Firstly, a series on three dimensional printing and then on on the web dating from that will the above mentioned is taken. "The San Marino sequence was the very first time I created a stamp," Andy told us. "Before sketching ideas, I did some visual researching into vintage stamps to find out how various other artists and also designers solved getting work done in such a limited space. That procedure led me to discover many truly amazing stamps, plus I also purchased a couple on eBay!"

These stamp conventions take place all around the globe, and supply a place for philatelists to buy, promote, as well as value their stamps. Stamp sellers frequently list shows on their websites, such as thedealpot.com, as well as you can have a look at web sites for the American Philatelic Society (APS) or the American Stamp Dealers Association (ASDA) too to find a show near you. Bring together the stamp of yours and ask for a few different opinions.

it is been fifty decades since this kind of definitive design and style was primarily made what about Britain, It has surely the image which pops into every person's mind when they imagine a postage stamp. The multi talented Machin began his innovative living as a ceramicist and china painter in the Potteries before becoming a sculptor and also part of the Royal Academy. Throughout 1964 he was chosen to develop an effigy of Queen Elizabeth just for the new decimal coin program. Suitably pleased, Liz (and the person who finds out the things) asked Machin to generate a whole new effigy for Royal Mail a few of years later on. Produced from a clay bas relief, the ensuing design when layered on upper part of a coloured background is reminiscent of Wedgwood design decorated vases. According to several, the Machin stamp is the nearly all reproduced slice within the story of art technique with more than 350 billion copies printed.

#stamps

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brooklynmuseum · 5 years ago

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Stronger Together

Hey Brooklyn,

We know that this is a precarious time in New York, and we want you to know we got your back. The Brooklyn Museum has been keeping the community at the center of our heart and mind. We are here to support you with art, culture, and most importantly love. During this time, it is important we continue to uplift and love each other, because to love is necessary work, and it is in love that we learn to build community, thrive, and lead under any circumstances. So, you know what to do! Check out the resources below, and tell a loved one to tell a loved one.

If you have questions, or have more you wish to see or to spotlight, reach out. We want to hear from you! Please email [email protected].

Text 'COVID' to 692-692 to get important COVID-19 related updates sent straight to your phone. You can text 'COVIDESP' to get updates in Spanish.

Local Business Highlights of the Week:

Our quick fix for all flavors of chicken and waffles, Sweet Chick, is finally open for takeout and delivery only noon - 9pm everyday!

Sweet Science is a warm neighborhood eatery where you can always enjoy a quality meal and a great drink.Though we're missing their hip-hop gallery, takeout & delivery food and cocktails (try their frozen drinks!) menu available Tuesday - Sunday, 2:00 pm - 8:00 pm.

Census

Complete the 2020 Census today at my2020census.gov!

Resources for artists, freelancers, and gig workers

Freelancers Union Freelancers Relief Fund will offer financial assistance of up to $1,000 per freelance household to cover lost income and essential expenses not covered by government relief programs.

The Artist Community Relief Fund supports artists and arts workers in the Lower East Side and Chinatown community affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides unrestricted $250 emergency grants.

BxArts Factory Emergency Fund to Support Artists / Volunteers: an emergency fund through Go Fund Me, which will make proceeds available to artists directly connected to BxArts Factory in the Bronx.

Freelance Audio Fund provides emergency relief to the professional audio community impacted by COVID-19.

Facebook Small Business Grants Program - Facebook is offering $100M in cash grants and ad credits for up to 30,000 eligible small businesses in over 30 countries where they operate.

Food Resources

These guides by the Hunter College Food Policy Center list all food options (including stores that offer delivery and take EBT), by neighborhood.

Find resources like how to get funding for food and where to go to find food.

For LGBTQIA+ Communities

Black Excellence Collective: Black LGBTQIA+ mutual aid relief fund for vulnerable community members, including older adults, people with disabilities, those who engage in sex work, people who are undocumented, and those who are housing insecure. Black Trans Media: provide Black TGNC people and low-income communities of color in Brooklyn with supplies, cooked meals, groceries, and support as well as digital spaces for organizing and documenting communities' response to the pandemic. Fearless Femme 100: provides free mental health services to queer Black and Indigenous residents in Brooklyn.

People Who Are Formerly or Currently Incarcerated Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions provides post-release support for returning citizens in Brooklyn, including legal advocacy and community connections.

Support Release Aging People in Prison - RAPP to advocate for the release of older adults in prison, who are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19.

For Sex Workers

SWOP Brooklyn created this relief fund that will be providing monetary aid to sex workers in the New York City area who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. SWOP Brooklyn also has a panel discussion Saturday, May 23 at 6:00pm on Sex Workers during this pandemic, and resources that can be given to them.

Undocumented Citizens

The New York State Youth Leadership Council is compiling this live document of resources in NYC around COVID19 support efforts. We are prioritizing resources open to undocumented people.

Guidance for People Who Use Drugs and Harm Reduction Programs

These guides for people who use drugs and harm reduction programs were created by: Higher Ground Harm Reduction, Reynolds Health Strategies, Harm Reduction Coalition, and Vital Strategies.

For Workers Who Need Childcare

Are you a parent who needs childcare while you work during the COVID-19 outbreak? Our volunteers are here to help you find the safest, lowest-cost options for your family.

Housing for Frontline Workers

Let’s find you a place to call home during your COVID-19 support work. AirBnB partnered with hosts to connect 100,000 healthcare staff and first responders with frontline stays so they can be close to their patients and safely distanced from their own families.

Internet and Technology

To help students stay connected during emergencies, the NY Department of Education is lending internet-enabled iPads to support remote learning for students. If you would like to request a device for a NYC student in your family, please fill out the form. The DOE will use the contact information you provide to get in touch with you to discuss when and where you can pick up a device. Priority will be given to students most in need, and all devices are granted on a temporary basis and will later need to be returned. There is a limit of one device per student. List of U.S Providers offering free Wi-Fi or special accommodations for 60 Days.

Remember to Follow Our Elected Officials For News:

See what NY Senator Gillibrand is advocating for in Capitol Hill for New Yorkers on Twitter! We are Tremendously thankful for her support for Culture during this time. Thank her for us too!

What’s going on da Hill? Follow our Senator Chuck Schumer on Twitter. We thank him for supporting NY through this pandemic, and supporting all valuable institutions in the Senate. Thank him for supporting the Brooklyn Museum so we can continue to support you! Don’t forget to @ him!

The City Comptroller’s COVID-19 Resource Center contains critical information on the many government programs available to assist New Yorkers in need, recent policy changes regarding health and safety, options for financial support for residents and businesses alike, and organizations to reach out to for additional assistance.

Follow updates and news from Council Member Laurie A. Cumbo on Facebook and Twitter. Cumbo serves as the Council Majority leader for Brooklyn’s 35th District- Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Bed-Stuy.

Check out New York City Council Member Brad Lander’s resource page aimed to help NYC-based freelancers and artists navigate these uncertain times. Have your voice heard, fill out the survey and explore what benefits might be available to you. Follow him on Twitter for important updates.

Follow updates from the NYC City Immigrant Affairs office on Twitter interested in renewing your DACA application form. Call ActionNYC at 1-800-354-0365.

Ay-O (Japanese, born 1931). Basket of Fruit with Flowers, 1971. Color serigraph. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Poster, 77.279.7. © artist or artist's estate

#coronavirus #community resources #brooklynmuseum #brooklyn #community #covid-19 #strongertogether #brooklynstrong #brooklyn museum #nyc

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culturenlifestyle · 8 years ago

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Artist Transforms Farm Into Non-Profit That Donates Everything To Food Banks

This farm donates everything it produces.

Artist Dan Colen had always been a hardcore New Yorker, the kind that parties non-stop and finds beauty in bird poop, even using the poop as a medium for his art at one point.

But that all changed when he had a moment of clarity and decided he needed a bit more space and some distance from the claustrophobic city.

