becoming a new yorker

I haven’t posted in a while as I’ve been settling into my New Yorker self. I look back to 2 1/2 months ago when I moved here and I can’t believe how I was operating and making so many things happen even when so much of my life was unsettled. now I feel way more at ease in a way I didn’t know that I wasn’t before.

some transitional/big-girl things & news!

• I got a real job! Creative Time will begin paying me in my role as Community Organizer / Assistant Producer for Living As Form, the big exhibition/show/commission/project we are working on for this fall. I am SO EXCITED! We have a great team of incredible people working on this project, a great cast of incredible artists and projects to present, and a fun summer ahead. as my co-worker Kevin and I have been joking, it will be a summer of short-shorts and tank-tops as we sweat it out in the Old Essex Street Market (the site of the exhibition) getting the space and the projects and the artists ready for the big show.
• I got into the Laundromat Project Create Change Professional Development Fellowship program! a mouthful. I’m really honored & excited to be a part of this program and working with this incredible organization who’s motto is: “Wash Clothes. Make Art. Build Community.” I see this as an incredible resource to combine social justice work and art making in one conversation — not separating out the making and the ideas / impact behind the work. I also see this jump-starting my art making this summer and beyond! It’s been almost 2 years since my senior thesis project. It’s time for the next big piece!
• I organized my room and I am IN LOVE WITH IT! we have a new summer-only roommate moving in this summer into the little room we were calling the “art room” but never set up/ it became the storage junk room by default, and so I cleared out my stuff and used the opportunity to really create my magical studio/bedroom/creation space! I’m most excited about the wall of supplies: a wall of (currently) 12 hooks (and some folders) each with a big plastic bag with a hole in it hung on the hook. there’s a bag for zippers; a bag for buttons; a bag for earring making supplies; a bag for weird stuff I’ve found; a bag for ribbons; a bag for journal-making supplies. one of my old Art-Barn mailboxes is filled with “Delicious Sandwich” bags. the hott-pink embroidery hoop hangs on the buttons hook. There’s a mini-bulletin board for idea sketches, and Corita Kent’s Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules tacked next to that. My beautiful sewing machine has a permanent home on the SEWING desk and I am attempting to keep it clear always.

first project was turning mom’s old “babyblanket” jacket into a poncho.

so excited for some more sewing tomorrow.

the machine even announces it’s place in my new home! (side note: she needs a name!

• i’ve adjusted to using the subway, not making phone calls while traveling, and have even gotten around without using the map or my phone’s map/guiding force that directs me everywhere. I even got refunded the balance I had left on my 30-day metro card I lost back in April!!! BEURACRACY IS AMAZING SOEMTIMES!!
• the silly-version of my business cards is real now!

• I put my name on our mailbox!

• I put up a picture of my family in my room!

LOOKING FORWARD:

• tomorrow i’m going to buy a mattress! WOAH!
• tomorrow I’m also having a spring barbeque in my beautiful backyard! so excited for so many circles of lovely people to collide. and eat barbeque.
• NYSSSA starts in July…. welcome back to Residential Life, aliya!!!
• gotta create a creative personal project for this summer to keep me sane within all these training development programs and producing other people’s amazing artwork. maybe it’ll be as simple as setting aside 2 hours for sewing each week.

sleeping with the window open and no knit hat on my head. this florida girl is loving spring.

unleash your (New Yorker) Florida Side!

[Queue infinite number of "discovering New York" songs!]

Hello and welcome to New York. How fun! you all get to travel with me as I move so many places. But you don’t even have to bother trying to find a dresser or packing a box!! That must be exciting.

One of the first things I saw when I arrived (lugging through the subway with so many bags… sometimes I really have to remember what my wise friend Eliza said, “BusinessLadies take Cabs”) was a whole slew of Fabulous Florida advertisements.

