MTA - serving believers since 1827
Last days at the beach
And unexpectedly summer ended
Back to painting
I am so happy to be able to sit down and paint my favorite things - walls! And textures! This is going to be the second painting in my Brooklyn series :)
Brighton Beach mamacitas
I wish I didn't have to leave the beach.... There were so much more to capture ;)
Big pea
Working on a future sticker for the gate of a jewelry store. The pea will be filled with jewels :)
Brooklyn series
So I will be working on a series of paintings featuring Brooklyn landscape. It is something of a personal project. For some reason I really love industrial lookin areas as well as old buildings and odd placement of them in this ever changing hood. This is work in progress on the first painting.
Winter
Happy family
The Moth
So I listen to a lot of podcasts while I sketch. One of them is called the Moth. This podcast is composed of stories told by regular people. Some are funny, others are heart felt but all have something that you can relate to.
I knew that the event that this podcast spins off of takes place in various venues across the states and I decided to go see it life, next time it comes to NYC. The particular Moth I ended up going to was held at Bell House in Brooklyn and the theme of the night was Ambition.
After surviving a long line to get in, I and multiple Brooklynites of all ages and shapes packed in into the venue. A funny and a bit intimidating host explained that there are 10 stories to be told however there are 14 contenders who would like to pitch their tale and so a name will be drawn out of the bag which will determine who gets to come up on stage. Each storyteller has a 5 minute frame to tell their story and additional minute to wrap it up. There were 3 groups of judges- regular folks who submitted their condidacy and who would determine whose tale is the best at the end of the evening. As much as I love listening to the moth on the radio, nothing beats a life performance and I can't wait to go to the next one at the end of the month. I think this was the first time in 17 years living in NYC that I felt unity and over all sense of genuine friendliness at a public space. And out of places - in Brooklyn! It was great to be a part of such experience. And so here are some faces I was able to capture at the event.
Big Fish Nicolo in Brooklyn
I have a friend. An amazing friend actually. His name is Nicolo.
We met last summer in Puerto Rico at a hostel in Rincon. At that particular moment in time i was going through a crisis of a lost wallet with everything in it and nothing to back it up with. Courtney, a wonderful surfer girl who i have accidentally hitchhiked a ride with from the other side of the island a few days earlier was leaving back home to Washington which meant i was stuck in Puerto Rico without any means, transportation or a familiar face. Nicolo not only had the patience to listen to my crazy sad ramble about the coconut and the wallet that i have left on top of the car's hood to take a picture with the above mentioned damned coconut but also a human desire to help. We convinced Mat, a professional diver who i have met at Lucky 13 BBQ the night before, to lend us his car while he was flying out to Florida to get his visa to work in Italy at Concordia Shipwreck, to get to the nearest bank. As i learned in the process, PR's banks are not really affiliated with Bank of America but Western Union is very helpful and could be found in big supermarkets. After all these shenanigans and a successful money transfer, Nicolo and i rented a car and spend the last days of my vacation riding around the mountain ranges, going to the world's biggest Observatory, swimming with glowing plankton, surfing and enjoying good food.
Sometimes you don't need a life time to find a true friend; sometimes you just need a few days and good old 80's music to bond over. Nicolo and i became very good friends. He visited me in NYC in November and we hoped around trying out variety of cuisines and celebrating Thanksgiving together with my mom. During my recovery from knee surgery later that year he not only skyped me to listen to me cry but would send me a song everyday to keep my spirits up, reminding me that it will all be better soon.
So most recently i received a package from him from his vacationing on Bali ( lucky bastard ) in which along with a lot of cool things was this amazing wooden fish. It inspired me to do something....and here are the beginnings - Big Fish Nicolo coming to Brooklyn... will be finished soon :)
Brooklyn view
I forgot how nice it is to take a walk on the Brooklyn side.
