Let's Visit the Subway! Post contains neither Pope nor Muppets

seated, after stink eye from NYC travelers

There were numerous causes for anxiety over Labor
Day weekend: flying with a baby, sleeping next to a baby, balancing Javier's theater-work needs, 2 hour breastfeeding cycle, sightseeing and socializing; carting about a car seat, stroller, playpen, etc.; flying with a baby...I raised hesitations frequently enough with Javier that he came close to barking at me; at which point, I quieted down* and eventually relaxed slightly, because let go and let god, right?

*to him
 
But all worry aside (or because of, if you're anxiously superstitious) the weekend wound up

monkey on his back. slightly excited.

being a graaaaaand week's vacation: spent nourishing time with loved hosts (including night time dining on their Astoria rooftop, tralalala), Fun Home was the most fitting musical adaptation that could have been brought to life from Alison Bechdel's graphic novel, the Public Theater's Odyssey adaptation was spectacular; and the Sparrow's brunch served up rummy egg creams and croissant french toast, while the Baby made eyes at various patrons hunched on barstools.

too young: dazzled by sports bar mega-screen

keeping close watch on suspicious little human with rattle

indifferent to Eyez in Astoria

Long Island City

Long Island City

With so much bloggy fodder, who would suspect a post about a subway station? And who am I? Is it true, that in my middle age (*cringe*) I have suddenly adopted my father's fanatical love of trains (and trolleys. subways are fine; but buses are inferior and good lord noooooo, not those horrid buses masquerading as vintage trolleys for undiscerning tourists). Hardly. I certainly do appreciate the independence afforded by a well developed mass transit system, and being the driving wimp that I am, you won't find me driving in major cities. But the thrill of an engine, the developments over model years, the (/im)precision of timetables? Not so much. But throw in some public art and I'm in. I have been struck by several airport art exhibits in the past and counted myself lucky to have taken part in the University of Michigan Hospital's "Gifts of Art" program a few years ago. Even when the art fails to resonate for me, I appreciate that it was created and funds were freed up to put the works in front of a broad cross section of the population, going about their days. While art installations in public venues are not quite the same thing as the designer's urge to unite an object's beauty and utility, it's not far off. To me, the existence of such programs affirm the psychological boon of encountering art, even if momentarily, casually. Maybe even better if casual? Art without a rarefied gallery air, art as backdrop, which will come to the foreground if given a moment's pause. Even if only one in several hundred passers-by give a few moments of focused attention, it's a worthy program. 

And so it is, with some fabulous subway stops. The MTA Arts for Transit Design Team and American Museum of Natural History finished their collaborative renovation of the 81st and Central Park West stop in 1999. The uptown and downtown stairways and platforms explore animal life, the earth's geology and (less so) the heavens, and are collectively titled "For Want of a Nail," as in:

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”  -- Benjamin Franklin

(there are apparently all manner of variations of this, over the centuries. While not speaking to the neglect aspect -- not maintaining the horseshoe -- this also makes me think of the Butterfly effect)

The ornate tile work below is hinted at by these uptown stair parrots

Blurry, but beckoning.

Quail, shadowed by an extinct species. This brilliant "shadowing" was done throughout

Echidna? or more likely kiwi...

 

This alligator (crocodile?) was my favorite, with the lower part of its body and tail spelled out with the dun colored floor tiles. I could have spent so much more time with these designs! But we were on a mission to catch the Odyssey in Central Park. So on we marched, with me exclaiming and Javier noting we could return this way (but alas, we were more tired and focused on returning to La Bebe by night's end). More details and images here and here. The downtown stop was devoted to very touchable fossil casts -- quite cool -- but the glass tiles are what I most loved.

Each tile piece is well incorporated with surroundings

star tiles also lovely.

Mundane by comparison, but the curvy letters quite appealing

What an 8! How about that S??

Midweek Caffeination, Baby Eats up the Months

FVBP, with good quality foam

I'm just not sure about the Songbird Cafe's California Roll on Brioche sandwich. Which hasn't kept me from eating it, especially since there are no tiny hands scrabbling for it with each approach to my mouth. Order something fusiony, get something fusiony. This characteristic also seems to be the defining one for this cafe: latte, yes, but Cardamom Rose latte (Compatriot's mention of which lured me to Songbird initially), latte, yes, but Fig Vanilla Black Pepper latte. Similarly, the new, modern light fixtures and jaunty chalkboard wall menu are out of sync with the ugly bones of what used to be the Flim-Flam, a down-at-the-heels diner which limped along for many years before giving up the ghost. Minor oddities aside, being an upscale cafe (with fine espresso drinks, no mistake) within a strip mall on the North Side of Ann Arbor means a wealth of interior roominess* plus easy parking. "Oh," a local proprietor assured me, "The Songbird is the nicest thing in a kind of janky stretch!"