He decided to buy a 40-acre plot of land in Columbia County, New York, which is two hours north of NYC, in 2011.

Colen originally intended to simply convert the barn into a sculpture studio, which he did, but he soon felt guilty about wasting the potential of the land surrounding him.

One conversation with a friend of his, Joshua Bardfield, who has a background in public health, transformed his entire perspective about what he could do with the land.

Bardfield told Colen about the food deserts in New York City, which are areas that don’t have nearby grocery stores, meaning residents aren’t able to shop for fresh produce, meat, or other perishable items.

“He suggested I set up a non-profit that supplied these communities with fresh food,” Colen told Modern Farmer. “I grew up in and around the city, so this idea of being able to give back excited me immediately.”

The sculptor went to work in developing the layout and functionality of his farm, even bringing in Berman Horn Studio to design beautiful but productive barns, and he named the farm Sky High Farm.

Colen said that he “had no clue” what he was doing but that building this idea “without a doubt one of the more fulfilling challenges” he’s ever taken on.

Colen serves on the board of directors, which is a required unit for non-profits, and he admitted that it’s been tough to not have control of the reins for every decision made.

“I had a very particular vision for how I saw it coming together. Being confronted both by certain issues, which are basic to farming, as well as the more nuanced needs of the farm was a huge learning experience,” he said. “But understanding I wasn’t really in charge and eventually seeing my vision entwine with the farm’s needs was amazing. And watching the farm blossom more and more from season to season is truly thrilling.”

While actually growing fruits, vegetables, and livestock is obviously essential, Bardfield recognized the importance of building relationships with the non-profits that connect the food with their recipients.

He worked on setting up an agreement with the Food Bank for New York City and the Regional Food Bank For Northeast New York.

The former works with 1,000 charities and schools across the city and provides 64 million meals to residents in need each year while the latter also works with 1,000 charities spread out over 23 counties in the state.

During their first harvest year, which was in 2013, the farm produced a little less than 2,000 pounds of produce and had virtually no meat from livestock to donate. In their second year, they tripled their output with 6,000 pounds of produce and 4,000 pounds of beef.

Since then, they have consistently produced double what they did in 2014 with 12,000 pounds of produce, 5,000 pounds of beef, and 3,000 pounds of pork thanks to the direction of farm manager Sam Rose.

The farm has been met with the typical problems that plague farmers, such as pest infestations, a lack of rain, or other weather problems, but they also deal with the issue of how to deliver their goods to the agencies they deal with.

Fortunately, the two non-profits typically come to the farm to pick up the produce and go directly to the slaughterhouses to pick up the meat, which they are happy to do because of the scarcity of fresh items.

“For both New York City and the regional food bank, I know this is one of the only sources of fresh, local produce and protein in terms of the chicken beef and pork that’s raised in New York state,” said Bardfield.

For this reason, the items from Sky High Farms typically get snatched up very quickly. Food banks often have many non-perishable items, like canned goods and packaged foods, so when fresh food comes through it’s truly a treat.

Colen has truly found purpose in this work and he is developing a blueprint of sorts so that other farms can accomplish the same thing by donating to food banks.

The work has also influenced his art, as he often finds himself drawn to the life cycles of the plants or the animals on the farm.

What Colen, Bardfield, and Rose are doing together is truly inspirational and the people of New York are thankful for their contributions to the community.

[THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BY TRUE ACTIVIST]

#farm #farms #inspiration #nature #environment #articles #culture #life

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bestgraffitiremovalproductsepwa0 · 4 years ago

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elliemaemoreing-blog · 6 years ago

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Victo Ngai (Inspiration) 11.08.2019

This is a copy/paste of Interviews and inspiration from an artist that I found on Skillshare today. I fell in love with her work and so I wanted to collect some information about her and her process and save it here.

Victo Ngai is a Los Angeles based illustrator from Hong Kong, graduated from Rhode Island School of Design. Victo provides illustrations for newspaper and magazines such as the New York Times and the New Yorker; create storyboards and art for animations.

( http://victo-ngai.blogspot.com/2011/05/honolulu-mag-new-illo-and-first-process.html )

“I work half traditionally and half digitally. I enjoy this way of working as it allows me to create images with a wide range of media which are"incompatible" in nature. It also allows me to be really experimental with colours/texture and still able to deliver my work by the deadline safe and sound. Usually, after the sketch is approved, I go in and draw the line with pen and ink and the texture with various media like pencil, charcoal, crayon, pastel. etc”

*Approved Sketch Concept*

THE PROCESS - Starts with traditional medium

“After I am done with the drawing board, I have everything scanned, composed and coloured in Photoshop”.

FINAL

(Source: https://medium.com/design-manifestos/design-manifestos-victo-ngai-408af23e2c04)

“Illustration essentially is about using visuals to tell a story and creating a world that you’re able to bring people into and get lost in. I realized I could do drawing as living some time in high school. For a while, I thought of drawing as just a hobby”.

On where her illustration ideas come from “Everywhere. First of all, illustration is different than fine art, it’s different from gallery art. We usually don’t just sit there and dream up something we want to paint or something we want to express. Usually, you’re given a prompt. I am very interested in concepts with every project. I start with learning what my clients want me to communicate: what is the most important thing that I need to showcase in this piece? From then on I brainstorm and see what kind of visuals will be relevant and will be the best symbolism or metaphor to communicate this idea and tell this story.”

On her illustration process I get the assignment, I read it over a lot of times. I try to boil it down to the essence — usually a few phrases or short sentences. After understanding what the assignment is about I like to have some distance from it. I realize a lot of the time that the best idea comes when you’re not thinking too hard. When you think about it, the imagery that comes to mind becomes very literal. You’re almost boxed-in. I like to understand something and then forget about it for a while. Usually when it’s least expected something will pop into mind. It could be something abstract or not related, but somehow the feeling matches with the assignment and then I will start to explore how I can tie this back in. After the concept is done, I usually supply my clients with at least 3 sketches of options. When one is approved I take it to find out if any tweaks are needed for the sketches and then I will do the linework and all the texture on paper, with pen and ink or various mediums. Everything is brought into photoshop and coloured digitally.

On her unique illustrations The thing is that I draw the way I draw because I don’t know how to draw any other way. I don’t think it’s something for me to be very objective to say, but I have gotten feedback from past clients. They like my work because they think it solves the problem quite nicely without feeling like the piece is so editorial. They like that it fulfils the commission — the purpose of it — but they would still like the piece to hang in their living room to stand alone as an art object.

On her interpretation of a successful illustrator A great drawer doesn’t make a good illustrator. A great painter also doesn’t make a good illustrator. A great thinker doesn’t make a good illustrator. Being a great illustrator means you have to have the best of both worlds: you’re able to deliver an idea but you’re also able to execute it. If you have the concept, but you don’t have the skills then people won’t know what the concept is about. It’s almost like having a software without the hardware to deliver it. You have to be able to think in a critical way and also an imaginative way, and you have the skill set to represent that.

On advice she would give herself before starting

This is a phrase that has become my motto at the moment, which I didn’t know when I first started — “it’s not about how good you are, but about how good you want to be,” by Paul Arden. When you were a student you follow rules, you follow assignments which are necessary for the classroom environment. It also puts you in the mentality of being a follower or doing things that are required of you, instead of being self-generated. When I was in school and I had the chance of doing an internship, I would pick the internship that on paper says you will be more hands-on and will give you a lot of tasks to try on. As opposed to work that might give me better networking connections.

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shilparays · 7 years ago

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Shilpa Ray Takes Us Nightclubbing In New York With 'Door Girl'

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September 22, 20179:42 AM ET

KAREN GWEE

"Every few weeks I threaten to leave, but it's been 17 years," Shilpa Ray says of New York. "I'm just going to stay here, I don't know how I'm going to do it."

Ebru Yildiz/Courtesy of the artist

Shilpa Ray is nothing if not honest. Her new album, Door Girl, captures New York nightlife in all its sordid, sweaty chaos and supplies caustic commentary on life in the unfeeling city.

