I leave this terrific job and this fabulous city in 25 days. I can't express how fast the time has gone and how wonderful every minute has been. In honor of the big count-down till August 23rd, when I get to go make my first home with Nihar, the next three posts will be all about cool things in New York that I've been lucky to see or be a part of while I was here. When Kristal, Devon and I (the three new interns) arrived at the firm in January, a co-worker who had been at the office for ten years was preparing to leave and begin working on her own. As a going away present some of her friends asked everyone in the office to take a picture of themselves in a favorite outfit to put into a "fashion flip book" (this person is a total clothes horse and has exceptional, exquisite taste in all things--even her bicycle is the funkiest, coolest thing I've ever seen!). So Kristal and I, not really owning anything the least bit chic, decided to dress in black (every architect's favorite "color") and accessorize with architectural supplies lying around the office. On our spread in the book, all of our accessories were listed and astronomically priced, just as you would find in a real fashion mag. Like, "twisted, double-sided tape belt (shown here in camel)=$650". It was hysterical.
I also drew the cover for the book which ended up being pretty funny. I used flickr for inspiration (again, cause I have no clue what chic looks like) and crudely photoshopped our co-worker's face into the drawings for a more goofy result. I don't know why the faces are blue in this image (they were flesh colored in the original) but you can use your imagination!
Kristal, Devon and I became "fast friends" from that day onwards and our intership days were filled with city adventures and inside jokes and the occassional frantic damage control initiative at the office. Kris is gone already, I leave very soon, and Devon follows suit a couple weeks after that. I think I said this already but I can't believe its all over...
Last week was insane. We had a huge deadline at work and I was staying late every night to finish my details and drawings for our 100% CDs submittal. By the time I got home every night I had just enough energy to crawl into bed--it felt like the next day started immediately after I closed my eyes. I hauled ass till it was finally Friday and once the drawings were successfully wrapped up, I headed to the Hudson River Park, where a group of us became stealthy accomplices in our friend Sujit's clandestine proposal scheme. Sujit is one of Nihar's best friends in the whole world (which is saying a lot since my husband is friends with the entire city of Houston and half of Austin) and the fact that he was proposing to his girlfriend on that night was deliriously exciting for all of us who knew them. First and foremost because his girlfriend, Anita, is absolutely lovely. Secondly, because it was exactly one year ago, on that weekend, that the two of the them met for the first time. Fast work! His plan was to propose on the pier, with the sunset in the background, while the ten of us friends were hiding in the landscape on the other side of the path. We were instructed to literally jump out of the bushes to surprise her once the question was popped! Kay I have to say, I thought this was a pretty bad decision on Sujit's part--what kind of person wants a big group of sweaty friends barging in on their romantic sunset evening, let alone at the moment after she/he is proposed to??! The answer, apparently, is Anita. She loved it. After champagne and chocolate in the park, we proceeded to get sloppy at a number of fine festive establishments on Saturday and Sunday--we stayed out till 4AM on both mornings in fact. Phew. And then of course, Rima had her fantastic brunch on Sunday where I met her wonderful friends and received my much-anticipated wedding present: the most gorgeous blanket I have ever seen in my life!! Its an enormous, all white square with a simple and elegant geometric lace pattern. Very architectural as someone at the party observed. She of course made the whole thing--incredible! I'm going to post pictures of it next week. Anyway, amidst all of this exhausting work and sleepless fun, I have to admit I didn't have a lot of time to be very creative. Except for my one brief moment of zen at the office on Thursday. It was life drawing time as usual and I thought I would share some of my sketches.
So I’ve already admitted that I’m sort of obsessed with Nihar—but most people who hear me talk about him probably wouldn’t know it because I can never remember to call him my husband, even though its been 6 months since we got hitched. 6 months. Phew. Of course, I can’t believe it. I’m experiencing the usual temporal disorientation that comes with any important event in life; it simultaneously feels like the wedding took place years ago and also as recent as last week. (By the way, I promise this will be the only post regarding our wedding—I don’t want to bore anyone with the finicky details.) Anyway, this wedding was a colossal undertaking of gagantuan proportions. It was mammoth. Neither of us particularly wanted an elaborate ordeal but such is the way of the Indian American diaspora and we gave in to the frenzied will of the masses very early on in the planning process. Since feeding close to 700 people would cost a small fortune, my parents and I thought it would make sense to handle the decorations in-house—so we literally set up a small factory in the house.
We had vases and orchids and about two hundred meters of gauzy blue material strewn about the place (Mom was a trooper—tirelessly following us around with a dustbuster for months.) Dad and I designed and built a plywood mandap, (wedding pavilion thingy), under which the marriage ceremony took place.
Or rather, I figured out what I wanted it to look like, drafted the pieces and cut them on a laser cutter, and then Dad basically slaved away in the garage for about two months to make the whole thing come together. These photos show a little bit of the process involved. The pieces all interlocked for strength and ease of assembly. Thin poles connect the columns all together for added stability. Dad also built lights into the bases so that the columns were lit up from the bottom. We painted it a hammered-finish copper and then finished with a dull gold. The "roof" was made up of two long poles that were fitted into iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibrackets after the columns and arches were connected. Then iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired material was draped over the poles.
