An Ode to Lost Items of Clothing

Kabakov beat me to an idea that I've always wanted to do. In NY I feel at least once a week I find a lost item of clothing, a hat, a glove, a jacket. I've always to photograph them and then display them publicly throughout the city in places you might find the item like a photograph of a glove laying on the sidewalk. I always think of the people who lost an item of clothing and wonder how much time passed before they realized it was gone?

Kabakov and the Antenna

I'm kinda in love with this installation. Grass laying is by far one of my favorite past time and some of my life's best moments have happened laying in the grass on a sunny day watching the clouds go by.

This installation is of an Antenna. In between the antenna wires are the words,

"My Dear One! When you are lying in the grass, with your head thrown back, there is no one around you, and only the sound of the wind can be heard and you look up into the open sky --there, up above, is the blue sky and the clouds floating by--perhaps this is the very best thing that you have ever done or seen in your life."

In the explanation of the piece the words are supposed to glitter in the sun similar to a spiders web when the sun hits its silky threads. I can picture this clearly and it sounds quite beautiful. I like the play on nature vs. man made structures and how a man made structure like the antenna interrupts the skyline but then tries to make up for it by imitating nature. Like spider webs that cannot be seen well without light reflecting off it, I imagine the words in between the antenna's wires cannot be seen well if the sun isn't hitting them just right. It's almost a secret that only those who are patient enough can share in and enjoy.

An antenna is an icon of modern communication except this one is in the middle of nature and is designed to "speak" to one person and one person only, the grass layer. I love this twist on communication and makes me think that even though we are all connected by the Internet, cell phones, satellites, antennas etc. when I'm on my phone or on my computer I feel like it's just me talking to one other person, maybe two if I'm "gchatting" but either way it's an extremely personal thing.

I really wish Spring would hurry up, I miss grass.

spring cleaning came early

So the room switch has happened and then gone back to normal. I decided about half way through unloading my room that rearranging the furniture to a configuration that would be livable was not going to happen based on the size of my room. So I decided it would be more amusing to set up a modern art inspired installation that could sit at MOMA and people would ponder for hours what the significance of a stack of empty Shredded Wheat boxes beasted by a Grape Nuts box is. My roommates and I came up with various different anecdotes the winning one being:

The installation captures natures constant battle with confinement and metallic urban sprawl. This parallels a persons struggle living within the city which makes the bedroom location extremely profound. The reflection of consumerism outside natures barren cell suggests consumerism is mocking nature in triumphant but has a darker insecure side that is reflected. The mattresses against the wall conclude we are all living in an insane asylum and are a node to padded walls.
I think we are on to something here.....

But overall I actually really enjoyed this project....I think mostly because it gave me a chance to clean my room which brings me great joy. Although finding a cockroach was less then ideal and I will admit I freaked out for a good ten minutes!

I found this to be very therapeutic in a way. And while I put my room back exactly how it was before it was really nice to have to go through everything and clean and trash things. My room feels lighter now.

The Transformation

Old Room



New Room


The Process

the things you find in your room that you didn't want to know existed and now will prevent me from sleeping in this apartment comfortably ever again

ok wait, some more procrastination

Nicole sent me this link in a response to the NY Grand Central Station Freeze that I posted. Is it wrong that this amuses me so much!

it begins

so i have to start messing up my room.....i've been avoiding it until now. i keep changing the colors of my blog instead, i have commitment issues.......

in case you need another reason to love NY

Is a photograph a space?

hmmmmmm my first instinct is to say no. a photograph is a 2-D object, a piece of paper really. but then i think well if a photograph can evoke some kind of feeling or transport the viewer into a space of thought then maybe the image its self could be considered a space......actually i'm still thinking its not. maybe its just a mechanism to get into a space. is a novel a space, or a painting? the actual tangible object i don't think is, but the feeling one gets from it could be considered a space, a mental space. because i think spaces are more abstract and photographs are abstractions from reality then maybe a photograph is the closest thing to a tangible space. maybe a photograph exists in the realm of language which i believe is a space. language is not tangible or geographic or physical but it's real, it connects people to one another, its abstract, and it transports people. shared lingual spaces exist and different languages arise but those who speak the same language share the same communicative space. because you don't need to be able to speak or hear in order to look at a photograph, photos are spaces on their own that transcend all language.......ahhhh i still don't know if they are spaces and all this is making my head hurt!!

