Aya's Art Adventure

Another phone entry

2009-11-11T14:43:00.001-08:00

So Ned went to the gym today, and I went to draw at blackbird. We were supposed to go into the city and to long island city and run some errands, but we were both such a nervous wreck in the morning, I decided that we'll take care of ourselves today and take care of life tomorrow.

I took the phone with me, first time I'm adding this connection to the world to my "me" time.

The result - took care of 2 work e-mail on spot, which was great, but finished only 1 drawing. And not feeling the disconnection and calmness I usually feel while drawing. Though this is more because of the stress I feel in life now rather then the phone, I think.

I hate getting used to new things. And changing the definition of myself.
Also, I don't like the no spelling check on this, I feel sort of vulnerable to being thought of as stupid.

Update: Back at home, at my own beautiful computer, suddenly a full size keyboard feels like a luxurious king size bed after months of sea voyage in one of those bench folding beds. I got back into this post to add the photo that I took while writing this entry (is there a way to do this on the phone and I just couldn't find it yet?! I'm not sure) and, to spell check.

It's strange, I used to not care about spelling as much (or at all really) but now I do. For some reason it makes me feel bad that I do, as if I complied with some odd social acceptancey or strange manners I could formerly ignore.

winner!

2009-11-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

Tangopottery is the winner of my blog giveaway raffle!

New books

2009-11-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

Someone in moleskin should totally start paying Andrea who organizes moleskin exchange a cut...

I just finished my old moleskin (8x5 watercolor) last week, but I found myself getting a lot more excited about the drawings I did in the group books, so I decided to see if size does matter and give a different size a chance, so - one 8x5, probably I'll take that one on my trip to Israel. An A4 for me and an A4 for Ned, he might or might not use it, so maybe I have two of those for me. And the very frightening looking A3, I hope I'll be brave enough to even open that one, by far way bigger then my comfort zone book, but I think it'll be a cool thing to try.

a second try

2009-11-09T20:48:00.001-08:00

for blogging from my new phone.

Ned and i looks like me and my sister did in that long boring summer at my grandparents with only a couple of those old old nintendo games for entertainment. up until this day i'm pretty sure she has the highert score in the world for Snoopy tennis.

phone

2009-11-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

So today Ned and I got new phones. I don't really like phones (that's an understatement...) actually I loath them, mostly beacaalking on the phone makes me really anxious, the thing is that aside of a few work calls a month, Ned does all of our interactions. So I got a new phone now, with texts and emails and facebook. I really hope it' make me connect more with the world.

sort of down

2009-11-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

Couldn't sleep last night, or rather fall asleep at 10:00, woke up at midnight and couldn't go back to sleep till around 8:30 AM, I was watching the sunset and reading a book, trying to get my eyes tired enough to close on their own, and for my mind to stop working, it didn't happened until there was light outside, noise and people taking on the hallway and the feeling of actual morning in the air.

I know that how i'm feeling right now is mostly because I'm tired and cranky.

I had a dream last night in which for a strange chair of event, me and Ned just had to have ice cream for every meal for a day, someone bought it for us and it was impolite to refuse, then we were going somewhere and the only food place was an ice cream store and again, we just had to have it, and so forth and so on. It started fun but as the day progressed, in my dream, I felt more and more out of control, more and more fat and anxious about eating all that ice cream, in the dream I was trying to find a way to go back and not eat it, though I knew I couldn't.

I woke up feeling bad about the apple crumble and ice cream from the night before, and feeling bad about obsessing about food.

I've been spending most of the day in front of the computer doing nothing. Trying to finish a million small projects and giving up after 5 minutes, going back to reading the news, reading gossip, playing stupid farmville, checking flickr and getting annoyed about no new comments and no new views, same for blogger, same for Etsy.

I made food, a batch of chilly from sprouted beans, collared greens that were on the verge of going bad, a large put of rice and lentils, now the fridge is full of Tupperwares filled with cooked food we'll probably never eat.

I have to finish this design project, do the blog ruffle, pack some etsy packages, dammit, answer e-mails, which I seem to never do anymore and probably everyone i know think I don't love them anymore. I have a project all finished and ready to be cut, shot and listed on etsy, and I can't seem to have enough energy for the 10 minutes it will take to finish it. I feel like such a slacker.

Scanning some old drawings

2009-10-31T00:49:00.000-07:00

The moleskin exchange really made me want to do more drawing in my own moleskin. I've been working on a series of drawings of the different animals and people of the zodiac signs for the past few weeks, which I finished today, I wanted to scan them tonight ,but there's just not enough time for all of them, So instead I scanned some older pieces from the moleskin, and tomorrow, I hope to scan the rest.

