Tag: New York

advice from my art teachers

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My art teacher Naomi Campbell at the Art Students League said to do these three things:

1. Make it strong
2. Keep it simple
3. Edit it down

Is this brilliant or what? She advised us to start with a big solid shape. To convey a gesture, make a strong line.

I love this. I’m a dip-my-toe-in kind of painter but this advice gives me permission to be bold.

Speaking of permission, Robert Burridge, my teacher at the Holbein workshop in Vermont, begins his class by passing out permission slips – bright magenta slips with the word “Permission” printed on them.

And whatever question you ask him, Burridge said, he will always answer, “Yes.”

“More blue?” “Yes.”

So one smart aleck asked, “What if I ask, ‘Does my painting stink?’ Will you say Yes?”

And Burridge said, “I’ll say, ‘You have permission to start over.'”

And that’s kinda what Campbell said today too when she said, “It’s only paper. Don’t try to make it perfect.”

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This guy was eating lunch and smoking at the same time, sitting outside the Art Students League today.

Can Cleaning Be Exercise?

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broom by creative commons

I have updated one of my four blogs (about faith, creative writing, New York, or this one, fitness) at least every other day during 2011. When I began in January 2011, I posted every day for 66 days, because I’d heard that’s how long it takes to make a habit.

When I traveled or wrote my NaNoWriMo (November’s National Novel Writing month), I slacked a bit. But mostly I’ve been consistent with my blogging.

I need to retire a couple of my blogs and this one, Running Aground, is the lead candidate for retirement. This has been my least popular and least updated blog. Reading about my attempt to run a 5K may not have mass appeal. And I don’t write on this one because I think that if I haven’t exercised by swimming, running, or going to Pilates class, I haven’t worked out. (Although, yes, I’ve written about sleep and diet, as well.)

But wait — I clean a lot and, living in New York City, I walk a lot! So let’s remember — Cleaning is a good work out. In an hour, you burn:

  • Sweeping: 240
  • Packing/Unpacking: 220
  • Scrubbing floors on hands and knees: 325 (Who does this?)
  • Cleaning, light (dusting, wiping down counters, picking up clothes): 100
  • Cleaning, general (washing dishes, doing laundry): 200

according to a post by Divine Caroline (Brie Cadman).

This post is an attempt to encourage myself to believe in the power of the clean-up work out! Now, Mary Beth, get out there and clean! I have about an hour to unpack from our Chicago trip and pack for our Adirondacks trip, take down the Christmas tree, and generally tidy up this apartment where I’ve hosted four parties in one month!

There’s been a lot of stash and dash over the holidays. Now let’s burn some calories by cleaning. But wait, first, I have to update my Facebook status and check my friends’ news.

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Why Was Our Senator at the Beach today?

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I was suggesting the girls take one last trip to the women’s room before we drove home from Jones Beach. That’s when I spotted the senator on the boardwalk. I was thrilled.

“Hey, that’s our guy,” I said to my husband Chris. “What’s his name again?”

“Chuck Schumer,” Chris said.

“Right. Kids, let’s meet our senator — Chuck Schumer.”

We shook hands. I snapped a picture. He asked, “What’s your name?

“Catherine Jones.”

“And is this Mrs. Jones?” he asked me.

“Actually, it’s Ms. Coudal, but whatever.” I mumbled.

“Nice to meet you.”

Then we moved on. I commented that he was taller in person. We stopped at the bathroom. We spun some wheel to get a free pair of sunglasses at a bank give-away.

We left the boardwalk and then saw the senator again. How did he get ahead of us? He was chatting with another family. Now there were  young men standing near him holding up signs, “Meet Senator Schumer.”

“Oh we love him. He’s our guy,” I told the young men.

We went and said, “Hi!” again to Senator Schumer. I blurted out. “Hey, we love the president. And we love you.” I totally interrupted his schmooze-fest with this other family. He was saying the family’s name — it was an Italian name — and he knew someone that they were related to. If you’re a politician, I guess you know people.

He turned his attention to us. “Hey the Joneses! You’ve got an easy name.” We snapped another picture.

I will try to remember our senator’s name next time I see him. Just like he remembered mine — while not mine exactly. But my family’s name.

Not Remembering 9-11

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The 10th Year Anniversary

I don’t want to relive it. I don’t want to see any of it. I’m planning to be away from the city. I’m so glad 9-11 is on a Sunday so I can get the family out of what I expect will be a relentless media frenzy. I don’t want to have a TV on. I want to walk in the woods.