I’ve seen so many advertisements on the subway for Florida, it’s very silly and I’ve been trying to anthropologically dissect them. There’s this Unleashed, Free, Fabulous, Totally Gorgeous Fleet of Floridians (I think that would be a good collective noun for Floridians) that exist in the minds of cold, cranky, tired-of-winter New Yorkers. I’m just going to go with that, and let them assume that under my giant sleeping-bag mushroom-cloud of a winter coat I am that Fabulous Floridian of their dreams. (which I am, obviously)

Crazy to think I’ve been here almost a month (since march 1!) but I’m really loving it. I love so much going on, so many cool things and people and places and being a grown up lady, commuting to work with my coffee (ok, tea), discovering my new neighborhood, making new friends, pretending to understand the train system, going to fancy art openings, organizing the pantry, going grocery shopping (vaguely becoming an obsession? still figuring out how to shop for one person. And how these two items got shelved in the same asile:

),

solving toilet overflow crisis, and worrying about money and My Future.

There’s so much going on I had to start limiting myself because I was going crazy trying to do everything. This last week I was a crusty old lady New Yorker: there’s at least 3 awesome things (great art show openings, folksy intimate concerts, a great happy hour deal, a friend visiting in town, just the boring old Central Park for that matter) going on but they’re “too far away” (a 15 minute train ride to Manhattan — or worse a complicated transfer / longer train ride to Williamsburg (life as a hipster is so hard when your bike is still in 4 parts)) but I chose to stay home and make phone calls and cook chili and organize the bathroom. It’s been a strange transition. I feel like I just hit this point where it was no longer ok to just keep running, living out of a suitcase and rushing rushing everywhere to try and do everything, which I usually push myself to do. So things are slowly getting in order, slowly making sense.

Being at Creative Time is wonderful! Its got this supercharged energy buzzing around that reminds me so much of Elsewhere, except I’m in a clean white office with lots of computers and everyone wearing high-heels and there’s “Hollywood Cookie Diet Cookies – Diet of the Stars” (a joke-present I believe? they just taste like bad spongy cookies) in the office kitchen (instead of a full fridge of $300 groceries/week). The similar energy is the intense energy around producing a project and a vision and a piece that when I step outside of it, sometimes seems a bit silly maybe. Silly is not the right word. Its like, when I was an office Admin, it was ok and normal to be crazy and frantic and rushing to finish a really important powerpoint presentation, getting the graphic arrows just right and making sure the text had no typos and that it got to the right person at the right time. Now there’s the similar energy and intensity but it’s around producing a huge month-long community based project where one of our artists is interviewing and collaborating with all different spiritual leaders in the Lower East Side neighborhood. I love that intensity and importance — it’s being in an environment where art makes a difference and is valued and that value is known and assumed. It’s ok to be spending the same energy as someone would on “business” on a crazy project that is going to provide a whole new way of looking at that issue for viewers and the participants.

Its amazing how I can be so happy and feel so good about this step (working with great people, surrounded by incredible artists and friends that “get it”, in a beautiful place) but I can also feel crazy and stupid and insane (“how is this ever going to work? I’ll never make it, I was crazy for moving here without a solid plan”). I think I just have to keep moving and making things happen instead of listening to all those thoughts.

Here is a glimpse into my semi-settled in life:

here’s my florida key-chain pride:

my wall of support & little art:

 

my Fabulous F train arriving to take me home!!!:

Oh whoops I guess that was me hoping it was my train.

I’m almost at a point where I can set up a sewing area and start sewing and making… the Year of the Sexy Romper (or Anytime Romper – Sleeping Romper, Gym-Romper, Office-Romper, Night-On-The-Town Romper, GNO-Romper…) continues soon I promise…

Some New York highlights!!

• friends! so many lovely friends all around. and they just keep coming/visiting too!!! crazy.

Joe leading an epic journey across Brooklyn carting a shelf & table on his bike-mule

hanging out with lily-bean all the time all around town!!

And even the friends I don’t get to see in person, I keep seeing in all the signs around me too!!

• packing myself super-cute lunch/dinners (they didn’t fit inside the FACE (Florida Association of Code Enforcement Lunchbox though….)not pictured: sweet potato chili with quinoa and salsa! and (separately) homemade pancakes with strawberries and bananas, made by ms. Amber Phelps-Bonderoff and eaten in good company with roommate Lindsay and Joe.