2 more pages in this book, which I hope to finish before my big moleskin order arrive from Amazon. I got carried away and ordered 3 book (plus one for Ned, but there's a good chance he won't use it and it'll be mine also...)

Finally some work done

2009-10-31T00:07:00.000-07:00

Finished a design that I really like for Ned's mom trunk show, I hope she'll like it to, it might be a little too Christmasy for the event - I do like it though! This is a detail from the back of the postcard.

Tiny paintings

2009-10-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Cause I didn't feel like working on Ned's mom trunkshow postcard, or to write e-mails, or to work on Case's website, or on the two design projects I'm supposed to finish, or to finish a submission for a photography competition, or to make stuff for Christmas for the store.

It's 1:17 AM and I really should get to work...

Anchor song

2009-10-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

I've been wanted to make something for A5 magazine ever since they published their new topic for open call. It was remix - an artistic response to a song. The thing is there are so many amazings songs in the world and everytime I had some idea I had to reject it right away feeling like I'm neglecting the one perfect song that I should choose.

I almost gave up on the whole thing, actually I did give up on it already.

Then, on the weekend as I was working on Ashes' book for moleskin exchange, I found myself illustrating a song by Bjork, called anchor song. It's not the most important song in the world, nor is it my favorite, but I do love it and it makes me think of myself at age 20, when I started art school, lived with a friend in a 5th floor apartment with no elevator and listened to this album over and over again. I can't believe that was 14 years ago...

And so I made another version for the illustration in ashes' book today, and send it to the magazine in the nick of time.

I live by the ocean
And during the night
I dive into it
Down to the bottom
Underneath all currents
And drop my anchor
This is where I´m staying
This is my home

Work in process

2009-10-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

All I've been doing in the past couple of days is working on the moleskin exchange sketchbook, and then Tanya's creative mind journal project. I probably should be doing other stuff - working on my etsy store, finishing some orders, working on a couple of freelance design projects, and probably, more then anything else, answer e-mails, Which I haven't done in a really long time.

I've also really neglected the attempt to find a place to stay in Israel, I know Ned's frustrated with me about that, and I am to, but I just don't feel like talking or communicating at all lately, and all I want ot do is draw and paint all the time and do nothing else.

One of the coolest thing about working on the sketchbooks projects is that it got me to try new things, mostly working on 2 pages in one go, and making 2 drawings related to one another and not just stand on their own.

Sad

2009-10-23T18:15:00.001-07:00

I didn't want to talk to you, I didn't even want to be with you, I just wanted you to know that you hurt my feelings and that I'm sad.

Then you fall asleep on the couch, and left me feeling like I'm an actress on a stage in an empty theater.

Sometimes, it sucks when the person you love most is also your best friend, because there's no one to turn to once you have a fight.

A story and a giveaway

2009-10-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

I had so much stuff to do today! between a website I'm designing, a huge project Ned volunteered us to do and needs to be finished in a week, another website for a friend's band, packing some Etsy packages, making stuff for the shop, and a Special order for Ned's Mom and wanting to draw at least a couple of drawings today - the day seemed too short from when it was starting.

I decided to start with Ned's mom order, it the most fun project out of the bunch, and I could do it at a coffee shop and just tuned out from all the stress for a bit, before I dive in. A friend of her's just became a grandmother, and Ned's mom wanted a painting made specially for the new granddaughter.

The granddaughter have 5 different names, one of them is Rose, and one of them is Yael, which in Hebrew means a Capra, an animal sort of like a dear, so I decided to draw a Capra and some roses and write all the names on the drawings. Ned went home to do some phone calls, and I went to Blackbird Paurlor to work on the new painting.

It took about an hour and a half, then I put it aside on the chair next to mine, and started working on a second drawing for the day, feeling really great, that at least on of my tasks for the day is already done.

2 minutes later, a woman who got up from the table close to where I was sitting knocked a whole full bottle of water on the painting! the watercolor and pen all swirled together making a puddle of gray water that was dripping on the floor. The woman apologized a million times, and asked if I was going to sell the painting, offering to pay for it, but I felt like I just wanted her to get out of there. I blotched the painting with some paper and left it to dry till Ned got there. Still hoping to fix it, but after it was dry it was obvious that it just won't do.

The part that got destroyed the most was the names, they got totally smeared and became half not legible.

I tried to paint over it later at home, while working on a second painting for the granddaughter.

And so, I decided to give the blotch version, that i rather like now as a free givaway and a reminder to all of us that sometimes, we mess up and that's just how life goes.