The wound is still very fresh. Some time I may write about it. I may write about the beautiful morning, how I had voted that morning, saw a police officer’s face — her face as if in close up — her worried face as she listened to a report. She was in a squad car, I was crossing Broadway with the kids. I forgot it. Then walking towards Central Park with my friend, J., how I got an urgent messages my sister on my cell phone but I had to call from a pay phone because my cell suddenly didn’t work, how we walked a little ways in Central Park then saw all the business people entering Central Park from 59th Street, how we knew something was deeply wrong, all these people in business attire walking into the park, how I grabbed my daughters from daycare, how I found my son’s pre-K class at the public school – with the principal standing with everyone in the hallway holding hands and praying with the kids — telling them that we love our families, our schools, our country. How we began to walk home, saw a grey cloud in the sky, south. Too close to be the WTC, we figured it was the Empire State Building. As we walked I insisted we avoid Lincoln Center, it could be a target. How we began to see all these people on the promenade in Riverside Park walking from downtown covered in dust, business suits and hair covered in grey, all grey. How we smelled the burning in the middle of the night. How we left the city and still past Albany, I could hear sirens. Chris said there were no sirens. I heard sirens on and off the whole way up to the Adirondacks.

Someday I will write about this. But not now. I dread the 10-year commemoration of 9-11. This year, I refuse to be traumatized again with news replaying images I don’t want to see.

Other years, on the anniversary of 9-11, the city was somber, especially the first couple of years. There was quiet. Especially in the morning. One year, I was walking down my block. A construction worker was sitting on the brownstone steps. It was the time of quiet and of remembrance. Our eyes locked. We looked at each other and we shared some sadness. He nodded at me. He knew. He knew and I knew. We didn’t want to – we didn’t need to – relive the whole thing. We didn’t need to write about it. Talk about it.

This year I might be in the Adirondacks far from a TV. I might go to church or maybe I’ll go to the church of walking in the woods. The Adirondack mountains will look lovely then. A long walk will do me good – seeing the colors of the pine trees, the splotched orange, the red leaves afire. 

I know the day is months away. Here I am the first weekend of April. I don’t want to wish away my spring, summer, fall dreading that September weekend. But it calms me to know I don’t have to be in the city.

At the time I knew that time would heal me from the trauma. I take comfort in the passage of time. I don’t take comfort in anniversaries. Continue reading “Not Remembering 9-11” →

Synchronicity Happens Here

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I believe that synchronicity – those magical moments of epiphany – happen more frequently in New York City than anywhere else in the world. I don’t know if there are studies to back me up on this. But I swear it’s true.

Like, one day you wake up in New York City, and all of the yellow cabs’ hoods are covered with these super-bright Peter Max-type flowers. Another day, there are big orange flags flying above you in Central Park.

Another day you’re riding your bike on Central Park West and you see Leo DiCaprio getting out of a car and he’s talking into a phone. So, you slow down to hear what he’s saying. And he says, “Ah, love’s labor lost.” Real sad-like. 

That’s what I’m talkin’ about. This blog is an homage to my city. It is a city I dreamed about when I was growing up in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois — also, Hillary Clinton’s hometown, which the New York Times once called the “lily whitest of towns.”

I remember as a kid looking at a picture of the skyline of Manhattan and wondering what life would be like inside that picture. Now, I know.

Living in NYC is not all glamorous celebrity sightings. I live in the slow lane alongside the fast lane of NYC. I don’t go out clubbing or to socialite events. But I do try to see every new show at the MoMA.

I try to get to every one of my kids’ AYSO soccer games. To do that, I usually have to drive through Harlem to get to Randall’s Island where they play. That’s when I wonder if I’m the only Soccer Mom in the country pointing out the historic Apollo Theatre on the way to the day’s game.

Sometimes I wonder if it is the city that keeps me going or is it possible that people like me — people in the slow lane who live in and love NYC  — keep the city going?

I love NYC theatre, museums, schools and parks. I love parenting my kids here. I love the brilliant people you meet and the amazing places you walk by every single day.

Art Students League of New York

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The Art Students League http://www.theartstudentsleague.org/ smells of oil paint.

The building is an absolute gem on 57th Street.

I have taken two Saturday classes there over the years. They’ve been taught by these wonderful  women of quite an advanced age, (one of whom Hilda Terry is no longer with us.) Last month’s watercolor class was taught by Dale Meyers who is still creating, teaching, thinking, and sharing. The other students’ work can be amazingly technically proficient or incredibly primitive (mine falls into the latter category).