I also had the opportunity to go to India and design our invitations and even the sari I wore for the wedding. Usually Gujarati brides wear a full seven yards of a white sari first and then drape another full seven yards of the red (red is the traditional wedding garb color.) The effect can be gorgeous but ends up looking a little…fluffy.
Mom and I found an, ingenious, very beautiful (and very expensive) sari in a store in Bombay that was actually a portion of two saris joined together so as to avoid fluffiness. Fortunately, my cousin Neeta Ben has a tailor shop in Bombay, so we shopped all around the city for the right material, had it dyed and chose all of the beads and embroidery thread ourselves. Then I drew out emroidery designs and the craftsman actually transferred my drawings to the material for his pattern. (Have I mentioned yet that I love India? Of course, I don’t just love it for the petty reasons like the fact that I can design and iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimake anything I want for just a fraction of what it would cost iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiover here.
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiI love it for meaningful reasons too. Like the food...
I took some time out from this gloomy long weekend to do some blog scouting. I received some much-needed constructive criticism about my blog this week and I realized that I don't have the faintest idea of what I want this blog to be yet, partly because I don't know of many blogs that inspire me. Which is not to say that there aren't tons of amazing ones out there--I was just lamentably slow at catching on to the trend. Anyway, so I found a couple of sites that I liked for the writing style (Breed Em and Weep), or originality of the content (Pruned) or sheer genius (Nathan Fowkes). Overall, here is what I learned:
1. Everyone and their grandmother has a blog. 2. Did I say I was lamentably slow at catching on? I meant that I was deplorably, inconceivably, preposterously slow. A slug is faster than me. 3. People really like to list things on their blogs. :)
Anyway, I have a long way to go so please don't mind the reckless layout modifications that may take place in the next couple of weeks (...or they may not. I'm kind of feeling demoralized about the whole thing right now. I mean, there are so many out there, whats the difference what mine looks like? NO--that is not the right attitude. You care, right? Right?!
Anyway, this afternoon I was running late to meet a friend. I was supposed to help her shoot her application video to get on the next season of Survivor. I sort of hate that show but to each their own. As I was power-striding to her apartment, I came across this adorable group of singing gentlemen just letting it rip right there in front of the Papaya Dog. It made me so happy (and hungry!)
Everyone loves New York for their own reasons. My older brother, Samar, loves the variety of cuisines the city offers--my friend Ali loves the fashion. I love that I can be tearing down the street, lost in my own world, my brain firing a million miles a minute, and suddenly I stumble upon a group of well-heeled 50-somethings singing their guts out on the street corner.
(It turns out they were an acappella group called Desire from New Jersey here in New York to see a show and they had some time to kill.)
I'm late posting this week because I was in Houston for the last five days, spending time with my husband and family. We went to an engagement party in Dallas, took my hubby's three year old nephew to a Chucky Cheese-like venue where he literally went CRAZY with fun, and stayed up till the morning watching Nihar's favorite episodes of the Cosby show on DVD (a birthday present from his brilliant and thoughtful wife.) By the way, thats my husband back there, looking all antagonistic. It irks him to no end that his little nephew likes me better than him!
An altogether fabulous weekend. I know this is a tangent, but I really miss my husband. I am a long-distance relationship seasoned veteran (with some very old war wounds) and I've experienced the weekend rendezvous disaster all too often: two
months of frenzied anticipation, wild expectations that are impossible to realize in a weekend, the culminating high from finally being together, an inevitable hiccup that shocks you both back into reality, and then a silly fight born from disappointment and anti-climactic gloom to follow.
But I'm happy to report that in the last year or so, I've realized that my days of being caught in this vicious cycle seem to be over for good. First of all, I'm going back to Houston very soon and I will finally be living with my husband for the first time. We will actually be together, face to face, every day, which is a mind-blowing proposition. But the second reason is even more unbelievable--I'm not really ever disappointed with Nihar. We just have a great time together. The only sentiment I have when I leave Nihar is sadness to be going and more fuzzy feelings of love than I care to admit.
Anyway back to the thing at hand. A couple of months ago, a friend and co-worker of mine asked me to make a little advertisement for his wife's family's fledgling business, Beija-Flor, a denim company. I had never really done this before and I put it off until the last possible moment. But in the end, I liked the way it turned out (and I got a great pair of free jeans out of it!) The first picture is the pencil drawing I drew and scanned in. The second is the result of some late night Illustrator manipulation. I still have to put a little more detail on the pink jeans, like maybe some stitches or a pocket logo, but this is basically the idea.
This week has been crazy busy with work, finding a new place to live (this will be my fourth move in six months!) (needless to say I hate craigslist right now...), and planning a little event at the office with my friend Kristal. Basically, the event will be an in-house arts exhibition featuring our co-workers' creativity, from office work to closeted hobbies. Kris and I will curate the exhibit and we'll have wine and cheese to fuel the philosophical dialogues and shameless schmoozing that will ensue!