For a chance to win this painting, leave a comment to this post and tell me about the last time you messed up, so I don't feel like I'm the only klutz in town...

I will raffle the winner on November 1st.

2009-10-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

I started to work on a website for a cool client a while ago, and really had to finish the homepage today. It's funny how HTML goes for me, I really hate making websites, until I'm into the project and then I love it.

And so, in order to not work on the website, I went to Pearl River today to get some more plates, went to draw for a bit in a coffee shop, and then made 8 different tapas plates, 4 with birds, and 4 with Koi fish.

Then it was really time to work, so I tackled the website and in about 5 hours of super concentration, the homepage was finally done.

Then I made some pasta, granola for Ned and took photos of the new plates.

I like those super productive days, but no matter how much I manage to finish, I still feel like I haven't done enough.

603

2009-10-19T20:56:00.001-07:00

603, originally uploaded by Aya Rosen.

Yay! I just crossed my sale target for the year with 2 and a half months left!

I want to celebrate with a big slice of cake, but I'm off sugar, so I guess I'll have to celebrate with Brussels sprout instead!

Zodiac

2009-10-19T00:38:00.000-07:00

Still working to master the new watercolors, the shades are a lot more vibrant, it's very strange to have so much color in my new drawings.

I'm an Artist now!

2009-10-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

No, really, and i have the ultimate proof for it, I own an artist grade watercolors.

OK, I'm laughing at myself a bit here, but only partly, partly I am serious.

This whole thing started a couple of months ago, when I started using Crimson instead of Rose madder to make purple because the Rose was running low. There was sitll some paint left and honestly, I could go on using this Winsor & Newton set for a while, but the notion that the rose will end one day (and the 2 blacks and the aquamarine, which were all running low) made me really nervous.

I've had this set since 2002 I think, I bought it after my previous set, A van-gogh I think, was lost after my backpack was stolen. I've been carrying it around with me most of the time since then. It visited 4-5 different countries and 3 continents. I've used it so much and still, there's enough paint in most of the pans to keep going. Usually, I don't buy anything new as far as supply is gone until the old stuff is all used, broken or lost.

And yet, a visit to an art store last week, trying to replace just the Rose and blacks, got me thinking about tools and different needs and commitments we make by investing in good quality supply. I went home tried ot do some reading and were missing a lot of info, strangely enough though the internet is full of info, there's still no real serious art supply review site!

Today, I went to a different store and got a really wonderful explanation and attention from one of the best art sellers in NYC. He made a really big effort in trying to describe the different in texture between different paint manufacturers (on pans, apparently not so much, aside of one manufacturer that uses honey mixed with a gum Arabic) and nature of the color, which is a really difficult thing to describe. I ended up buying a different brand then I intended to, Schmincke Horadam, and not the Artist Grade Winsor & Newton.

It was very odd to open the new set and then opening the wrapping on each pen, they look and feel just like candy or chocolate, and for a moment I though that maybe I should open just one color each day, just like I always swore to do at a kid when I got a new bag of candies (and always failed), there are 24 colors so that would be a month before i could actually use them so I gave up on the idea.

The other really strange thing is how, because they are so new and clean, my old batter set looks so much more impressive and professional then a brand new one.

I still feel really strange and mortified at the notion of spending a little over 200$ on paints. It's odd, I bought a 800$ camera last year and Ned and I just bought an extra light that was lamost 3,000$. But somehow, the idea of buying new paints because I'm a pro artist and should have pro artist equipment is really scary.

Now I just have to master the courage to actually use them.

What's going on?!

2009-10-06T23:32:00.000-07:00

Not quite sure what's going on today.

A lot of really great things happened in the past couple of days, this morning, we got an answer from Law & order about another shoot we are going to do for them. A couple of days ago I heard back from TONY about a submission I did for them through etsy. I might just got a new graphic client, and I have 2 other big graphic projects to work on. An etsy order to finish and a couple of other things I wanted to do, as well as start making Christmas related stuff for the store.

I don't know if I just got used to things going good with life, and sort of slow with work, and now that things are going good with work I feel some strange destructive need to feel disatisfied with life, but that's how I feel today.

With all the awesomeness of the good news, I feel like shit.

I'm pissed with Ned for no good reason, I'm angry about not accomplishing or finishing anything today, I don't feel like doing anything, and just want to feel sorry for myself.

Clastrophobic

2009-10-06T00:49:00.000-07:00

The train we were on got stuck today on the way to the city. It wasn't for too long, only a few minutes of standing, in a dark tunnel under the east river, waiting for a train ahead to move or something. After that it went on slower, until we were off the train.

