I believe I finished the Japanese Garden. My teacher told me I was finished so it’s finished. I started on this old woman walking down a street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
The Lower East Side is interesting since it was once tenement slums and now it’s the home of young hipsters. About 7 years ago I asked this young (20ish) guy at my job where he lived. He said Orchard Street. HUH? How could he live on Orchard Street? He wasn’t a recent immigrant. He spoke English. I was so confused. Which is not an unusual condition for me. But I later found out that’s where all the cool people and hipsters were moving to when they weren’t moving into Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Who knew? Not I. And since I didn’t know I guess that excludes me from the following categories:
cool
hipster
Could be worse. Could be in this category:
dead
Whew. Not so bad after all.
This lady was cruising down the street, knocking people out of the way with her cane. She was sporting a giant ring and was wearing a hat at a jaunty angle. Good for her. However, it was a dark and stormy night. Ok, it wasn’t really, but that line always cracks me up. She was in shadow, and the foliage on the brick wall is actually a shadow of foliage. I will work on the all the shadows next time I go to class. Dark Shadows. Remember that show. I used to RUN home from grammar school to watch Barnabas Collins bare his fangs.
Here’s the Japanese garden finished:
I could have put a lot more detail into in, but thought it was ok the way it was.
There is a very funny website called www.graphjam.com. If you’re tired of doing all those TPS reports, as I am, stop for a moment and take a look. You’ll get a good laugh. Here’s an interesting graph from them about blogging. I thought it was right on. One always hopes that one’s blog would be at least in the purple circle, if not the tiny blue circle, but let’s face it. Most of our blogs are on the big pink circle and that’s the way it goes.
Graph by: raiderrobert via Graph Jam Builder
When we are old or dead will all our blogs be cluttering up the internet? Hmmm, I wonder.
9 comments
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May 26, 2009 at 11:45 pm
jimmyboi2
Love the garden and the deranged old lady ! Wouldn’t it be something if the old lady were inside the Japanese garden, disturbing all the Zen tranquility with her swinging cane and hat at a jaunty angle ?
I am fixated on my blog– it has that addictive STATS section, which goads me into trying and beating LAST months’ shits with THIS months hits. And for what? It’s really just one more thing to be anxious about, right? If my stats fall next month, does that mean I am less loved? NO, but I will convince myself that is what it means!!
Love your paintings and words <3 <3 <3
May 27, 2009 at 10:54 am
judylobo
I initially thought that old lady with the cane was me – about to swing it at some foolish young thing clogging up the sidewalk while on their cellphone or texting. Yesterday I watched a girl pace back and forth near my building screaming into her phone about her life, loves (or lack thereof) and any number of other rants that crossed her feeble mind. My dog Benny was afraid of her. I wanted to hit her with my imaginary cane. Oh – this is your blog – not mine, right? Love oyur paintings, love the blog and I am an uber-fan of graphjam. It makes me laugh everyday (as do you).
May 27, 2009 at 11:48 am
Bonnie Luria
So much in this post- where to begin?
First, I love the leaning slant of the elder lady ( can’t call them old ladies- I’ll be there myself all too soon ) and the shadows on the bench.
Last summer Lobo and I went to the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. My mother grew up there, telling me horror stories of her childhood. Even more horrifying to her now was her response when I called her from the corner of Hester Street and told her that the hovel she grew up in was now going for $3200 a month. With one fake brick wall to give it ” hipness “.
And this: from a Possibly Related Post:
Madonna Buys $40 Million Mansion in NYC
I bet it’s on Hester Street!
Love that graph.
May 27, 2009 at 4:42 pm
AKLizzy
I think Japanese Gardens looks great as is! The reflection in the water and cherry blossom tree are especially terrific!
The coverage of multiple (some would say random) topics made me laugh! Similar (although far more sophisticated!) to the lightning quick transitions of a verbal pre-schooler:
Mom, I’m wearing stripes.
Oh, a juice box!
Where’s my sister?
Stoli needs a bath.
Where’s the green car?
Where’s Nonnie?
I’m reading Princess book, Mom.
Daddy at work?
I’m not tired.
Goldfish for snack, today?
Where is Mrs. Yarbrough? (our neighbor)
We going to have pizza at your school?
Why?
I should visit graphjam.com and see if there’s a graph for topics covered by preschoolers =)
May 28, 2009 at 4:34 am
Sara
Love both the completed Japanese Garden and the new Old Lady on LES. One says “serenity now” and the other has a old world romantic glow to it. Speaking of LES, I used to work for a real estate developer that converted three old tenement buildings on Attorney Street into hip apartments back in 1998-9. When it was finished, a 300 sq. ft (it was more like 280 sq. ft. according to the floor plans filed with the DOB, but who’s counting?) studio was going for $1100 a month, and it was considered a deal. I was amazed that what was basically a closet with a window to the fire escape commanded such a price. The place was 80% rented out within a month of completion. Crazy NY real estate market!
Your last comment on the eventual fate of online content is very profound… maybe it will be transported to other galaxies with us once we figured out space colonization?
May 28, 2009 at 12:58 pm
cruthlarson
speechless. or, not quite, i am captivated by LES woman and wall – the dark of her skirt, her angle of balance in the frame (as bonnie wrote her “leaning slant”), the feel of the bricks, the benches, the shadows – and the lightness of the japanese garden
May 31, 2009 at 12:46 am
wrjones
Both nice paintings. The old lady really has potential to be one of your strongest pieces.
I think you’re cool.
Love the blog graph.
May 31, 2009 at 5:09 pm
swatch
I look forward to today’s update on your painting – I also think it is an exciting piece.
I am not sure about the graph. “Useful” to whom?? and and according to whose criteria?? Your blog is useful to me and so are a number of what may seem to be fairly arbitrary postings, according to the “them”out there. I love the feedback you get from all these people here. It is full of great insights to me. So – “doink!’ that’s this blog getting my “useful” stamp.
Of course this may not carry in the stats in our mediocrity crazed world where Tom Cruise’s (or whoever) twitter has millions of followers “so how was that last wind, Tom”
June 13, 2009 at 3:07 am
wrjones
I looked at the date on my calendar and decided you are falling behind. Grab a brush. Take a short nap first so you won’t be cranky.