mja home

mid august*. summer in nyc. yes it’s hot, yes it’s humid. but it’s also beautiful. the trees are vibrant green, the sky’s are electric blue, and the clouds are radiant white.

i decided to go straight to the moma from jfk since it’s free on friday nights (my plane landed at 330). so i took the air train to jamaica station and then the subway to 53rd in midtown. just as i walked out of the underground i stumbled upon an absolutely beautiful, hidden-in-plain-sight little park – paley park. i purchased a mint lemonade from the bakery right next to it and sat in the cool of the shade trees and enjoyed the mist from the waterfall.

next i was off to the moma, but i didn’t make it even 2 blocks when i caught the RCA Victor building out of the corner of my eye and decided to go gawk at it like a good little tourist. i absolutely love this building, it’s so beautiful.

then i was off to the moma once again. now, i had went to free fridays the last time i was in nyc, but that was in january. this time it was summer, and that meant there was twice as many people. after about a 20 minute wait in line just to check my backpack, i set out into the extremely crowded galleries. about that time, my post plane ride headache was setting in. i tried to enjoy the art but it was very difficult with that many people. i did snap a few shots of some things that caught my eye, and against my prior decision, i did visit the new ron arad exhibition on the 6th floor. which turned out to be really cool actually, his choice of materials, and the fabrication, was really impressive.

i didn’t end up staying long due to the crowds and my headache. i left the moma and hopped on the f train to brooklyn to meet up with my friend (and ex art nighter) frida. i was impressed by her neighborhood, which is right next to prospect park.

day 2

after a lovely frida-cooked-breakfast, she and i set out for the met to see the francis bacon retrospective. holy shit, that was good. there were no photos allowed in the exhibit but i did jot down a few names of pieces i liked. one of which was called “landscape near malabata”, this was probably my favorite one. the texture, color, and technique are amazingly beautiful.

of course, this photo does the painting not one shred of justice:

a few others i really liked were the “heads” series, the “men in blue suits” series, “three studies for a portrait of geaorge dyer”, and “portrait of isabel rawsthorne”, among many others.

i didn’t really have the energy to walk around the met but i did end up going to the roof garden, as i hadn’t seen it the last time i was there. along the way i snapped a shot of one of paul frankl’s skyscraper bookcases. he’s one of my favorite industrial designers for obvious reasons.

the met roof garden was smaller than i’d expected but it was still worth seeing (and while up there i heard a jazz style second line being played from somewhere in the park). it gave a good view of central parks sea of trees and it’s shoreline of skyline off in the distance.

i spent the rest of the day just walking around the east village, where i:

ate some noodles at ramen setagaya

bought some vintage sunglasses at fabulous fanny’s

went to a toy store called toy tokyo, that had a pretty good collection of japanese and american collectible, fan boy type stuff. as well as a cool spumco ren doll

*cut to january. the above text was written back in august. for whatever reason i didn’t finish writing this post and saved it as a draft. since that time i had forgotten that i even started it. it is now months later and i’ve become a bit fuzzy on many of the small details of the trip. i’ve also lost all interest in relaying the rest of the information about my trip. i will say though, that what is not mentioned here are the details of my 3rd day of the trip, my whole reason for going to nyc in the first place – the 50th anniversary frank lloyd wright show at the guggenheim museum. needless to say, it blew my mind….i suppose that says it all.

if you’d like to see all the pictures i took while on my trip go here.

in late january i made my third trek to the mecca.  my mecca at least.  the holy land of decoscrapers, nyc.  official order of business being the robert irwin opening of “red drawing, white drawing, black painting” at the 22nd street pacewildenstein gallery.  unofficial business for the trip…well, just to be in the city i suppose.  but mainly my big plans were to scour the chelsea streets for any and all galleries.  i wanted to overload myself with as much art as i could find.   and i did get overloaded with art, but it wasn’t in chelsea.  it was in midtown.  at the moma.

the moma. it was my first time being there, and i was definitely overwhelmed to say the least. the almost six hours i spent there over 2 days wasn’t nearly enough time as i would’ve liked to have. i say 2 days because the first time i went i got cut short and had to leave. it just didn’t occur to me that a museum of that size would close at 530. pff. just as i was getting to all the good stuff (i could see a fernand leger off in the next gallery) they announced it was closing time. luckily, we had a few more days left of our trip and we made time to go back on friday night – when it’s free! i could’ve spent all my time on the 4th and 5th floors (where all the real action is. at least for me) but i decided that on this trip i’d just try and get through everything so i could see it all. next time i go back i’ll spend more time studying some of the pieces that blew me away. like this one:

or this one:

or this one:

oh, that’s the other thing. i tried to take pictures of every piece that i liked so i could bring them back and share them with you, or whoever hasn’t been lucky enough to go to the moma. as with all art, the photos don’t do even a shred of justice to the experience of seeing the pieces in person. they are merely a representation of what i saw, so that i could better express to you the pieces i loved. like this one:

man, all that futurism and cubism. i could hardly contain my overwhelming glee! plus the temporary exhibitions they were having. like the one on architectural experiments since the 70’s:

or the one on 20th century industrial design:

sigh.

now, there were a few other cool experiences on this trip. like the bob irwin show at pace, going to dinner with bob and and my good pal j.henry huppert (bobs assistant) on the first night, and getting to hang out with edith and jack brogan (jack “master fabricator” brogan (he made the black paintings for bobs show), and edith, jacks wife and an artist herself, are both fine human beings). speaking of the black paintings, here’s a shot of one. this is one of my favorite shots of the show:

those paintings are amazingly flawless. they have to be seen in person to truly appreciate their craft and presence. and speaking of craft, check out the fancy wool dress my doll trista made specifically for the irwin opening:

read more on that over at her sugardale blog.

on our last day we dicided to check out one more museum. the museum of the city of new york is free sunday mornings. which worked out great for us because we were due to leave that night. the show they were having couldn’t have been more suited to trista and i. it was called “Paris/New York: Design Fashion Culture 1925-1940″. it wasn’t a large exhibition but it held a few very choice gems from my favorite time period of design. like this:

or this, an actual sketch by one of my all time favorite industrial designers, donald deskey:

unfortunately it was really hard to take photos of the things in that show due to almost everything being behind glass. plus my camera battery died before i could shoot everything i liked.

but, if you’d like to see more of what i did shoot on the trip – like the 2 fat pastrami on rye sandwiches i ate, or the squirrel that tried to climb me like a tree in madison square park, or more views from the robert irwin show – just click below to go to my flickr site.