Ray was born in New Jersey and a longtime resident of New York. She's drawn on her 17 years in the city, and the wealth of experiences she's had working the door at the Lower East Side bar and venue Pianos, to chronicle gentrification ("You're F****** No One"), alcohol-enabled rape culture ("Manhattanoid Creepazoids") and the traumas city dwellers bury in vice and silence ("Revelations of a Stamp Monkey").

Door Girl can be heavy — and sometimes so clear-eyed it's cynical — but it's not self-pitying, and for those weary of a New Yorkers' navel-gazing, not self-obsessed either. All sounds are in service of the storytelling, whether it's the hip-hop cadences of "Revelations Of A Stamp Monkey" or the '50s-'60s pop sensibilities of "Shilpa Ray's Got a Heart Full of Dirt," where Ray cribbed a few lines from "Tears on My Pillow" by Little Anthony & the Imperials.

Ray just celebrated the release of Door Girl with two nights at — where else — Pianos, and will tour Europe all October and the U.S. in November. In the meantime, we asked her to walk us through Door Girl and the stories behind the record, track by track.

"New York Minute Prayer"

"'New York Minute Prayer' was actually the last thing I wrote. We had the order [of songs] for the record already and as I was listening back to the demos, I felt like it needed something to tie it together. I wanted to do something that was under two minutes that would be a little motif to go into the album, so it could have an introduction and the record would flow after that.

"The phrase 'New York Minute' is after the local news channel. It's just a call to the New York gods up above, as to why I'm still living here after 17 years... I could justify it maybe a little better if I lived in a penthouse or something like that, but it's really not easy to live here and pay exorbitant rent for very little in return. But I'm still here, so I don't know how I did it. But I did it somehow."

"Morning Terrors Nights Of Dread"

"I wrote that in conjunction to my job, because I still get nervous going into work everyday. I don't know exactly how people are going to speak to me or respond to me, because my job is pretty confrontational. I work as a door girl at Pianos, which is a bar on the Lower East Side. [The song] is about city living and the fact that you have very little control over what's going to happen to you during the day. Most people I know that live here have lived many different lives within the day itself, 'cause everybody's hustling and working various jobs... You have that push to work with lots of people at different times, and you just never know what kind of curveball is going to get thrown at you.

"I thought it would be really funny and different if [this song had] male backing singers, instead of female, because that's the norm, and also the juxtaposition of me being the lead, the female, and having male singers... I love the call and response, because I needed to have that Greek chorus in that. I think everybody has that 'lonely girl or lonely boy in the spotlight' moment where they're complaining constantly how much they hate living here, and I thought it was just really funny to get the backing vocals to kind of call back, to make it sound ridiculous, because it's not that big a deal at the end of the day."

"Add Value Add Time"

"If you buy an MTA pass on the subway, the first screen that comes up is 'Do you want to add value, or do you want to add time?' For us it's just really funny, because it's such a loaded question to ask, and normally you get it at the beginning of your day 'cause you're going to work or whatever. So it was just my really sarcastic take on the government in New York asking us, or bothering to ask us [that question]... Subway culture is part of it too. I don't think [anywhere] in the States has big of a metro as we do in New York, and we're so dependent on it. Within itself it has a lot of politics: whether the MTA goes on strike, whether they raise prices – the subway totally shuts out a lot of kids going to school that live in the outer boroughs, that's a really big issue in New York. Using the MTA, using the subway stands for a lot of political control and controlling of the city. So it's definitely a comment on that as well."

"Revelations Of A Stamp Monkey"

"I wrote 'Revelations Of A Stamp Monkey' commenting on seeing something really horrific during the day and then going into work or going into some other facet of living and it being completely watered down or not acknowledged at all... I was commenting on Eric Garner's murder and how strange it was to see it for the first time while I was actually at a laundromat, which was nuts, and they had TMZ on or something crazy... I'm looking up and watching footage of a man being choked to death — and then having to go to work straight afterwards and having to behave, and dealing with other people who are behaving like it never happened. And that was really wild to me. The second part is about the two cops getting shot on the border of Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill. I was down the street from the incident when it happened. I got out of some label meeting and I was walking out, and we couldn't ride the G train and nobody knew why. There was like a mob and lots of cars and stuff. And [then], going to watch a show and again, [it's] completely watered down, nobody wants to talk about this, everybody wants to kiss the bands after they're playing that night and just do lots of drugs and pretend nothing's really happening.

"The musical part of this record is all digging into what I felt was indigenous music from New York City, so a lot of the influences of this record as a whole came from doo-wop, punk, noise, hip-hop... So 'Revelations of a Stamp Monkey' is a throwback to when hip-hop was just coming out, and it was mostly storytelling. You would just tell a full story against a consistent beat. A lot of the influences for that were Spoonie G and the Treacherous Three, Grandmaster Flash, Sugarhill... I had a wonderful person rap in the middle — her name is Skurt Vonnegut, and she plays in a band called Deathrow Tull, and she's the real deal. When her part comes in, it's for real. She wrote the lyrics and they're really beautifully done."

"EMT Police And The Fire Department"

"There was actually a night [at my job] when somebody called the EMT, the police and the fire department – and they showed up all at once. It was like one of those nights in the summer when you know there's a lot of trouble about to happen, because it gets swampy and hot and everybody goes crazy... I've definitely seen people fighting in the front. It breaks out in this massive wave: it gradually happens and then somebody calls out some kind of a sexist or racial slur, because they always just go to that... Then the whole place just goes crazy. I've definitely seen somebody break a bottle over a guy's head before over something really stupid.

"This was actually one of the toughest to write, lyrically, because I had to hit a 16-syllable meter on it to make the drums do what I wanted them to, and to have that sort of rhyme scheme. So the story itself was cool because I could just kind of riff off what I had in my head and match some noise behind it, but then to get into the meat of the song, it had to have a very strict meter. And to write to a meter like that, and get your point across, is not the easiest thing to do. But once I pulled it off, it felt really good to me."

"After Hours"

"'After Hours,' I wrote inspired by an incident after working New Year's Eve, where me and one of the guys who was bar-backing that night, decided to get completely wasted, and after our shift, which ended at like four in the morning, run out right after work to go to the Empire State Building... The time we got there, every perky family that woke up early to see the Empire State Building, all these happy-go-lucky tourists [were there] and we were completely drunk and so disheveled... It was a comment on our journey there, because we were so sloppy, but the city itself is so quiet after five. You only get two hours of this too, between five in the morning and seven, when there's nothing going on. It's not quite asleep, because the city never sleeps, or so they say. It's the best you're gonna get."

"Shilpa Ray's Got A Heart Full of Dirt"

"I got rejected by a record label while I was trying to get on board with one because I'd just left Knitting Factory at the time. That was rough... When I was shopping Last Year's Savage and getting a lot of rejection letters in from various labels and booking agents, I was having to stomach a lot of it. This one came out of one rejection in particular that was just like, 'I don't see a hit. She doesn't write strong enough hooks.' And I was like, 'F*** it! You want a strong hook? I'll give you a f****** strong hook!' And I wrote this in about an hour or so, really angry. But it happened for the best... Things happen for a reason and I was kind of glad someone pushed me to that kind of anger, because this was the start of the record. This was the first song I wrote for this album."

"Manhattanoid Creepazoids"

"I've never been on it, but I've bore witness to so many Tinder dates at the bar where I'm like, 'I don't think you should go with this guy!'... I've seen guys going in there like [they're] harpooning prey and they drag the girl down, and you're like, wow... That happens in every bar, every drunken social thing where guys definitely take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of girls that are not quite alive at that point.

