Final Photo Roundup

Oh my, did it take me forever... But I finally uploaded the last of the Great Gull Island photos.  I have split them up into three sets.... You can see them below as slideshows, or you can visit here.

Stereogranimator

A fun new toy from the folks at NYPL....














I did a search for "Brooklyn" and "New York", and found many fascinating old images, including one that was taken very close to where I live now, taken in the late 1800's....









From the NYPL website:

"If you look through enough old photographs, you might notice that many from before 1900 come in seemingly-identical pairs. What you may not realize is that these pairs were meant to be viewed together, each side lending the other a sense of depth that a photograph alone cannot possess. Stereoscopic photography recreates the illusion of depth by utilizing the binocularity of human vision. Because our two eyes are set apart, each eye sees the world from a slightly different angle. Our brains combine these two different eye-images into one.  Stereoscopic views, or stereographs, consist of two nearly twin photographs -- one for the left eye, one for the right. Viewing the side-by-side images though a special lens arrangement called a stereoscope helps our brains combine the two flat images and "see" the illusion of objects in spatial depth.

Using stereoscopes, the entertainment-seeking public of the 19th century immersed themselves in these 3D photographs in a manner akin to how we now view movies, video games or cellphone screens."

Brooklyn Sunsets

All photos taken between Degraw Street and Pier 1.

From Polish Paper Cutting to Album Covers

Charcoal, pencils and colored pencils have always felt more comfortable for me to use over a paintbrush.  Over time I've been able to refine my painting skills, but I always preferred the detail and versatility (and portability) of the pencil.  But at times I found myself limited by the pencils and wanting bold swaths of colors, without having to pick up a paintbrush.  So about seven years ago I started to experiment with cutting out some of my artwork in pencil/charcoal and mounting it. 

In this case, I used origami paper squares.  [Yes, I was an origami-folding nerd.  Still am on occasion!]...  

When I started painting more often in recent years, I found myself again combining different media, wanting the best of all worlds.  This time incorporating my photographs and mounting on canvases or panels.  I wanted the ultra-realism of the photos, the bold colors and textures of the paint and canvas, the detail of the pencils and charcoal, and exact paper-cutting to get the shapes, depth, and positive and negative spaces that I was after. 

"Lisboa 2": photo paper, acrylic, colored pencil on canvas

So where am I going with all this?  It took me a while to figure out where my preoccupation with intricate paper cutting was likely coming from: wycinanki [vee-chee-NAAN-key].  The curves, the colors, the symmetry, the detail...all mesmerizing, almost psychedelic.  Although I could never compete with these Artisans of the Colored Paper, I have since childhood admired them and it has slipped out of my subconscious into my artwork, albeit quite distortedly.

Some great examples of the Polish folk art of paper cutting:

          

      

                    

I bring this up now because I recently finished working on the album cover for my super-talented sister, Ashia Grzesik's, upcoming EP release...

We both decided separately and subconsciously that it should have a subtle Polish/Eastern European feel, so it includes some more obvious imagery along with what I will call "modern wycinanki".  It combines all of my favorite mediums: paper, colored pencil, charcoal, acrylic paint, photography.

A step-by-step of the process:

Working out the basic "bison" design on pen and paper... 

 

It wasn't until I was researching pictures of wycinanki for this post that I realized that maybe it wasn't such a random choice to do a semi-symmetrical design, as I had originally thought :)



Completed bison design with watercolor pencils and charcoal...

               

Most of the cutting done...

Framing the photo (The Dead Sea, taken June 2009)...

Photo and bison design mounted on the painted canvas...

It's funny how certain things from your childhood and cultural heritage creep in and infiltrate your creative labors without you realizing it, at least at first.  

NYC: Take 2

After two years of living in Chicago, I will be moving back to New York City come January.  I moved to NYC in 2002 and enjoyed living there, but when I was laid off from my job in August of 2008, I was ready to leave.  I needed a change and my boyfriend lived in Chicago. But every time I went back to NY for a visit, it always felt like I was coming "home".  None of my family lives where I grew up anymore in WA state.  And after being a bank teller, putting myself through college, a marriage, a divorce, starting over, getting a great job, losing the great job, I did a lot of growing up in New York.  It's seen my failures and successes and therefore we have grown closer together. Sometimes you really do need to get away and look at things from afar to have them come into focus.  I know, I know...I'm gettin' all dramatic.  

I'm excited for my return to New York, albeit with a heavy heart.  Chicago was very good to me: in addition to the great friends I made that I will always hold dear, I was able to take the time to work on myself and pursue things that I never could get around to in NY. I know that I'll be coming back to New York in a better place mentally than where I would be had I never left.

So here is a small collection of photos taken between 2005 and 2010, mostly from my old neighborhood, as a tiny homage to my former and future hometown...

W 9th Street, Brooklyn

                

Red Hook Roof Dog, Brooklyn

                  

Carroll Gardens

Smith/9th Sts. Station

The Seafoam Waters of the Gowanus Canal

DUMBO

Bond St, Brooklyn

Coney Island (R.I.P)

Atlantic Ave Ferry Terminal

Bond St, Brooklyn

Meat-Packing District

3rd St Bridge, Brooklyn

Outside My Bedroom Window, W 9th St

Love At First Site

Stumbled upon this woman's photography.  She's Ukrainian and lives in Brooklyn.  Maybe we're long lost soul sisters?  OK, maybe that's not enough to go on, but still, her photography is eerie and beautiful.
Victoria Sorochinski

The Red Admirals Meet Their Watery Grave

This may seem unrelated and random, but I thought I would share this unusual phenomenon that happened to me over the weekend.  I plan on turning this into some sort of photographic project.

I just got back from an amazing trip to the Saugatuck, MI area.  I was able to do some real communing with nature there, some of it unexpected.  My boyfriend and I spent a day relaxing at the Saugatuck Dunes State Park beach, which is a mile hike in from any road.  While walking where the surf meets the sand, I noticed something strange.  I kept seeing butterfly wings stuck in the sand.

Upon closer inspection I found dozens of butterflies, or just butterfly wings, scattered along the beach.  It wasn't long until I found a butterfly being battered by the incoming waves and ran to find a stick that it could grasp onto.  I fished it out and placed it on dry sand.  I didn't really know what was causing this mass grave, though I did find that some of the butterflies I came across were still alive!  Their wings would be wet or laden with sand so they were immobilized; the incessant waves eventually drowning them because they couldn't fly out of their reach.

I spent probably the next hour or so walking up and down the beach looking for and carefully digging out these Red Admiral butterflies, as I later found out they were called.

In the end I think I might've dug out about ten Red Admirals that were eventually able to fly off into the grassy dunes.  It was amazing to watch them pump their wings to dry them off so the rest of the wet sand could fall off of them.  I was lucky to be able to get so close to them and take loads of pictures, though frankly many weren't in any position to protest.  These are just a few (unedited) pictures that I snapped.

I'm sure there is some easy explanation for this circumstance, like that the butterflies would just go down to the lake to drink the water, only to get caught by a wave and brought down to a waterlogged death.  But so many of just one species at one time?