I'm submitting a series of 10 little hand drawings/studies that I've done since I've been here. We started nude life drawing at the office on every other Thursday and I've realized that while I'm much quicker and more fluid when drawing live models now than when I was in college, I still suck at hands. I'm terrified of them. So I went home a couple months ago and vowed to draw a hand a week until I felt unterrified. I'm still scared to death but it was more fun than I thought it would be...
I've been struggling with the challenge of organizing my posts to include things I've made in the past as well as various projects I'm working on at the moment. This is a challenge because I've been in school for a very very long time and as a result I have buckets of art and architecture-related things that I want to post and open up to comments or criticism. But at the same time I really don't want to make this about my work in the past; I'm trying to push myself to stay in touch with my whimsical and creative side even though I'm out of school now and not as surrounded by new ideas and insights...and I've got to admit--its pretty hard. Even though I absolutely love my job and I couldn't be happier with the architecture firm I work for, I can't say that much of my day is taken up with pure creative thought; a lot of it is routine, mundane work like any other job. And by the time I get home, my brain feels pretty much fried.
I have however, been involved with at least some extra-occupational endeavors since I came to New York six months ago for this job--some friends and I did a wacky fashion shoot for a co-worker's going away gift in February, I did a number of watercolors inspired by the Lucien Freud exhibit at the MoMA in March, and I sent two larger scale glazed charcoal pieces to LA for a silent auction/fundraising banquet in April. I went through a merciless period of self-loathing for these pieces but when they were finally ready to be shipped out I was pleased with the outcome. I feel like I happened across a charcoal drawing process I want to explore much more in the future: first I sketched out rough abstract forms (inspired by geological formations and crashing waves from my memories), then I painted on ample liquid frisket to protect the negative space.
Once I had worked the drawing with layers of vine charcoal, I peeled back the frisket and started applying thin layers of glaze in browns and oranges. I probably applied 8-10 layers in all. The interested thing that happened was that the glaze gave a lot of depth to the nagative space that remained clean and sharp thanks to the fristket, but it also added a richness to the charcoal that I hadn't really expected. I varied the direction of the brushstrokes and used a lot of color variation to make certain areas pop and continue to add depth with each layer.
I leave this terrific job and this fabulous city in 25 days. I can't express how fast the time has gone and how wonderful every minute has been. In honor of the big count-down till August 23rd, when I get to go make my first home with Nihar, the next three posts will be all about cool things in New York that I've been lucky to see or be a part of while I was here. When Kristal, Devon and I (the three new interns) arrived at the firm in January, a co-worker who had been at the office for ten years was preparing to leave and begin working on her own. As a going away present some of her friends asked everyone in the office to take a picture of themselves in a favorite outfit to put into a "fashion flip book" (this person is a total clothes horse and has exceptional, exquisite taste in all things--even her bicycle is the funkiest, coolest thing I've ever seen!). So Kristal and I, not really owning anything the least bit chic, decided to dress in black (every architect's favorite "color") and accessorize with architectural supplies lying around the office. On our spread in the book, all of our accessories were listed and astronomically priced, just as you would find in a real fashion mag. Like, "twisted, double-sided tape belt (shown here in camel)=$650". It was hysterical.
I also drew the cover for the book which ended up being pretty funny. I used flickr for inspiration (again, cause I have no clue what chic looks like) and crudely photoshopped our co-worker's face into the drawings for a more goofy result. I don't know why the faces are blue in this image (they were flesh colored in the original) but you can use your imagination!
Kristal, Devon and I became "fast friends" from that day onwards and our intership days were filled with city adventures and inside jokes and the occassional frantic damage control initiative at the office. Kris is gone already, I leave very soon, and Devon follows suit a couple weeks after that. I think I said this already but I can't believe its all over...
This week has been crazy busy with work, finding a new place to live (this will be my fourth move in six months!) (needless to say I hate craigslist right now...), and planning a little event at the office with my friend Kristal. Basically, the event will be an in-house arts exhibition featuring our co-workers' creativity, from office work to closeted hobbies. Kris and I will curate the exhibit and we'll have wine and cheese to fuel the philosophical dialogues and shameless schmoozing that will ensue!
I'm submitting a series of 10 little hand drawings/studies that I've done since I've been here. We started nude life drawing at the office on every other Thursday and I've realized that while I'm much quicker and more fluid when drawing live models now than when I was in college, I still suck at hands. I'm terrified of them. So I went home a couple months ago and vowed to draw a hand a week until I felt unterrified. I'm still scared to death but it was more fun than I thought it would be...
Once I had worked the drawing with layers of vine charcoal, I peeled back the frisket and started applying thin layers of glaze in browns and oranges. I probably applied 8-10 layers in all. The interested thing that happened was that the glaze gave a lot of depth to the nagative space that remained clean and sharp thanks to the fristket, but it also added a richness to the charcoal that I hadn't really expected. I varied the direction of the brushstrokes and used a lot of color variation to make certain areas pop and continue to add depth with each layer. 
