Freak Out!

 This is what happens when you freak out and have no confidence in yourself. You make a long list of everything you need to get through the day, pack your car and rush off in a flurry, but you forget your purse, and since you're not so far from home, you do an about face into the gas station, making a sharp turn, but what you haven't calculated for is the curb (you swear it wasn't there last week) and hit it, BOOM, slamming your tire, but you're still freaking out so you don't notice it's flat until passersby point at it with worried expressions, and so, you stop right there, realizing you have brought this on yourself, freaking out and such. 

It's hard to calm down when you've worked yourself up into a state, but you must, otherwise you're lost, so while your husband drives down the hill, you sit there and meditate. Not very successfully. Okay, not at all. 

I don't know why I was in such a state but I'd been working on a mural for Good Eggs for a month, and now it was done, which meant finally taking it out of the studio and putting it up. But instead of feeling good about it I felt anxious, anxious that somehow it wouldn't work. But after I busted my tire, left my car behind, drove Tom's car to Frogtown, I met with my art pal Margaret, who is full of positive energy, and we laid out the mural and pasted it up. The day went quite well actually: nothing fell from the sky, the paper didn't disintegrate, nothing dramatic happened. Other than frying my phone and not being able to call or text anyone, everything went smoothly. It was a feeling of great satisfaction to actually see the mural realized.

First, laying things out in the driveway

Margaret starting to paste up

 

                                                           

Come by and see the mural in person at Good Eggs, 2760 Clearwater Street, in the old Hostess Bakery building. As of this writing, I'm hoping it's part of the Frogtown Art Walk, but will keep you posted here or through email, lottobrand127@gmail.com. The big sliding door to Good Eggs, which is the entrance, is generally open.

Can't afford the rent

It started with sliding the key under the door...

No. It started with getting no sleep the night before...

Or maybe it started with my last night in NY?

Or the night before that....

but whenever it started, I hadn't slept a wink when I slipped the key under the door and realized I'd left my phone inside the apt. The apt was on the 37th floor looking south over the new Freedom Tower. A monstrosity close up...




...but from far away, at sunset, with the sun reflecting off the slanted glass—a sight to behold!

I was leaving on a 7 a.m. flight and had to make it to Penn Station and find my way onto the LIRR (not difficult)...

but here it was 4:30 and my phone was inside. Since I was a guest resident, would management open the door again?

They did for a fee of $15.

Unfortunately, I didn't have it because my ATM card had been canceled the night before due to a security breach.

Maybe it started there?

The night before I'd had dinner with my great pals Melissa and Louise, who knew each other from Reed College and were friends before I met either of them. Every April (or at least for the past few) we've gotten together, the three of us.

Dinner with pals

Earlier in the day, Melissa had asked for my assist on a little adventure putting up ELKPEN'S artwork--to be distributed around NY.

We were trying to figure out how to tie the red-tailed hawk on the other side of the fence at St. John the Divine, when a tall strapping young man by the name of Ian walked by and asked, "Need any help?" Sure did! We had tried climbing the fence, but got stuck half-way up like escaped convicts under the scrutiny of a search light. Ian was a godsend.

A godsend!
Sign reads: 
"The red-tailed hawk is one of the largest hawks 
and females are larger than males. 
Paris stay together for life.
Two are nesting near here."

The night before I'd had my own adventure putting up two rat wheatpastes down on the Bowery, with my son Mekko who served as my look out. It was deeply satisfying leaving something behind in the city, especially near where I used to hang out in the 80s, but now catering to a different crowd....meaning, the moneyed.

"I used to live here but I can't afford the rent."

 Wheatpasting on the Bowery

Still up the next day! (Spring and Bowery)

You see, things had just started going well after a bout of uncertainty, doubt and a strange fear that took hold on this visit. What had I hoped to accomplish here? Whatever it was, I hadn't done it.

But after I put up the wheatpastes, things started falling into place. The next day I felt surprisingly open to the great flow of humanity that is New York City. After breakfast at B & H in the east village, I walked to the Community Settlement House, the first Jewish social justice organizations on the lower east side. Inside I stopped to admire the painted panels on each side of the entrance, naive imagery of scenes of early life on the LES. As I stood there, the artist of the panels appeared and introduced himself. In his hand was the most beautiful plate I had ever seen—a work he'd just shown to his ceramics class of elderly Chinese from the neighborhood. What good fortune, I thought, meeting this man, talking about his art, seeing the work of his students. We talked like old friends. 

I walked away with the plate wrapped in my sweater.

"Golden Pheasant"
by Lee  Brozgol

After that openness and lightness, that spontaneity and beauty, after helping to put up ELKPEN and dine with my friends, it hit me, I was leaving the next day— which caused me to toss and turn and stare up at the ceiling all night. That's when it happened: Reality set in. I was going home—home home home— to my real life in L.A.

Going into the Tunnel

If you had caught me in the middle of last week, you might have seen a beat-up, deflated woman of indeterminate state of mind, (wandering around with dirty hair and hands) wondering what in the hell she was doing painting huge rats and half clothed women for an art show, taking place in a tunnel, no less: why why why? I asked, as I slogged through masses of butcher paper and mistakes. What good could possibly come from this? Shouldn't I—the thought seriously crossed my mind, as the exhaustion wore on— be doing something useful with my time?

 

Not that I'm unfamiliar with this state of mind, but it almost stopped me, and boy am I glad it didn't. Not only because I wanted to work with artist Margaret Gallagher, who curated the Tunnel Art Show, but being part of a local art exhibit in North East Los Angeles turned out to be a gas! Seeing the people who filed through the tunnel on Saturday night was worth it alone. There was the art crowd, the college crowd (Margaret just graduated from Oxy, with a degree in art), the friend crowd, but there was also the Cypress Park neighborhood crowd, who probably never thought of going into a tunnel on a Saturday night, but seemed generally excited about what they were seeing. A lot of discussion was taking place under Figueroa St., when you get right down to it (down to it, get it, underground, hah!).

Thank you Cypress Park neighbors for participating in this event! Thanks to Yancey at Antigua Coffee House for his original idea to open the tunnel that runs from Loreto St. to Nightingale Middle School for local artists each month. (Here's an article about it.) And...Thank you Margaret!

Margaret Gallagher

curator of the Cypress Park Tunnel Art Show

 standing in front of her paintings

And, especially thank you to Molly Ruttan, my trustworthy, risk-taking, wheatpasting friend, who has helped me on almost every one of my street art ventures without uttering one complaint (and she's not even getting paid!). Thanks Molly, I couldn't have done it without you. 

Wheatpasters to the end!

 GOING INTO THE TUNNEL

(photos by Tom Harjo)

 Molly and Charlotte pasting...

Margaret at top of stairs

 

If you missed the tunnel art show, look for it as part of the NELA Art Walk, every second Saturday. For those of you who'd like to see the wheatpastes, the tunnel's closed, but you can view them from street level, on both sides of Fig. They'll be around for another month.

(And I almost forgot, thank you to Jocelyn Grau for her generous contribution!)