• going AWESOME goodwill/flea market shopping with Lily! We’ve gone about every Saturday under the pretense of “getting stuff to set up my apartment” but we’ll look at the shelves and lame dishracks, and then just go to the clothes. A.) she is an ACE thrift store shopper and always good luck, and B.) so many great spots to shop! Some highlights:

BRKLYN CYCLONES (electric yellow) t-shirt! I mean, I am a proud Brooklynite now.

BARBIE RUNS FOR PRESIDENT (The Jacket):

So you see this coat from afar, it’s kinda cute, maybe “funky”, nicely cut and with an overall air of “business”. You come up a bit closer. What’s that written on the buttons? slightly rose-colored? just a bit different from the white of the rest of the coat? Oh yes. That is the Barbie logo.

This is a Barbie Jacket. This is the jacket that Barbie wears when she is running for Cute President.  I LOVE IT.

• A NYC favorite past time: staring intensely at cuties in the subway. Making up instant romance stories where we lock eyes once in the subway and fall hopelessly in love and start a cafe/art/community space together and live happily ever after just because I stared at them once and caught their attention.

• it snowed yesterday! I’m not quite as sick of winter as everyone else seems to be (guess I was too busy hanging out at the beach in January?), so that was exciting.

So that’s where I’m at! Figuring out what works. I’m gonna not be quite such a crusty old lady new yorker this week.

LOVE
ALIYA

p.s. my brother loves me:

lil’ lady/big city/yeah i’m ready.

Dear Friends: I’m moving to New York City! The City of Dreams. or at least, that’s what I’m calling it right now.

I got an internship as part of the Programming Team at CreativeTime, a really amazing public art and socially engaged art non-profit organization producing really big exciting thought provoking social art in NYC and beyond. (I’ve blogged about them previously here and here (scroll down to #2) and also here — mostly about Nato Thompson who I didn’t realize at the time but he’s the Chief Curator of CreativeTime). They’ve supported some of my most admired socially engaged artist idols (to name a few) who use art as a medium for addressing big real world problems and conflicts in a personal and inspiring way. This will give me real experience and connections in producing big big events and projects, working with real artisty-social-arty-lets-make-this-happen people!

I know, this blog and this blogger has announced and then rescinded previous announcements of this sort. And while I can’t completely promise this is different, this is different. Since the new year I’ve been feeling big projects and ideas and puzzle pieces falling into place, all with ease and grace. I’ve only had one freakout-panicky crying. I’ve been in action creating that something would come through and make sense. I feel like I’m ready, and it’s time for the Bonar Family Residency to morph and pack and unpack newly. No I’m not moving my blog don’t freak out. I’m moving myself!

I’m scared! what if this isn’t the right thing? what if I’m cutting out all kinds of other opportunities? New York City is too big for Little Aliya! New York City is too expensive for Artist Aliya! What if I’m really cold? What if it’s really time to do this on my own and stop waiting for everything else to decide my life?

I’m excited! So many amazing people I love live in NYC! Not only that — but more are moving there all the dang time! And so many amazing things are happening there — all the time!!! not just that one time when randomly something cool happens! or just during December when there’s a 100 foot fake tree in the downtown ((TRUE STORY: Sam (my brother) was talking with a friend from NYC who was talking about the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. They were bragging how their tree was about 70 feet. Sam says (with true Delray Beach Pride), “Really? That’s nothing. Delray’s tree is 100 feet.” He then realizes that NYC’s tree is REAL, whereas ours is… metal and plastic. but whatevs.))! I get to live in a big real city — not forever, but for a few months! the perfect amount of time! I get to challenge myself in a new way, take it to the next level, expand to fill up this new bigger city, bigger challenge! I get to wear my delicious winter coat.

It’s time!

Time to:

• finish projects
• pack
• sell/get rid of so many things
• find a room and pay my own rent!
• find a part time job balances great with the actual reason I’m moving…
• make more rompers
• practice my “being a cool biker hipster chic” skills
• sew and alter my “i’m totally fashionable and hott 24/7″ outfits
• be a big girl grownup BusinessLady Adventurer!