I could feel myself not being able to breath, I know the air in the train would last a while, I know that really, the people stuck on the train aren't all going to suffocate and die, I know the train is just about to move, in a minute or two, but I just couldn't breath, I was sweating like crazy. Ned kept telling me that i'm allright and that we'll move in just a sec, and that I'm not alone. But non of it helped.

It's the book I'm reading now, in which a soldier get buried alive, it's Beau's funeral, viewing his body and knowing he can't breath, seeing the glistening glue the funeral home pasted his lips with, it's Gilad Shalit, in a smiling frame from that video tape from last week in the news sites, the tape I wouldn't watch cause the photo was bad enough. It's Ned's dad having to do more radiation because the tumor is not as dormant as the oncologist hoped. It's a phone call from my father telling me my sister's boyfriend is in the hospital.

Walking back home, from the city, still shaken, I'm looking at my owl tattoos, we got those in February, knowing that this year is going to be dark and difficult, and wanting a protective presence in our life. I'm thinking "the year of death is almost over" and I'm counting the months and trying to anticipate if by my langauge of symobls, it should end after a year from getting the tattoo, by new years or by Halloween.

Small and big reasons for pride

2009-10-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

last July, when we were finally switching the winter cloths for the summer ones, I went over all my cloths and got rid of everything I no longer wear.

There were a pair of pants, a jeans, that I got after my first break up with Amichai, that month, being so sad an anxious, I barely eat and lost so much weight non of my pants fitted me anymore. I bought 3 pair of pants one evening after work at the mall, they were all size 26. After the second break up I lost more weight and those pants who were very tight to start became loose to the point I needed a belt for them.

After moving to NY, I could still wear them, I think I actually still needed a belt, but as time went by and I got used to feeling less anxious and being happy and as I got used to Ned's way of eating, at first I didn't need the belt, then I couldn't fit in. They were left handing on the wall as a reminder of times when I was less fat. I really hated not fitting into them, but couldn't let go for about a year and a half - there was always some hope I'll fit in someday.

So that day in July, together with one pair of jeans with holes in them and another pair that I never liked, I sadly packed those jeans in a bag and dropped them at the salvation army store.

Fast forward to about a months ago, I found myself in Forever 21 and knowing it won't fit I bought a pair of jeans that was again, size 26. I don't know why. I felt really silly about it, I already have 2 pairs of jeans from the past couple of month and I don't need another one. I guess it was just too hard to accept the fact that I will not fit in a size 26 anymore.

Around the same time I made another attempt at the old project of starting to eat healthier \ less. Somehow this time, unlike a whole bunch of other attempts, it worked. I didn't give up on it after 3 days of starving myself, I didn't make a million rules and got anxious when I couldn't live through. I did find myself thinking more about food, but not entirely freaking out when I'm either hungry or when I eat too much.

in the beginning of the week I tried those pair of size 26 jeans and they fit! they are tight, I think they arr supposed to be tight bot not as tight as that, but still I could wear them, and breath at the same time.

Being proud of myself for being able to fit a size 26 jeans feels like a very silly and small reason to be proud of myself. But knowing that it's the first time in my life I actually managed to loose weight in a healthy way that just had to do with eating differently and not because I was depressed or something horrible happened in my life, feels like a pretty big reason to be proud of myself.

Beau

2009-09-28T15:23:00.001-07:00

, originally uploaded by The Arm.

I don't want to go down some memory lane and write down every single moment in which me and Beau met and interacted. Those casual moments, a random conversation in a random coffee shop or a car doesn't become suddenly meaningful just because that person is no longer alive.

I don't want to write about Beau's art, which I new a little bit or his music, of which I barely knew anything or about his friends and where he lived.

I don't want to start looking for signs in his art, or about a hidden meanings in lyrics or about how it's always the good people who die young and the unfairness of the world.

I was just wondering around flickr, and looking at a bunch of photos Dan, our downstairs neighbors just put up of his Friend Beau Velasco, an artist and a musicians that sometimes lived in the building and sometimes just hand out here. The photos looked sad to me, even though they were of fun moment, so I googled Beau's and learned that he just died.

I feel so sad and empty.

I haven't been especially close to Beau, but he was someone I was always happy to see, I liked how gentle he always seemed, and how cool it was to think of this quite awkward person on stage, or see both his very delicate airy painting and his old school style harsh tattoos as a part of one person's art work and personality.

I'll really miss seeing him around.

Pattern

2009-09-28T01:07:00.000-07:00

Every night the soul shutter to a million pieces
In the morning we weave back the pattern
over and over again.