Misfits, at reasonable prices

It's a prime location for me for this week's Dumpling-at-the-office-day, without the worry of meter feeding or any cafe owners trying to stop me from my laptop domination of a two-top. We laptop table-hogs are legion, but here, fields of space remain.

*Let the baby stroller invasion commence! Biding my time.

I had many studio-ish tasks lined up today, but almost all were located in our basement and it's a BEEEEEYOUTIFUL Summerfall day, and spending too much time inside my own house is warping me. So! Delivered some printmaking cards and set myself up here. Expressly to write, though the sad, sad activity that I almost always fall into first is flipping through recent photographs of my baby. Is part of me dying for today's separation? No. And yet, look, this expression is different from that one, and looook, even though this is blurry, it's kinda great because you get such a sense of her little baby BUSY-NESS. Oi. It doesn't help that she's turning 6 months old on Friday; hard to fathom how half a year has passed and this requires further image perusing. I have watched Javier watch videos of the baby, while the baby wiggled on a blanket, gazing up at him; I have done the same. Love makes a fool of you, parenting version? My sister is also coming tomorrow and baby documentation will enter overdrive -- she has been charged with getting new videos for our parents to watch on repeat; and our entire family is a bit ridiculous with documentation to begin with. So.

The moment following month-sticker application

I know I must eat it, but still I worry.

Adhesive means nothing to me

Here I demonstrate my sloppy-burrito technique

******

And here we are, a day later, Sister is safely here and watching Dumpling roll about on the floor, scouring the (low) horizons for new things to gum. She is speaking to her about her 6 month birthday tomorrow; Baby seems currently unimpressed by this. There have already been more photos taken of her than she will ever be able to fathom; more images liked and commented on. I really can't comprehend how many people have held and cooed at my child already, in her life. Don't you remember adults telling you things like,"More people love you than you will ever know?" and this resonating not at all? I remember hearing something like this, and it making no sense to me. "They watched you grow up!" How could that be, when I barely knew this adult, who I seemed to be meeting for the first time. They didn't know me. They seemed strangely invested. I didn't have words for it. And here and now, all these people with connections to Baby, however fleeting... The outer circle, maybe, their day was brightened momentarily. But the inner circle (whose circumference is far larger than I ever would have thought) is peopled with those who seem to love this new little being, whose personality is just emerging. Loved before known.

You Are: Capable and Dependable, Fun and Calm! We Are: In Flux, In Flux, In Flux

not my baby

I have been reading about separation anxiety. It makes me anxious. Currently, Dumpling is happily indiscriminate: barring diapering and nursing needs, if you get in her face and smile at her, she will eventually laugh silently or beam up at you. Programmed to delight and be delighted. Heh-heh-heh laughs aren't reliable, but are on the upswing; often, she will become utterly blown away by something unremarkable to the rest of us, her eyes grown huge, her mouth a tiny oh, or a dropped open laundry chute. She freezes in anticipation of the next puzzle piece. And she thinks you hold it in your possession. You may give it to her, or you may simply distract her from the current mystery, with a tickle bout or a pendulum swing through the air. Interpersonal connection goes hand in hand with navigating this mystifying life.

But soon, I am led to believe, the baby's sociability will narrow down to only mother or father -- perhaps a few more -- in terms of acceptable friendlies. While I find Baby's spider monkey tendencies endearing in limited form (i.e. removing her from a cloth baby carrier is tricky, as moments after you unpeel her tiny fingers from one rung of side ties, they wrap themselves around the next rung of ties), I cringe at the idea of our future leave-takings heralded by wails of outrage or desparation. And more specifically, what about when this scenario occurs when I am still in the house, with a trusted someone watching the baby, so I can carve or sketch or write? How can I wall it away and pretend my endeavors are weightier than her (fleeting or extended) fear/anger/upset? Where does one purchase a guilt deflection cape? I have been told that as a mother, I will always feel: guilty, inadequate, behind/overwhelmed, with a tinnitus-like background noise of incessant worry. Well luckily, I say, none of those feelings are new. Yes, they say, but this is *different*. Well. Hmm. 