"I've definitely said a lot about stuff like this before but this is probably in the same vein as 'Stamp Monkey' where you're seeing like the worst case you could see, but you're just living in an environment where it's passed off as an everyday thing. That duality is something that I'm very interested in, because people have these huge declarations they make, especially on social media, about right and wrong, and everyone's the judge and the jury over these cases that are just brought out on the internet, but in real life, it's completely different. Nobody stands up for anybody in real life. They just don't. People just go about their way and they're just out for themselves and out for whatever's gonna work for them and that's it. So it is very much like 'Stamp Monkey' where I'm just making commentary on seeing something that's very patterned and horrendous and noticing that nobody seems to give a s*** at the end of the day.

"Rockaway Blues"

"This is my homage to Joey Ramone. I had this moment on Rockaway Beach where I was at a party and I [had] broke[n] up with my boyfriend at the time and people just say weird things like, 'Oh, he was so hot, why did you break up with him? It must have been your fault.' And I'm at this party and I'm like, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to absorb this now and still be part of the party.' I remember having this moment, sitting on the beach, drifting off and being like, 'What would Joey Ramone do?' 'Cause he wrote the best breakup songs. I mean, his bandmate stole his woman and he still wrote some great songs out of it... So I definitely wrote lines, even vocally, just copying how he sings, just to have that in there."

"You're F****** No One"

"This one, I had a lot of fun writing, because I got everything I ever wanted to say to the city out of my system. The first line on it is 'In 1983 I saw you naked on the street.' 1983 was my first memory of my parents taking me to New York... And I just have memories of the subway being cluttered, so much graffiti everywhere, and trash. I kept smelling hot dogs. It was just a lot to a three-year-old's senses. But knowing that it was dirt poor at the time, 'cause it wasn't as glossy as the suburbia we were coming from. So I have that in my head and all of a sudden, it's just become this thing of a million Whole Foods and Duane Reades, and everything's just so posh. It's like – you're trying to fake something, but I know who you really are, 'cause I saw you back in 1983 and you were not this."

"This Is Not A Dream Sequence"

"Yeah, it is a transitional track. We had some fun in the studio and my drummer actually invited a few of his friends over and we just had a short jam session, just started banging around on some instruments and that's how that came about. That's me screaming and banging on the piano, and I almost destroyed this old, awesome piano at the studio. They were like, 'Wait, Shilpa, the hammers are really old!' But that happened before they even said anything to me, so I'm glad we got that take instead of the really polite one I played afterward... It was a fun thing we did for a laugh and then the "BQE" track came right after it, and it sounded really cool against that. It was kind of a nod to New York noise and free jazz and that kind of a vibe, and also trying to make the sounds of a highway. Sounds that are about the city."

"My Heart Shatters By The BQE"

"I wrote this song 'cause I live right by the BQE and my apartment actually shakes as the trucks comes in, because I live right by an exit. And it's also just so much noise, constantly, and it's like my last thing I wanted to tell the city before I left, you know, this whole record.

"I guess I do [love the city]. I don't know. Every few weeks I threaten to leave, but it's been 17 years. I'm just going to stay here, I don't know how I'm going to do it... I still dream about one day living out by the shoreline and just having a car and coming in sometimes. But I don't know. I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself."

Shilpa Ray

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acaseforpencils · 4 years ago

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Molly Crabapple.

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer in New York. She is the author of two books, Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun (with Marwan Hisham), which was long-listed for a National Book Award in 2018. Her reportage has been published in The New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Her art is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art. Her animated short, A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has been nominated for an Emmy award.

Read Molly’s New Yorker piece here.

Tools of choice:

Ecoline dyes

ultra fine manga nibs

ultra fine pilot pens

mechanical pencils

Arches cold press watercolor blocks

Dr Ph Martin's bleedproof white

matte medium for pasteups

Tool I wish I could use better: Oil paints!

Tool I wish existed: Something that could actually erase ink.

Tricks: Dr Ph Martin's bleedproof white!! It covers like acrylic, flows like dye, and you can use it to make the most ultra thin lines on earth.

Misc: The world is in chaos and no one knows what is going on, so you might as well do what you love with as much rigor and discipline and passion as is in you.

Website, etc.

Website

Twitter

Instagram

Shop

Buy this print here!

-----

If you enjoy this blog, and would like to contribute to labor and maintenance costs, there is a Patreon, and if you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee, there is a Ko-Fi account as well! I do this blog for free because accessible arts education is important to me, and your support helps a lot! You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!

#Molly crabapple #brothers of the gun #Molly crabapple art supplies #Molly crabapple drawing process #Molly crabapple art advice #art advice #artists on tumblr

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brooklynmuseum · 5 years ago

Photo

Stronger Together

Weekend Roundup of Resources for our Community 

What’s up Brooklyn?! We’re back with another list of resources for you and yours. The impacts of this pandemic are far-reaching and deeply felt here in Brooklyn. We know there are many needs not being met, and many who are willing to help out where they can. Now more than ever, it is essential that we come together as a community to support each other with social solidarity, even if we are physically distant. Check out new opportunities to support and be supported in this week’s roundup. Let’s do what we do best in Brooklyn… spread love.

If you have questions, or have more you wish to see or to spotlight, reach out. We want to hear from you. Please email [email protected].

Also, text 'COVID' to 692-692 to get important COVID-19 related updates sent straight to your phone. You can text 'COVIDESP' to get updates in Spanish.

Follow Our Elected Officials For News:

Follow New York City Council Member Robert E. Cornegy, representing Brooklyn 36th District- Bedford Stuyvesant and Northern Crown Heights on Twitter , Facebook, and Instagram for important updates regarding COVID-19 updates.

Follow updates from the NYC City Immigrant Affairs office on Twitter interested in renewing your DACA application form. Call ActionNYC at 1-800-354-0365.

Local Business Highlights of the Week:

Known for their traditional Senegalese cuisine, Cafe Rue Dix takes pride in incorporating fresh ingredients and bold spices to create some of the best fran-senegalese dishes in NYC located right in Crown Heights. Take out is available from 12-9pm, and if you’re cooking or working at home, try their signature coffee and hot sauce for a real pick me up.

While we dream of what will come, Berg’n is asking their fellow patrons, who have the means during this time, to donate any tips they would give while visiting this local hang-out. You can donate to their phenomenal team by clicking here.

Census

There’s still time! Complete the 2020 Census today at my2020census.gov.

It's not too late to RSVP to host a Census Text-a-Thon in your district on April 20th. Participating in a Text-a-Thon from home is an easy and safe way for New Yorkers to do something positive for our City. NYC Census 2020 will provide access to the peer-to-peer texting tool, Hustle, and will provide all the technical support necessary for people to volunteer to text. RSVP to host a Text-a-Thon in your district on April 20th by emailing Katya Murphy or Jason Reischel. Support for Artists, Freelancers, and Gig Workers

Freelancers in NYC: If you're facing nonpayment issues, file a complaint through NYC Consumer Affairs, which has a list of worker’s rights!

The Arts and Culture Leaders of Color Emergency Fund is set up to help those pursuing careers as artists or arts administrators whose income has been directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This fund is for those who self-identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color).

Solidarity 4 Service, is a grassroot effort to connect individuals to each other in efforts to provide relief for those who are unemployed or underemployed due to COVID-19. For more information, visit their Support for Service Industry/Gig/Freelance Workers intake survey.

The NYC Low-Income Artist Freelance Relief Fund has intentons to collectively raise funds to provide emergency and preventative resources to artist who are at finical ris and low-income BIPOC, trans/GNC/NB/Queer artist and freelancers.

Creative Capital has created a resource fund which helps artists find various national, state and local grants, mental health assistance.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS' COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund is helping entertainment professionals meet coronavirus-related expenses and other challenges brought about by the evolving pandemic.

The Jazz Foundation of America provides jazz and blue artists with an experienced social worker to assess his/her situation and provide rapid assistance.

Queer Writers of Color Relief Fund is offering finicial assistance to queer writiers to at least 100 writers, each writer reciveing $5,000.

The South Asian Arts Resiliency Fund is a direct response by the India Center Foundation to offer support to South Asian arts workers impacted by COVID-19.

