The Big Apple
Blogging in from New York City, on our week-long excursion to America's biggest city. It feels like we have done and seen an awful lot! We spent the first half in Brooklyn, and explored that borough, I took an excursion up to Connecticut, then we spent an evening in Queens, we moved to midtown Manhattan (where I am at the moment, in our hotel room), marched in the Pride parade (the entire length!), hung out in the Village, explored the meat-packing district, walked out on the piers, went back to Queens, and we're not done yet.
Barb has been networking and meeting editors and focused on getting freelance assignments.. I have been trying to un-focus, letting myself wander in whatever diretion takes my fancy. If my feet were hardier, I might have gone even further. I did hop the ferry for Staten Island one day when it was muggy, to take in the breezes over the water. I have been enjoying taking photos of mosaics (especially in the subways) and looking up to see the architectural details of the incredible buildings of this city. I especially have been enjoying friezes - the carved designs in the walls and doors. That seems to be a very specific sculpting skill - to be able to carve something that looks three dimensional, but is nearly flat. I'm thinking about how many artists have been hired through the years to decorate these buildings, and how today, an entire complex can be put together without hiring a single craftsman/woman.
Looking up at the skyscrapers, I notice that the decor starts at about the third floor. Now, you know that when the building was first opened, the decor was probably even more dramatic at ground level, but as The Gap and Shoes For Less (or their predecessors) moved in, they stripped the facade of its beauty and put their ugly logos and signs over the rococco doorways and fanciful lobbies. If you keep your eyes low in this town, you miss the handiwork of a generation or two or three. What are today's artists doing for work? What happens to a society where creative design energy is not valued?
Barb has been networking and meeting editors and focused on getting freelance assignments.. I have been trying to un-focus, letting myself wander in whatever diretion takes my fancy. If my feet were hardier, I might have gone even further. I did hop the ferry for Staten Island one day when it was muggy, to take in the breezes over the water. I have been enjoying taking photos of mosaics (especially in the subways) and looking up to see the architectural details of the incredible buildings of this city. I especially have been enjoying friezes - the carved designs in the walls and doors. That seems to be a very specific sculpting skill - to be able to carve something that looks three dimensional, but is nearly flat. I'm thinking about how many artists have been hired through the years to decorate these buildings, and how today, an entire complex can be put together without hiring a single craftsman/woman.
Looking up at the skyscrapers, I notice that the decor starts at about the third floor. Now, you know that when the building was first opened, the decor was probably even more dramatic at ground level, but as The Gap and Shoes For Less (or their predecessors) moved in, they stripped the facade of its beauty and put their ugly logos and signs over the rococco doorways and fanciful lobbies. If you keep your eyes low in this town, you miss the handiwork of a generation or two or three. What are today's artists doing for work? What happens to a society where creative design energy is not valued?
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on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 at 6:37 AM.
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Anonymous, at 10:34 AM, June 30, 2004