Some goodbyes I’m already sad about:

• my amazing friends and supports and coaches in the Florida-Jamaica Team Management Leadership Program who have caused me to love being in Florida this past year, and to grow up and step into my bold courageous outrageous leader self.
• the beautiful 24/7 tropical paradise vacation that is living in South Florida. It’s so beautiful here. I never appreciated it until this year.
• reconnecting with old friends and creating new ones; creating new relationships with old friends.
• the awesome if not bizarre and always surprising Bonar Family Residency Refrigerator
• the beach (A 25 MINUTE RUN FROM MY HOUSE, LET ME REMIND YOU.)
• being “home”: knowing the back roads, knowing the histories of each place, knowing the secrets, knowing “how it goes ’round here”
• everyone kissing on the cheek when you meet them/see them
• hearing Spanish everywhere I go (although I’m not sure that will totally change in NYC)
• the snazzy glorified flair of South Florida; the fact that you can wear high-heel rhinestone encrusted flip-flops to the gym and that is normal/ok;
• tank tops and tiny dresses in January
• starfruit trees right in the backyard.
• my tan…
• my parents who have been incredible cheerleaders, stern-talkers, and friends, going to movies and coffee shops, indulging in my photoshoots and bossiness, allowing their house to become a stuffed animal farm/quilted landscape construction zone, loving me and creating me as a powerful lady up to big things — seeing me only as that and not as my little whiny pathetic I’ll never make a difference self I try to be sometimes.

But before I leave (end of February) there is still so much excitement to be had here in Delray Beach at the BFR!!! Upcoming and still just as exciting (if not more):

• having not one but TWO birthday parties in two different states!!! what a luuuuckkkyyy lady!
• going to Israel! on Monday. omg. more later this week on that.
• Haley’s Residency! (the original Washbowl idea has been declined. Luckily, we are going to make something even better happen)
• Not-Fully-Confirmed Juliet’s BusinessLady(tm) Residency! where we will be performing as BusinessLadies(tm) all weekend, empowering each other in seizing our futures, filling out applications, revising artist statements, making lists, wearing blazers, and being friends.
• completing my last quarter with the Florida-Jamaica TMLP team and beginning on the New York City team!!!

HECK YEAH, 2011!!! so far you are TOTALLY ROCKING.

I’m so excited to have you all along with me for this adventure of a magnanimous year. Let’s cross paths soon. Let’s talk on the internet and in real life. Let’s make our dreams come true.

love

ALIYA!

beached oil vs. wildlife reserves

I wanted to spend some time tonight doing some real research about the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill off the Gulf Coast. and educating myself about the whole situation so i could be an educated and contributing citizen. And then I even planned that I was going to make some awesome photoshop-collaged-composite image about the oil spill and coastlines and cars and oil and something. And that was going to be the really great visual that would entice you to read this post.

But now of course it’s late. So here is my abridged self-education session:

• The oil spill is pretty bad, but not as bad as previous oil spills/ mistakes we’ve made around oil spilling. The weather is also helping it not become a worse situation. Still, the original incident killed 11 people, and is spilling about 200,000 gallons of oil every day. BP is now putting a 4 story 98 ton concrete dome over the spill to siphon off the oil into tubes instead of the Gulf. NYTimes.
• Fox News Poll: 60 Percent Still Favor Offshore Drilling After Spill. basically what it sounds like.
• Who’s gonna pay for the clean up after it gets above $75 million dollars — the cap that is part of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. BUT, what about the economic damages to the fisheries, and businesses and families that will suffer from the effects of this spill? Fox News.
• A very effective and clear analysis of different methods available for cleaning up the oil spill and what’s happening now. BBC News.
• this is kinda scary, especially since it’s way past may 2??

hmm. all this leads me to thinking that I got really jaded after the 2008 election and now I can’t read anything without assuming it’s totally jaded and false, or that I actually don’t know anything because everything I hear must be lies. Maybe that’s a little true, or at least the part about it all being biased. But I do feel better about being a world citizen, and at least a citizen of the south and coastal region, knowing more about this incident and history.