Dance NYC is offering one time grants for dance making organizations with an annual operating budget between $25,00 and $500,00. Eligibility is determined based upon loss of income or incurred expenses due to COVID-19.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has issued guidance on applying for the $75 million it was allocated in the CARES Act. If a nonprofit cultural organization has received NEA support in the last four fiscal years, they are eligible to apply for a direct grant. Apply by April 22!

For another roundup of resources for artists, check out artnet’s recent article.

Resources for children and families

For updates regarding the Coronavirus and New York City public schools, visit New York City Department of Education Coronavirus Communicaications page.

As the weeks of staying at home stretch on, they are taking their toll on many of us. The mindfulness app HeadSpace has teamed up with New York State to offer free guided meditations and other resources to support the mental wellbeing of New Yorkers during this crisis.

For many, pets are more than just animals — they are a part of the family. As members of your family, they should be included in your emergency planning process. Make sure your disaster plan addresses what you will do when an emergency requires you to leave your home, leave your pet at home, or prevents you from returning home. Visit NYCEM pets planning for more information

No Kid Hungry is offering emergency grants to support local school districts and nonprofit organizations in their efforts to ensure kids get the nutritious food they need. Fill out this grant request form here.

Did you know that you can use your Snap benefits to order groceries online? Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits can be used to shop online for fresh produce and groceries! Use your EBT card to shop securely for fresh produce and groceries at participating stores in the New York City area.

One Week of Free Groceries: The Department of Probation, Neighborhood Opportunity Network (NeON) Nutrition Kitchens, in partnership with the Food Bank of NYC and the NYC Young Men’s Initiative (YMI) have opened five kitchens -- one in each borough -- to distribute free food, available to any New Yorker who needs it.

Women.NYC, which is powered by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, released a downloadable guide for free and low-cost tech courses in New York City.

DOE Graphics Library: A collection of graphics on the DOE's recent announcements that can be shared with families and educators, in all 9 DOE languages

For more information about remote learning, activities for students, and technical support go to schools.nyc.gov/LearnAtHome

While Family Justice Centers are physically closed, anyone can call any of our borough centers for help with safety planning, mental health and planning, legal help, or help in connecting to law enforcement agencies. For more information please visit the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender Based Violence or call our 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-621-4673.

Ways to Volunteer and Serve

Visit New York Blood Center to find out how you may be able to donate plasma for those who have recovered from COVID-19.

For Individuals/Organizations/Companies offering to DONATE PPE, visit NYC Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Donation Portal.

Help Now NYC is providing New Yorkers with opportunities to find out how they can help others affected by COVID-19 and help New Yorkers find organizations that will help them receive COVID-19 related assistance.

The NYC Share Your Space Survey is critical to helping the City prepare for emergencies and outreach to all of the City's communities. Organizations citywide are encouraged to participate.

NYCEDC is currently seeking businesses with the ability to quickly source and/or make needed medical supplies (e.g. face shields, gowns, ventilators, masks, and other products as needed) to support the City’s COVID-19 response.

Deliver meals and emergency food bags to home-bound elderly living in a variety of Brooklyn neighborhoods (car recommended) with Heights and Hills. Learn more here.

Corona Couriers is a collective of cyclists willing to courier supplies to people in need for free, using low contact methods. Email [email protected] if interested.

Here, you may find a source guide specifically for immigrant communities during the COVID-19 pandemic: Please help by passing it along. Also, FYI, this week is Immigrant Heritage Week!

For People in Need

Domestic Violence: If you are experiencing domestic violence, you locate nearby resources online using NYC HOPE, the City’s Resource Directory for services for survivors. Check out NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based violence to attain more resources for survivors during COVID-19.

For individuals with disabilities, visit the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities. More information may be found NYC Mayor’s Office of Disabilities Twitter, as well as contacting representatives at 311 or visitor connect via video phone at 646-396-5830.

DOITT has developed a portal, to help guide the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The portal is available in 11 languages and allows New Yorkers to self-report COVID-19 information and will help New York City both better communicate with affected people and identify areas that may need enhanced response. Inputs are confidential. People without internet access or who need help, can call 311.

Possibly Mimbres. Standing Figure, 1100-1000 B.C.E. Stone, pigment). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund, 03.325.4528. Creative Commons-BY

#strongertogether #brooklynstrong #covid-19 #covid relief #corona virus #community #art museums #nyc #brooklyn #brooklyn museum #community resources #artists #resources

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snowglobesask · 8 years ago

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My Eyes Aren't Mirrors

It's starting to feel like another day, another article or media piece to be frustrated with. Maybe this is a sign of my increasing awareness, and unwillingness to let things slide. Awhile back I read a piece in The New Yorker called Seeing The Spectrum: A New History of Autism by Steven Shapin. The art is the first thing I would like to comment upon. I interpreted the picture as a depiction of a whole community of adults in the process of constructing a child. It might be an artistic depiction of the concept that a whole community is required to raise a child. That's not the first thought that popped into my head. "Look at all these adults fixing this broken child," was my first (sarcastic) thought. Maybe that comes from a cynical place. The article starts out by pointing out how the world is an unpredictable place, and normal people just deal with it. Sure they do. Moving on, the author throws in an example of how someone might accidentally buy their boxers at J.C. Penney instead of Kmart. This is a clear reference to the film called Rain Man. He goes on to specifically reference this movie as a cultural tipping point in understanding autism. The movie is based on a real person who was named Kim Peek, who wasn't autistic, although inspiration was also taken from another man who was. The article goes on to say the world has always been this way; there have been people who deal with changes and those who impose order, but autism hasn't always existed. The author means that autism was only identified relatively recently. When a tree falls in the forest, and nobody's there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a doctor hasn't diagnosed you, does that make you less autistic? According to all the people who attack self-identified autistic people in online communities, I'm thinking they believe a person is only autistic if a doctor says they are. What a pile of crap. My cousin was diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and depression. This is despite ALL of her siblings being autistic. The doctor told her that she cared about other people and what they think of her, so she couldn't be autistic. This was in the last five years! If doctors are making diagnoses based on stereotypes, I'm more than willing to accept that a person might understand themselves better than the doctor. I'm not about to argue their assessment of themselves as autistic. The author warns against posthumously diagnosing famous people in history, and he has a point. I do it all the time, but it's speculation rather than fact. The part of this article that has many autistic people upset is as follows: For parents of autistic kids, awareness is desperately important. It's a searing experience to have a child who doesn't talk, who doesn't want to be touched, who self-harms, who demands a regularity and order that parents can't supply, whose eyes are not windows to their souls but black mirrors. Public recognition is vital, both for its own sake and as a means to mobilize resources for care, support, and a possible cure. My eyes are not mirrors. If they were, they'd reflect back the ableism of this statement. I don't lack a soul. Furthermore, I wouldn't choose to be cured if that was an option. In my opinion, the focus needs to be on finding ways to relieve aspects of autism that make living in the community difficult. Autism Speaks spends most of their money finding ways to test for autism in-vitro. If this is successful, it will lead to many fear-based abortions. They also spend a lot of money on curing autism, with the primary focus on wiping out the genome. OUR SOCIETY NEEDS AUTISTIC PEOPLE! I've said it many times, in many blog posts, and I'm not going to stop saying it. The author goes on to discuss brave parents who refused to institutionalize their children, and insisted on treatment options, changing the view of autism. It might be true, but it leaves out autistic people. He discusses Applied Behavior Analysis as if it's a thing of the past. I wish it were. I understand the approach doesn't use cattle prods anymore, so I feel like I need to explain my reluctance to embrace it. This is especially true since Mr. Shapin said that high-functional autistic people like myself are picking on the parents of severely autistic children by saying that we shouldn't try to treat autism. (italics are his words, because I HATE functional labeling) I've never said anything like this. I want people to have relief from symptoms that impact their daily living, without destroying autism. I watch a show on CBS called Scorpion. To my dismay, I've watched it become increasingly ableist. I wince whenever Paige delivers lines to Walter like, "You're becoming more human." She's saying he was less than human before that point, and she the one who gets to judge his humanity. This is what autistic people face all the time with behavioral modification approaches. In one episode of Scorpion, Walter acts out a piece of Romeo and Juliet. Paige asks him why he doesn't act all the time. What she means is she can't understand why he doesn't put on this show every time he has to deal with people. It's exhausting and shouldn't be necessary. Why should autistic people expend so much energy trying to accomplish trivial things? Why can't neurotypical people just accept our stimming, if it isn't causing us harm? Steven Shapin took the time to explain how great neurotypical people are at adapting. Put those skills to to work by adapting to the idea that we aren't the same as you and we aren't going to pretend to be, just to make you more comfortable.