In any case, the key to partially outwitting the separation anxiety (stranger danger!) is to get loved ones and caregivers solidly into the inner circle before the gates shut. Cue the conversation wherein our primary helper tells me about a second interview for a desired full time position closer to her home; which would nix our late afternoon hours. The nerve of people moving around, after one has acclimated to them! Back to the drawing board. Since then, another very fine candidate (gushing recommendation from a daycare owner : "...And it's not just that SHE is excellent, her ENTIRE family knows babies. I would clone her if I could ~~") calls to apologize -- she has also secured a great new full time job and will be moving to Troy, MI, next week. Another seems enthusiastic and sensible during the initial phone call, only to fall silent afterward. Another interviewee seems...mostly? okay...and is quite persistent, but her references never call me back, which seems disquieting. Still, there are good possibilities, but too much seems in this process, just like the hateful online dating. I can no longer discount that, as it brought me Javier. Eh, eh, eh. So um, I hereby summon synchronicity!...That's not quite it, is it? That almost magical coming together of things that fit...Synergy? No. Serendipity, Javier offers. Yesssssss. Again with the seeming: is it a bad sign that I couldn't remember the word on my own? But perhaps it will come together. A new person to help, the magical time to think and create, preserved; Baby kept happy and healthy; all three of us, sane and grateful for it all.

So far, Baby has held true to her current, amiable form. Javier has started taking her to his office once a week, which has been good for growing her fan club members (up with morale, down with productivity!). On those days, when Javier and I eventually speak, Baby is usually gurgling in the background; smiling at everyone and salivating over (/under) the dangling teddy bears of the away-team pack n' play. So far, we seem to be in some early parenthood fairytale land. Not sure how we arrived exactly here; or who holds the crucial puzzle pieces....Or no. We *must* have the puzzle pieces, though some are likely lost, hiding in Javier's car, buried under a winter scarf avalanche... I predict we'll need to break out the jigsaw blades to jerry rig pieces that just.won't.fit.

Happy Moments Plentiful, Happy Hours Rare

Marissa didn't lie about the Kunde Zinfandel. Lov-er-ly.

Weheeeeelll, so I was going to post a flurry of photos, but I am on Vinology's dodgy internet connection, and was, perhaps, overambitious, and clogged it. So I'll start without visual aids... As of yesterday, we are ONE WEEK shy of Baby being 5 months old, which brings us close to almost half a year of Dumpling's existence, which is hard for me to fathom. Today is Baby's day at the office, which meant I woke her up a teensy bit early for her for a good nursing session and then waited for Javier to get his things together and be off. He couldn't help it -- at whatever stage, he kept wandering over. Him, in his bath towel, leaning in, "DADDY" pointing inward,"loves BABY" pointing to her. She gasped and gazed upward, starstruck, pistoned her legs. Her body struggled to convey how utterly exciting he was. "Come ON," I said, "Let's go~~" He harrumphed and eventually got himself and the baby gear good to go, and was off in time for Fresh Air.

Which left me a little time to finish up a new batch of cards before meeting a new artist friend for afternoon tea. Not bad! The past couple days have been a visit to my old existence: yesterday -- > hair cut, followed by a leisurely browse about Salvation Army (with new tweaks of looking for dresses that would A.) make me feel like a properly dressed person while also B.) easily allowing me to whip out my breasts at Baby's whim; plus a fabulous "update" text from babysitter letting me know they had a nice walk, looking at leaves and shadows, and such). Today, extended cafe socializing as if one didn't have many time constraints, followed by Hallelujah! a Happy Hour glass of wine and Thai chicken flatbread outside, because the almost-Fall weather was too beautiful to defy by going back to the house, and down into the basement for carving...

So heartening to be making new connections now in the midst of some new-Motherhood isolation, especially with fellow creative folk (new friend referred to us collectively as Makers, a term I have certainly heard before, but had not applied to myself. I guess I associated this with more technology/cool geekery/rebellious creativity. But I much prefer it to "Artist," which I sometimes cringe from, for my own neurotic reasons; and which reaction has brought flak. But do I, we, make things? Most definitely! And it also carries with it the practicality, too, doesn't it? It conveys a sense of proactive being in the world, which I most definitely appreciate. Ahem.)

***Back at the house. With count-down to Dumpling arrival, behold some card designs:

Favorite color schemes right now

Toss up between which decorative paper is better. Table rim a big change in feel

Hopeful and happy to me

My ever-apprehensive woman, from the online dating print

A side design for the Cakeasaurus Picture book, guest appearance as card

Bonus shot, with Fisher Price Chime Ball

"You Told Me to Come Heavy..."