X/Y

It's 10 am on Sunday and the church bells are ringing, a signal that at this time one is supposed to be in a certain place and time and place are tied to each other. In the question what is place? and what is space? I feel like place is a geographic location ie. home, school, church, the sidewalk. Space is something less defined. But all places are spaces as well. Kind of like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. An apartment or store is a space as well as a place. But spaces can also be intangible. One can feel like she is in a "good space" or a "bad space." This claim may be based on energy flows or karma. You can also share space with someone. For example living with someone. Physically and geographically you share a "place": furniture, plates, the bathroom. But you also share "space" with each other which is something much more complex. When you live with some one you know their habits, what they like, how not to piss them off, you exist in a shared space where two individuals have to exist together on a plain (side note I just had to look up if it should be "plane" or "plain" in this context but couldn't find the answer) elevated from the physical. If a roommate leaves and a new person comes there is an undoubtedly an awkward transition period where even though the place and physicalness of it has not changed, the space has changed. Now you have to learn all over again how to function in this new space with a new person.

When you add the equation of time then your mind is blown all over again. Right now its 10:26 am Eastern Standard time. It's also 5:26 pm in South Africa or 17h26 because they use the 24 hour clock. My mind exists in both spaces. I am always consciously aware of what time it is in South Africa and what the people I care about are doing. I imagine schools, apartments, roads, parks that I know exist on the other side of the world and can transport myself not to the geographic place but into the space that I remember feeling there. I go back and forth wishing my mind wasn't split into these two time zones and loving the idea that a part of me still longs to be someplace else and working to fulfill that longing and return. This gives me a sense of balance but also a sense of instability and open-ended confusion.

I think people can find stability in spaces and places but can also feel instable and off balanced if a shift occurs. NY I think is a place where people find great comfort and great fear. It's also a city where everyone seems to be in transition from one place to the next. When I leave the city and then return I feel a sense of comfort returning to a place that I am familiar with and also the space of the ciy and the energy that comes with it. I was at Whole Foods the other day and a man in line behind me struck up a conversation about the Soy milk I was holding. We ended up leaving the store together and walking to the subway (the greatest example of a transitional place) talking the entire time about Soy Milk! After we parted ways I felt the space around me was altered. Everyone seemed to be smiling. Do you ever notice that all of NY shares the same mood. On the subway people are all really pissed off, or happy and polite and this sets the tone for the rest of the day.

.............I don't think this makes any sense at all!

countless numbers of beds

From moving to NY in August 2004 until now I have moved 11 times and slept in more beds in more places than i can keep count of. It occurred to me about two years ago while sleeping on a floor in South Africa that i should take a picture of all the beds i have slept in even if for just one night. I have not done this and its a regret of mine. I am OCD about my bed. I shower every night because the thought of getting into bed without being clean unsettles me.

I feel like the last 4 years of my life has been one transitional space to the next. I have this dream that one day I will be able to fit all of my belongings into a backpack and be able to get up and go when the moment takes me. I still have quite a bit of downsizing to do but I think I will get there.


My parents live an hour and a half outside the city. I didn't grow up there but I did some years of my high school career there. I really disliked the town. When I would be bored or hating life as many 16 year olds do I would paint on my wall. But now they are planning on moving and my bedroom just got painted. I will see it in a week when I go back to visit for a weekend. I had to take everything off the walls. My bed in their home is a water bed. Most people think this is weird mixed with cool mixed with comments about getting seasick.












My room in NY right now is perhaps the most transitional but also the most comfortable I have ever felt in any of my NY homes. I have no idea how long I will be here but I know it wont be long before I move on again. This makes me sad because it's an apartment and room that I actually feel is mine. Even though I have only lived here for 6 months I feel like a lifetime of events have happened and my apartment and my bed have been a solace as well as a discomfort. I am obsessed with my bed here.

I've always been nomadic to the point that living in one place for longer than a few years makes me a bit uneasy. I don't have a home town, a neighborhood street that I grew up on. I think that's why I am so obsessed with my bed and my rooms because I make them into homes that I get attached to for the time I spend in them and then I move on which oddly enough is not too terribly hard to do. It is a bit sad that my room at my parents house is no longer there. And I'll be sad to let this one in NY go.

Meditate on Whatever Causes A Revolution in Your Mind

I'm cleaning my room and I just found that line scribbled on an Apple Soho Store business card. I remember reading it somewhere and scrambling in my room for something to write it on and the Apple card must have been the closest thing. I was in the Apple store yesterday getting my computer checked out and my "Genius" is an electro-pop musician. He thinks Daft Punk might be the worst band ever.

on writing

an article I find particularly great

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=david%20grossman&st=nyt&scp=5ell

pretty background picture?

hey gang. i noticed some of you have pictures behind your title or don't have a title and just have a picture in that top section....can someone tell me how to add a pretty picture behind my title?
thank you kindly

i told my roommates we played "tackle the teacher" in class today, their facial expressions were pretty priceless

technology: friend or foe?

it took me 2 hours to post 6 pictures three of which are supposed to be vertical but refuse to be so. i thought this was supposed to simplify my life.......

NY Reflections