#autism #autism in literature

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believermag · 8 years ago

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ELECTRIC BLUE

All photographs by the author.

Kim Wood on David Bowie

There are roughly ten blocks between the theater where David Bowie watched rehearsals for Lazarus, and the studio where he recorded Blackstar. In his last years, we both lived between them, on opposite sides of Houston Street.

My side is the Bowery, known in real estate speak as NoHo (North of Houston). On the street where I live—a two-block stretch of 3rd Street known as Great Jones—is a chandeliered butcher shop occupying the spot where Basquiat worked, and died, of a heroin overdose. Twenty years before his time, Charlie Mingus’ heroin-addicted presence on this corridor is said to have birthed the term jonesing.

I’ve passed a decade in Brooklyn, but never before now lived in Manhattan and love being a downtown kid, stepping through the door and onto crowded streets, passing CBGBs—now a skinny pants boutique I’ve never entered—on my way to buy groceries, or borrowing books from a library branch housed in the one-time factory of Hawley & Hoops’ Chocolate Candy Cigars—that Bowie lived above, in a modern penthouse perched atop the turn of the century brick building.

For twenty-four months, barring the occasional trip to Central Park, I’ve lived below 14th Street and in this time Bowie loitered here too, sipping La Colombe’s double macchiato, fetching chicken and watercress sandwiches at Olive’s, or dinner supplies at Dean & DeLuca. One day I’d catch him on the street, I figured, hailing a cab or taking out the recycling in his flat cap and sunglasses, and when I did my well-worn New Yorker discretion would be jettisoned as I tried, and likely failed, not to cry.

I didn’t, of course, know that for most of the time we were neighbors David Bowie was dying. Today I walk the familiar stretch of blocks to his building, eyes tearing, I tell myself, from the frigid, bone-dry air. At the front entrance, a group of fans stand gutted, surrounded by news trucks, generators, vulturing reporters.

A growing pile of daisies, tulips, roses, daffodils leans against the wall, along with a few photographs, a pair of silver glitter heels, a Jesus candle with Ziggy Stardust face. Tucked here and there are handwritten notes: Look out your window, I can see his light and We are all stardust and Hot tramp, we love you so.

Everyone here, news crew aside, feels known somehow, the mood is gentle, polite, quiet. Too quiet, I realize, when someone plays “Life On Mars?” from a tinny smartphone speaker. As the closing strings swell, a woman turns to me to say through tears, “I love this song!” All I can do is nod, “I know!” and take comfort among fellow kooks.

A pair behind me wonders aloud about a “world without Bowie,” and while I know what they mean—the way some people feel like a force and invincible—you could argue we’ve been living in such a world for a long while. David Jones-ing.

Three days earlier, on the night of Bowie’s 69th birthday, I danced in my kitchen to the foppish, falsetto, “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,” delighting in his rude lyrics and wild whooping. Later at a dinner hosted for the birthday of a friend, I commented on Bowie’s continuing fixation upon mortality, but also his energy, sly humor, return to form, exclaiming, not tentatively, “Bowie’s back!”

I was thrilled he’d finally slipped the ghost of what he called, “my Phil Collins years.” In one of the endless interviews now flooding my screen in text and video, he explains, “I was performing in front of these huge stadium crowds and at that time I was thinking ‘what are these people doing here? Why did they come to see me? They should be seeing Phil Collins.’ And then that came back at me and I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ It’s a certain kind of mainstream that I’m just not comfortable in.”

Like the divisiveness of fat and skinny Elvis, there were those of us who fancied ourselves glittering, androgynous, apocalyptic half-beast hustlers who bought drugs, watched bands and jumped in the river holding hands, and there were others, contentedly jazzin’ for Blue Jean.

When, in your Golden Years, your mentor of not only music but all things relevant—art, clothes, books, films—enters his Phil Collins Years, suddenly high-kicking in Reeboks and staring in Pepsi commercials, how not to feel betrayed?

I took it personally, coining the unforgiving term David Bowie Syndrome. As a burgeoning artist, I feared (a scaled-back version of) his creative arc with my whole heart—reaching the greatness of Bowie’s 1970s only to follow it up with Let’s Dance. To say nothing of Tin Machine. Like many old-school fans, I’d stopped tuning in to modern Bowie to keep my vintage Bowie flame flickering.

In my most youthfully caustic moment, I joked that Bowie’s personal Oblique Strategies deck—that famous stack of cards, creative prompts such as Ask your body, Abandon normal instruments, and Courage! allegedly used when Bowie and Brian Eno recorded Low and Heroes—should be made up of cards that all read, simply: Call Eno.

Unfair, untrue. Kindly allow this counterpoint mea culpa admission: I secretly love the ham-fisted, cringtastic video for Dancing in the Street.

On the third day after Bowie’s death I step outside, wondering if I’ll still hear his presence hum. Just feet from my front door I’m greeted by his face gracing one of two large posters advertising Blackstar. Well hey there, Mr. Jones.

They’re wet with wheat paste and like a teenage fangirl I consider stealing one, but then notice a smaller poster hung next to them, featuring the Sesame Street characters peering out joyously, encouraging me to attend an event entitled… Let’s Dance!

I accept Bowie’s cosmic joke, had it coming I suppose, and briskly hoof it to Union Square where at the farmer’s market I find apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts and not much else. My gloveless fingertips smart as I pocket change and consider the possibility that the visitation was an invitation to dance through the sorrow. A bit maudlin perhaps, but then, so was Bowie.

When I return home the Blackstar posters are gone. In under an hour someone has pasted them over with clothing and gym ads—leaving all the posters on either side for the length of the street untouched. Like Steppenwolf's Magic Theater, the message—whatever it was—had appeared and just as quickly vanished.

My feet walk me to Bowie’s memorial, which has exploded in a heap of bouquets, black bobbing Prettiest Star balloons, cha-cha lines of platform heels, disco balls, eye shadow, quarts of milk, British flags, drawings and paintings of Bowie’s many incarnations, fuzzy spiders, bluebirds, boas, vinyl copies of David Live annotated Forever in thick silver marker.

A giant orange tissue paper flower hangs from a nearby tree, electric blue eye at its center, petals edged in lyrics: Give me your hands, because you’re wonderful! Let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Here and there are tucked personal notes: You taught me that weird = beautiful, and: When I was a teenager I wished I could check off “David Bowie” for both my gender and my race. I still do.

“Taking away all the theatrics…” Bowie said, “I’m a writer. The subject matter…boils down to a few songs, based around loneliness, isolation, spiritual search, and a looking for a way into communication with other people. And that’s about it—about all I’ve ever written about for forty years.”

Perhaps, then, my “Let’s Dance” visitation was an anti-message, a warning against wasting creative juju by pandering for cash. Of course, Bowie made not a dime (relatively, and thanks in large part to shifty management) from his artistic era I find most inspiring. The seed of the fortune that brought him financial security was that very song. So what then?

When I return home, Bowie’s spot on the wall has been papered over yet again, all white this time, as though to say, as he has when pressed to interpret his lyric’s meaning, “nothing further,” “you figure it out,” “space to let.”