I will never be as cool as you

2009-09-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

She's standing there, at the entry to the grocery store. One of those Williamsburg hipsters, with hair so blond in could be white and long bangs that hide her eyes. Wearing silver Doc Martin's and sheer pantyhose with holes in them, and a big dark gray hoodie that may, or may not have a skirt underneath.

I can't see her face, which makes me put the most beautiful face on her in my imagination. Or maybe, non at all, maybe just an idea of beauty, a promise of anonymous coolness that I can never hope to replicate.

It's not my skin, darker, more wrinkled, blemished, it's not my glasses, it's not those few extra pounds, or more then a few. It's not that I'm older, it's not the glasses, or maybe it's all of the above. Maybe it's that never in my life I felt like a cool person and that on me, pantyhose with holes in them would look like carelessness, while on her it looks stylish and cool.

I'm standing there, for a split second, looking at her. With my bag of tampons and yogurt and low fat icecream for Ned. In an H&M sweater that last year felt like a cood fashion choice and at that moment, feels like an old lady's cardigan. In my old sneakers, a pair of jeans that all of a sudden feels both too buggy and too revealing. Feeling that role of fat around my belly. my thighs.

It's strange to move from "I'm too old for THIS Shit" to "I AM too old for this shit".

blogging

2009-09-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

Ned accidentally erased his blog yesterday. He's trying to get more organized and in his attempt to get used to google calendar and Gmail, he somehow deleted his old account and lost his blog.

We were talking about it this morning, about how the purpose of online interaction has changed for us lately, the way the work and life mix and the things we choose to share with the world as well as how we choose to spend our time.

A few weeks ago, in a blog entry by YanivG, I came to realize something I was feeling for a while but ignoring. Flickr isn't fun anymore. what's more I don't feel incline to share too much in it. A lot of times before, when I went to do something exciting or just wonder around I would take a photo and the purpose of it was to put it in flickr so that my friends will see it. Now, I don't feel like that anymore, which is a shame, both cause I miss the community, and because it makes me take a lot less photos.

I haven't been blogging for a while, I mean, not really, I put up photos and some short texts, but I haven't been writing or sharing anything meaningful in this format for a while. I read a lot more blogs then before and I read al ot more on other type of websites and social networks, but I produce a lot less content in those formats, I make art, I put it on Etsy to sell, I'm promoting the shop as much as I can and updating our websites, but somehow I feel like the sense of community is mostly gone. Some of it moved into facebook, some replaced by human interaction. Mostly I feel more content to spend time with myself and feel the need ot share diminish.

The thought of Ned not blogging really scared me, I'm not sure why, maybe because I like blogging and I like being a part of the online world when I was more into it, and his choice to maybe not blog anymore made me admit defeat as well. Maybe it's because our public display of affection, him writing about me, taking my photos and spending time on expressing his love in a public way was very affirming to me. It made me feel protected, as if by making it public, he's making it real. Maybe it's the fear of loosing this almost objectifying-kinky-wild part of our relationship.

Today at blackbird, a guy tapped Ned's shoulder and asked him a random question, it turned out he wrote us an e-mail a couple of days before. He knows us from flickr and were impressed with our lives and art and photography. We set and talked with him and his partner for a couple of hours, it was a really wonderful experience. getting to know someone new in a random and cool way, based on a pretty deep knowledge of us from online. It really reminded me of the importance of public sharing and public expression of feelings, thoughts and images.

I'm not sure what's going to happened next. If I can get myself motivated to express myself in this way again, if photos and words can become as important to me as they used to be, and if that's even something I should aspire to, and if "should" is a word that should be used in matter of aspirations.

Things I found today

2009-09-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

Very odd day. A weird conversation, both honest and difficult with Ned this morning while waiting for food in Egg. Then hanging out drawing in Blackbird while Ned went home to make some work related phone calls. Then hanging out in Persiana and Ned at blackbird sharing geed news and passing time. Now at home.

I found a lot of cool things today in the vintage furniture store, on the street and in the hallway.

A very boring book without any photos or illustrations about birds. The paper however is beautiful. I think I'm going to use this in the next batch of prints.

A really sweet child portrait I found in the furniture store, it was 2$ but too cute and strange to leave in the store.

A set of 10 tiny photos meant as a tourist momentum from Frankfurt. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them, maybe use as a surface for small paintings. It was 3$, again at the furniture store.

A gift set including a book, a chart and a deck of what's called "The Universal Waite" tarot deck. The cards are basically a bad copy of the Rider-Waite Deck, that's render the colors in crayons and the figures with what's supposed to be a softer face, but actually just appear badly drawn to me. The back side, however is beautiful dark blue with gold stars. I really like that and might use it for small paintings as well.