"...So I did, but I don't want to use it" -- Tony Soprano, to Junior.

Revisiting The Sopranos, season one, to focus myself during carving this time.

 Tony is trying to manage both his mother and Junior.

In one of my favorite episodes-I-had-forgotten-about, Tony is taking Meadow around on a college tour when he sees a potential informer enrolled in the witness program -- which needs to be addressed -- Meadow is astounded by her Dad's outrage over her confessed drug use, which she somehow though he'd take calmly, since he (kinda) admitted to being in the mob; meanwhile, Carmela is snuggling up to her weaselly father (religious, not familial) as they drink wine and watch movies together. Woohoo, bring on the moral relativism! When Javier and I were addicted to Breaking Bad, this was always what we returned to -- how adeptly the series explored increasingly fraught moral ambiguities. Based on the best TV out there, there seems to be no getting away from it. It would seem that this lay at the heart of almost all great, compelling Art.

And of human identity? Surely even the most lily white among us departs from the written rules, at some point? Bahhh, easy to delve into, easy to set aside, as one is carving in the basement, on a Sunday evening. This two-page spread marks our initial view of our young protagonist, Quimby.

Ready for a test print!

Seemed fitting to break out a meat tenderizer, with Soprano viewing

Here be dragons!...of a sort.

New Pencils, Pristine Erasers, and Alluring Paper Birds

Next week I'm taking a drawing basics workshop to freshen myself up a bit, so this afternoon I popped over to Hollander's with my art supplies print out. So gratifying! I have a specific need to purchase new art supplies, outside my normal card-making and print-pulling realms. The best part of that first-day-of-school feeling, with none of the worry about buses or rosters or crushes being too near or too far. Since today was a bring-the-baby-to-work day for Javier, I restrained myself from getting sucked into all the pretty, pretty papers and cards as my projects were all waiting for me at home.

from ArtAngels website

It was, however, impossible not to notice the Mark Hearld cards planted next to the register. More precisely, the paper birds hanging above the display. Hard to say which desire came first: the desire to own them or the desire to be making and selling such lively and well done forms. His tri-fold collaged cards of leaping rabbits (excuse me, hares, he's from the U.K.), snacking mice, and questing chickens all balance spontaneous freedom with the accuracy of a practiced hand.









 

No surprise, then, to learn that he started out at the Glasgow School of Art, and has excelled at printmaking, collage, and fabric design. 

 

You also learn from an intro video (above) that Hearld is a bit of a collector, positioning the buying, collecting and arranging of objects as "almost as satisfying as creating art"; one of his past exhibits ("The Art of Acquisition") explored this and made me wonder whether he and Maira Kalman have ever crossed paths. As he said, "I enjoy objects, so I have the feeling I want to design objects. People I admire have also designed objects...It's about enjoying the visual quality of things around you." I don't have much to add to this, except that it resonates strongly for me. And it brings me back to the curious interplay of appreciating, the desire to own, and the desire to make. 

from ArtAngels

 

 

 

 

Anyway, ain't he grand? Lisa Congdon published a nice image-laden post about him in 

2013...UK publishers Art Angels, boast an impressive artist list for their product lines, including the likes of Holly Meade, Nick Wroblewski, Angie Lewin (whose work I just saw for the first time this week, via Pinterest)...I'll definitely be trolling through their directory again. You can check out fabrics made by Hearld and other artists, here... And in his words, Hearld's Work Book looks like a behind-the-scenes visual feast.

Cakeasaurus Design Progress

I'm really excited about the two designs I just pulled! My most recent studio times were well spent and differently meaningful, as they were the first such days as a mother. Javier texted me a few photos of Baby asleep in her swing, or laughing into her Grandpa's face, and I was able to happily motor along, spinning the printing wheel, holding each block up to the light, to make sure ink was evenly distributed. Satisfying days. All the more so, naturally, since the designs are fun and help to move the story along:

Page 5, approximately; edition of 25

Whereas "Cakeasaurus...Dreamt of Cake" is a bit rougher and more textured, "One Fateful Night"* feels a little slicker to me, almost possessing a 50's jaunty air. Since I have been carrying this project out over the years, around the edges, you could say, the images vary in approach and feel. This has definitely led to me reassessing and redrawing on numerous occasions -- and of course I worry about continuity and consistency -- and yet, part of me**
is confident these variations actually make the project more interesting and readers will accept it, as long as I do. Reactions?

*will be added to Etsy soon.
**conveniently delusional?

Page 17, approximately; edition of 30

I shared a few process shots in prior posts, but more photos available here.