I rise before the sun, pull on bright turquoise tights and red clogs and walk the cobblestone of Lafayette Street in the dark. Collar up, breath ghosting, I feel as I secretly do in all such moments, like the cover of Low, or The Middle-Aged Lady Who Fell to Earth. Car headlights slide over me as I approach the memorial that is, it appears, being dismantled.

I quickly make the photograph I awoke imagining: my platforms meeting Bowie’s shore of flickering candles, cigarette butts, stray boa feathers, sea of glitter. Beside me a sweet lone man sorts out the dead flowers, shuffling handmade things to one side, candles to another, not tossing it all as I first suspected, but tidying up, preparing for another day.

What drew me into this frigid darkness, half dressed in pajamas? Perhaps a need to meet Bowie toe to toe, promise to honor the contract, all in, heart wide, funk to funky.

Put on my red shoes and dance the blues.

“I don’t think (the act of creation is) something that I enjoy a hundred percent. There are occasions when I really don’t want to write. It just seems that I have a physical need to do it...I really am writing for myself.”

Before Blackstar, the last time I know of Bowie creating under extreme duress is when making the album Station to Station—which coincidentally also opens with an epically long titular song wherein a man yelps from the darkness, singing with pride and pain about a fame that has isolated him beyond measure.

As the Thin White Duke, Bowie sings with bitter irony, It’s not the side effects of the cocaine! I’m thinking that it must be love! It’s well known that Bowie, living for a year (1975-1976) in his despised, self-chosen, wasteland of Los Angeles, had fallen victim to a kind of Method Writing, unable to escape in life the character he’d crafted to hide behind on stage.

Subsisting on a diet of cocaine, chili peppers and milk, he grew paranoid, hallucinating, allegedly dabbling in Black Magic and storing his jarred urine in his refrigerator. I was six years old at the time, living less than a mile from Cherokee Studios where Station to Station was in session, and smudging my mother’s brand new Young Americans vinyl with powdered sugar fingerprints.

He said of the following album, Low, “It was a dangerous period for me. I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity. But I get a sense of real optimism through the veils of despair from Low. I can hear myself really struggling to get well.”

It’s the pale, shimmering hope that makes Low my favorite of all of Bowie’s offerings, but for Station to Station’s Duke of Disillusion it’s too late—for hate, gratitude, any emotion. It’s not, however, too late to lay himself bare in the work: there’s no reach for sanity, just a man collapsing while still directing, as the camera rolls.

Blackstar has been called a gift, and on “Dollar Days,” a song that describes his effort to communicate in the face of death, Bowie breaks the fourth wall to address this directly: Don’t think for just one second I’ve forgotten you/I’m trying to/I’m dying to(o).

I believe as an artist he had no choice, no other way to confront his circumstance other than to talk himself through it, put it in the work.

The profound generosity of Blackstar, and a vast swath of Bowie’s creative output, is that in this most intimate conversation with death, god, time, himself, we’ve been invited to listen in.

What makes a good death? Bowie withdrew from the public in the last decade and was characteristically silent regarding his illness, in this tell-all age (that owes him not a little for its status quo “tolerance” of Chazes and Caitlyns). He was also, in his time post-diagnosis, compelled to make his most raw and exposing work in years, and between the play and album, likely spent a long part of each day in their pursuit, while presumably also tending to his needs as a father, husband, friend, man.

In Walter Tevis’ book The Man who Fell to Earth—the basis of Nicholas Roeg’s film that inspired Bowie’s production Lazarus—stranded, despondent space alien Thomas Jerome Newton records an album called The Visitor: we guarantee you won’t know the language, but you’ll wish you did! Seven out-of-this-world poems! Newton explains it’s a letter to his family and home planet that says, “Oh, goodbye, go to hell. Things of that sort.”

Bowie’s seven-song swansong, Blackstar, is rather more generous, and from a writer notorious for lyrical slipperiness, layered meanings, a cut-up technique (copped from Burroughs) that spawned lines about Cassius Clay and papier-mâché, its text is frequently plain-spoken and direct.

Even my favorite frolic sounds a combative calling down of his illness, time: Man, she punched me like a dude/Hold your mad hands, I cried/She stole my purse, with rattling speed/This is the war. It would not be the first time Bowie referred to Time as a “whore.” (see: Aladdin Sane.)

In the title video’s most vivid sections, Bowie becomes god—less vengeful than dismissive—singing, from heaven’s attic, a swaggering takedown of Bowie himself: You’re a flash in the pan, I’m the great I am. (From Exodus: And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.)

His button eyes in both videos suggest a puppet, and so the presence of a puppet master, but I don’t read these images as signs of deathbed conversion. Bowie was a spiritual seeker who borrowed magpie style—in this case from Egyptian, Kabalistic, Christian and Norse iconography—to create a language to give voice to his fears and dark entries.

“If you can accept—and it’s a big leap—that we live in absolute chaos, it doesn’t look like futility anymore. It only looks like futility if you believe in this bang up structure we’ve created called ‘God’.”

In his last gestures Bowie answered not God, but himself, regarding the way he’d lived, and in particular, as an artist. The pulse returns the prodigal sons suggests that the characters he inhabited—some regrettable, but not irredeemable—are with him as he assesses the intentions behind, and perceived short-comings of, his creative offerings: Seeing more and feeling less/Saying no but meaning yes/This is all I ever meant/That's the message that I sent/(but) I can’t give everything away.

In his almost unbearably haunting last video, it seems we’re finally invited to meet David Jones, or Bowie playing Jones. Jones the man lies in bed, clutching a blanket with those mortal, frightened hands. Nearby the writer manically, fretfully reaches for immortality, while Bowie the performer, dutifully dances to the end.

“There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing.” “You present a darker picture for yourself to look at, and then reject it, all in the process of writing. I think that’s what’s left for me with music. Now I really find that I address things to myself. That’s what I do. If I hadn’t been able to write songs and sing them, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did. I really feel that. I had to do this.”

This morning I remembered where I'd seen the writer's austere, black and white striped costume before: the program for the 1976 Isolar tour, wherein Bowie self-consciously poses with a notebook or makes chalk drawings of the Kabbalah tree of life. Isolar is a made up word—and name of his current company—said to be comprised of isolation and solar.

I love this costume—a kind of artisan worker-bee uniform. There are satin kimono-sleeved ass-baring rompers for when its time to present the work, but when making it, roll up your revolutionary sleeves and get to it.

1976 saw the success of Station to Station, the premiere of The Man Who Fell to Earth and the recording of The Idiot and Low. It was not the most grounded time for Bowie personally (to understate it), but arguably his most vital creatively, and this nod to the continuum of creative spirit seems to suggest that the artist dies, but through the work, like Lazarus, rises again.

So what, then, is a Blackstar? Perhaps a marked man, a sly reference to Elvis’ song of the same name whose lyrics include, Every man has a black star/A black star over his shoulder/And when a man sees his black star/He knows his time, his time has come.

Although Bowie did not, as rumored, write “Golden Years” for Elvis, he did find (somewhat bashful) significance in their shared birthdays, took pains to catch his concerts, had his white jumpsuit copied to wear while performing “Rock and Roll Suicide,” modeled his own costume in Christiane F after Elvis’ ensemble in Roustabout, and perhaps his Aladdin Sane red/electric blue lightening bolt was inspired by Elvis’ signature gold one. Which is to say, he likely knew of The King’s “Black Star.”

Blackstar could also suggest the theoretical transitional state between a collapsed star and a singularity—a state of infinite value in physics, a metaphor for immortality.

I’m not a gangstar/I’m not a film star/I’m not a popstar/I’m not a marvel star/I’m not a white star/I’m not a porn star/I’m not a wandering star/I’m a star’s star/I’m a blackstar.

“Sometimes I don’t feel as if I’m a person at all...I’m just a collection of other people’s ideas.” Is Bowie simply claiming his right to throw off all mantles?