It is exceedingly relaxing to be in a room where everyone is painting. My watercolors tend to be an embrace of negative space with a loose and splattered messy style. It’s hard to summarize. But fun to make.

I’m taking a Literature of Art Class with Ephraim Rubenstein on Thursday nights – he is so passionate, smart, provocative about the history of art. On Thursday we discussed the difference between Nude and Naked. We had read (or in my case, skimmed) Kenneth Clark’s “The Nude.” The Greeks, Rubenstein said, had a love of nakedness. Their gods were big and beautiful, not like a formless Yahweh.

We talked about how beauty in art gives one a shiver. That innately and physically we respond to art. We talked about philosophy — how when you think “bed” you have an ideal of “bed-ness” in mind, according to Artistotle. Is that “bedness” more ideal than the artist’s interpretation or an actual bed itself?

We discussed idealism. How, as Americans, we have a love/hate relationship with idealism. Is the nude who comes to model for art class a disappointment? Is he or she any less perfect or ideal than the Victoria Secret airbrushed model?

***

When I had inquired with the Eastern European woman security guard at the art school on Thursday whether class was cancelled due to snow. She told me that the school’s motto is Nulla Dies Sine Linea or “No Day Without a Line.”  “We are always open.”

The classes at the Art Students League are so cheap and so good. My daughers took a kids’ class with Martha Bloom. They just had a show in the gallery and the hallway outside of the cafeteria.

Yes, there’s a sweet, funky, good cafeteria and a tiny art shop in case you need supplies. The Art Students League has it all. Everyday.

Tow Pound

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Hell

I used to joke that the Port Authority was Dante’s 3rd Ring of Hell. No, no, I was naive. It is the NYC Auto Pound, where your car is towed when you happen to land a parking spot right across from your apartment building. That turns out to be in front of a yeshiva school that is clearly out of session. And the No Parking sign says, “No parking when school is IN session.”

But then every sap sitting here on a plastic seat sounds defensive and guilty, “Mom, I was NOT parked in the intersection,” says a young, African American businesswoman two seats down into her cell phone.

Why couldn’t I get a simple ticket? Why must I be towed? Why have I landed in this purgatory?

Purgatory

Waiting for my name to be called. It’s not hell, it’s purgatory. I wonder whether I should complain because the handyman behind me in line has just been called to pay his fine and so was the young Asian man behind him. Should I make a fuss?

No, they call me. “Mary Coudal. There is a problem. You’re not the registered owner of this car.”

I did not know that. I figured I was co-registered.

As anyone knows me knows, I heart New York. I have lived here my entired adult life — college, first marriage, temp jobs, stand up career, second marriage, kids, professional career. But, today, I will admit and I do hate to say this: New York may not be the most livable or kindest city south of the Canadian border.

Just look around. The crowd here is surly. We are in limbo. We want out. We’ve gotten into a club that we can’t wait to exit.

The 30-some people here are as diverse as a jury room — tradespeople, businesspeople, messengers, teamsters, teachers, international people. We are all trapped in a trailer in this vast warehouse at 38th and 12th Avenue

Heaven

Let me try and be positive. After all, there is beauty in our diversity. No one is belligerent. The room is air-conditioned on a 100-degree day. I have a seat. I have time to write.

I get escorted to the minivan twice now to procure either an up-to-date registration or insurance card. And guess what? I cannot find either. One is definitely my fault. See, I failed to put the registration card in the glove compartment. I’m pretty sure. But I must blame Chris for the lack of the insurance card.

I tell the overweight seated woman cop and the young copy who has escorted me to the car, “I have to be honest with you, my husband has Parkinson’s Disease and is a bit forgetful. I do not have those cards.”

The woman cop says, “Well, tell the supervisor upstairs.” So I traipse back to the cashier and throw myself on her mercy. I add for good measure that I’ve brought my marriage certificate to show that though my name is not on the registration, I am married to the registered owner of that pathetic minivan.

She whispers to the supervisor, a middle-aged man in a red tee shirt and baseball cap, and nods at me. He says, “Okay,” with a shrug.

I am given the honor of paying $185 to get my car back. I whisk the ticket off the windshield ($65). I resist the urge to phone someone as I drive out of the tow pound.

And I swear, it’s true, the young cop salutes me as I drive away.

Ah, New York. You love it, but you have to pay for a lot of parking tickets.