The car crash that is the documentary Cracked Actor opens with a reporter asking, “I just wonder if you get tired of being outrageous?” “I don’t think I’m outrageous at all,” Bowie throws back, miffed. The reporter persists, “Do you describe yourself as ordinary? What adjective would you use?” Bowie searches his brain for an appropriate response to the inane question and finally lands upon: “David Bowie.”

Or perhaps, as Isolar suggests, a Blackstar is someone hidden in plain sight. In an interview that seems more therapy session, with Mavis Nicolson in 1979, mostly drug-free and grounded Bowie speaks of the appeal of life in Berlin, whose physical wall seemed to mirror his psyche. Without referencing himself or the characters he’s inhabited, he describes an isolated figure who finds no home in the world, but instead creates “a micro world inside himself.”

When Nicolson suggests that as an artist Jones must keep himself from love, he rejects the idea outright, but when gently pressed about the demands of relationships in actual life and not “from afar,” he concedes, extending his arms before him like a shield, “No, love can’t get quite in my way, I shelter myself from it incredibly.”

The moment is so resonantly raw that the two break into manic humor, shifting to the story of his eye injury in a childhood fight over a girl, wherein he laughs and says, “I wasn’t even in love with her.”

In “Lazarus,” the dying Jones sings: everybody knows me now, and perhaps that is so, as much as it ever could be for a man who spent an artistic career in self-sustained exile.

And why shouldn’t David Jones have been—with the exception of a few deeply druggy years—free from the curse and blessing of being Bowie? What are we owed by our artists?

Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the colour of my room.

The Bowie song that forever circles my brain describes a writer waiting for the muse, describing the loneliness and blessing of the electric blue of creation. Vishuddhi, or the electric blue throat chakra of Hindu tantra, is associated with the vocal cords, communication, creative expression, one’s inner-truth.

For sixteen months I lived in Berlin’s Schöneberg quarter, around the corner from 155 Hauptstrasse and the apartment that song was composed in and of. I’d pedal my bike past and nod to the ghost Bowie inside, still wondering and waiting for the gift of sound and vision.

It’s the seventh day since Bowie’s death, the final day of shiva I’ve sat beneath his window. I’ve never much understood funerals, always felt they were for a “living” that didn’t include me, but this has been different.

Over this week I’ve shared glances with occasional bleary-eyed oldsters coming or going from where I’m headed or have just been–there have been no young folk to speak of and no platform boots necessary to recognize the kooks.

Today, from a block away, I spy a pair of women making the pilgrimage. The taller of the two—who for one moment I mistake for Patti Smith—has Smith’s hair, a floor-length bright blue shearling coat and an armload of exquisite orange, flame-tipped roses.

Trailing my comrades I think of Smith’s line in Woolgathering when, upon being given a dandelion, she asks, “What could I wish for but my breath?”

At Bowie’s door the energy feels less personal, dissipating. After the roses-bearers depart, a lone woman and I stand shivering before the diminished pile of offerings framed by narrowed police barricades: plastic-wrapped bodega flowers and a few handmade items, the most prominent being a cigar box shrine with a Halloween Jack eye patch and what seems a bunch of random stuff tossed in. The woman plays “Starman” on her phone, and rather than poignant, it’s just sad.

A years later follow-up to his first solo release, “Major Tom,” “Starman” takes the isolation of planet earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do and turns it into an anthem where a cosmic DJ messiah tells us misfits not to blow it, ‘cause he thinks it’s all worthwhile.

The 1972 Top of the Pops performance famously featured Bowie’s flirty finger wagging at the viewer, and casually intimate embrace of Mick Ronson, which blew the minds of much of Britain and beyond and marked Bowie as a more than a one-hit wonder. I silently give thanks to many, including Bowie, not to live in a world where a rock and roll arm thrown over a shoulder can cause a stir.

Over the song’s fade out the woman shrugs and says something about bears—at least I think that’s what I hear. I smile and nod remotely, then realize she’s drawing my attention to the carefully rendered Ziggy Stardust teddy bear—complete with lightning bolt and guitar—hanging from the police steel.

This bear abrades me for no good reason. A few young women pass by on their way into American Apparel. “That was David Bowie’s house,” one says over her shoulder, and the other makes an “awww” sound like she might at the sight of a teddy bear, or the memorial of that musician guy that died the way people do—other people, older people. As they pause to take a selfie in front of Bowie’s memorial offerings I turn and nearly sprint downtown.

I learned in this week of Bowie Internet inundation that he trailed these streets too, often at dawn, in solitude, but right now I need Chinatown’s chaotic, smashing life. I’ll buy those killer clementine from that vendor on the corner, I think, and eggplant, scallion and ginger for supper.

I weave among cardboard boxes of dried silver fish and lotus root, tourists linked arm-in-arm in matching New York pom-pom hats, Chinese grandmas pushing plaid shopping carts in (Harold and) Maude braids. A man exits a hallway, arms loaded with red-ribboned funeral flowers. A chef in a paper hat leans against a wall, smoking beneath a pumpkin-sized, spinning dumpling.

Beneath crisscrossing wires strung with giant, glinting snowflakes, I warm my hands on a cup of milky tea and wonder when we’ll get winter’s first snow. Glancing up to cross Mott (the Hoople) Street, I wonder when the city’s details will cease to conjure Bowie.

I tuck dragon fruit into my sack, humming “Starman”—whose chorus melody is plainly lifted from The Wizard of Oz’s “Over the Rainbow.” Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly/Birds fly over the rainbow./Why then, oh, why can't I?

In performance, Bowie sometimes coyly sung a mash-up of these anthems of longing for belonging. On “Lazarus” he sings, seemingly of his death, This way or no way/You know, I’ll be free/Just like that bluebird/Now ain’t that just like me.

Blackstar begins by naming the Norse village of Ormen. In Norse mythology, the rainbow bridge that connects this world to that of the gods is Bifrost, which translates as tremulous way. Tremulous—as in trembling—as Bowie does so heart-wrenchingly as he backs into the armoire and out of this world.

When he heard the call, David Jones, who could walk the streets of Manhattan undetected, slipped over the rainbow and into his own imagination.

But with generosity and courage it seems he did not fully recognize, David Bowie spent his life pulling back the curtain on the Great Oz, showing the man, his frustration and fallibility, questioning art-making and then making it anyway.

I fear in the end he imagined himself “a very bad man but a very good wizard,” when in fact the opposite was true. The droves of people gathered at his front door and around the world may have found the masks fascinating, but only as much as the man, and heart, behind them.

I imagine catching David Jones wandering past shop windows plastered with red New Year monkeys, beneath golden, swaying lanterns. I would thank him for Ziggy Stardust, whose hair my mother copied and Scary Monsters, whose poster graced my eleven-year-old bedroom wall. I’d say thanks for Low and Hunky Dory, which got me through hard times. Thanks for The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Hunger, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke. Thanks for Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Lodger, Station to Station. Thanks for creating a soundtrack for my life and the lives of my favorite people.

Thanks for being a fierce, literate libertine, giving permission when I so badly needed it and inspiration always. Thanks, from the strange kids, for saying, No love, you’re not alone! You’re wonderful!

On the afternoon of January 10th, in what I later learned were the last hours of Bowie’s life, a double rainbow drew me from my desk and to the window. It arced across the skyline and ended at the Empire State Building, so strikingly that fire fighters in the station across the street took to the emergency dispatch microphone to exclaim to the neighborhood, “There’s a rainbow!”

As the first snow falls over Chinatown’s back alleys, I think: rainbowie!

There’s a Starman, over the rainbow, way up high, and he told me—let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Kim Wood's writing has appeared in Out Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House's Open Bar, and on National Public Radio. She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation and is a MacDowell Colony fellow. She is working on a book, Advice to Adventurous Girls, based upon the unpublished archive of a 1920s motorcycle daredevil. Her documentary film on this subject has screened internationally in festivals and museums including Sundance and the Guggenheim, where it double-billed with an episode of ChiPs.

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