The home stretch

Today was a crazy house. We spent today at Eyebeam finishing up as much as Caroline and I could before Monday. Tomorrow we start to install things in MoMA! Its going to be a busy day for sure. I'm headed in early tomorrow to pack things up in a Uhaul truck to take them up to the museum. I really don't know what to expect, but it should be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to it all :)

The weather today actually sucked. It was rainy literally all day. It didn't stop. I was inside all day for the most part but it was just so gloomy looking outside.

Here is a link to MoMA's website that has a video of Caroline talking about the things she has done and there is also a description of what we are doing there!

(Sorry, I didn't take any pictures today. I will take plenty tomorrow I'm sure!)

Some place not too fancy.

I know it has been a few days since I have posted anything. Lately, Caroline and I have been very busy getting everything ready for the opening, which is this week! There isn't much to update on. We have been making a lot of furniture for the space that we have. I have been working on a chair/table as well as smaller low seats. A tutorial on how to make this will be posted on the making of Exchange Cafe blog and you can make them yourself too! I spend have spent a lot of time in the studio lately trying to get a lot of these things finished and I think we will!

There is currently an exhibit going on at Eyebeam which is really awesome to see the space being transformed into. There is some trippy interactive art that I'm going to try and link to HERE. There is also a video artist who is showing a video that he created that incorporates the viewer into the video as if he is talking to you and you are standing there with him. Obviously explaining it like this probably makes no sense but you see your reflection in the mirror in his video which was an interesting concept.

Tonight I had dinner with my former boss Shelly Bingham and my former co-worker Nicole! It was really great seeing them and being around some familiar faces. We got to enjoy a nice dinner together and caught up on what was happening. They are staying in a very nice hotel in the city with an incredible view! (see below).

Tomorrow I think we are going to start installing some of the things we have made and continuing to put on the final touches! It's been a completely awesome experience so far and I have been extremely excited about the things that I am able to be doing!

The perfect place

Today's post won't be too exciting, but I'll let you be the judge. I really didn't do much today and that's sort of why. At Eyebeam today when I went in Caroline was out in other meetings for all of her work, she left me some tasks to do. One of which is to print out a few things on a nice fancy plotter printer that cost from what I've been told, is $7,500. It feeds from paper on rolls. No one had any paper, so that has to be ordered. There were some minor edits to things and a slight bit of progress made on the furniture. Tomorrow will be more productive in the department of getting things done. It was nice to be able to take an easy day though.

Tonight was the real fun part. I went to go look at a potential apartment for the month of June. Let me say, its incredible and I love it! Its in an industrial part of Brooklyn and it has access to the roof with an incredible view. I have some pictures below of what it looks like but it doesn't do it justice and especially in the terrible lighting that I took the photos in. I'll be going back to met the roommates soon and I might be able to get some better ones then. Let me know what you think if you care.

1 sack of leather scraps

This morning, before going into Eyebeam I headed into East Williamsburg to meet up with a man Caroline knows named Will. He makes leather goods. I got to see some of them today and that are incredibly nice! Caroline sent me to his studio to meet him to get some scraps of leather that he was donating to use to help us make the covers for the stools we are making...and also because he is subletting his apartment for next month so I wanted to talk to him about that. His studio though, when I walked in was a very nice space. He shares it with three other artist. None of them were there at the time. I chatted a little bit with Will and he seems like a really down to earth guy and we are very grateful to have him donate such materials to help out! If you want to see the kinds of things he makes you can check them out at: etwasbags.com

I then hauled that MakerBot bag from Brooklyn to Chelsea and walked along the highline! In Eyebeam the day was spent doing a good amount of computer work really, mainly just finalizing forms, sending the currency off to be printed by the awesome Marc Stone, and working on some blogs for the project. I also got to watch something get cutout in the laser cutter while I waited. I took a break for lunch and wondered into a restaurant called New York Burger Co. It was delicious! Not the cheapest lunch I could have hoped for but it was a nice treat.

Towards the end of the day Eyebeam had what they called a "Stop Work" which is when all of the fellows, residents, and workers stop and meet to look at the work being done by a few residents to give feedback and learn what each other are doing. It was a really nice meet to go to. Everyone in that room seemed so smart. The first resident is working on a type of video game that take on an art to themselves in interactions with others. Another resident is working on a few different data collection systems, one being a program that scours the internet, taking samples from webpages in hopes to find out what "the color the internet is." The final resident is working on a few different types of apps. They have to do with social interaction between people in real life but one has to do with people watching her actions in real time and giving her feedback on what to do/say and the other is a catalog system of GSR by reading data of your body through a wristband or some sort of recording device and asking what the levels your rhythm are from (i.e. excitement, stress, anger). Everyone had really interesting things to say and show.

It was a beautiful day outside here today too. Lets hope it stays like this a little longer!

Its no woodshop with Russell...

Happy Mothers day to my favorite mom! She has helped me through so many things and my mother and father have been there for me so much in getting to New York and making all of this happen.

Late last night I got a text from Gabby, who I went to school with and she explained that on their way to Rome from St. Augustine they got delayed in New York for about 24 hours and was wondering if I was free to meet up with them. In the morning I got ready and headed into the city and found them in a restaurant for lunch. We wondered around Central Park afterwords for a while and then window shopped down 5th Ave. We stopped in the Tiffany store, six floors of diamonds on diamonds. They ended up having to get back to the airport to try and get the next flight out of the states and over to Italy. I helped them get to the subway and towards the airport. No one let me know what happened after but I'm sure they made it back.

After that I decided to walk to Eyebeam for the rest of the day to help Caroline make furniture for the cafe. It was a pretty decent walk from where I was but I made sure to stop at Doughnut Planet, which is hands down the best doughnut I've ever had in my life! Caroline and I though are working on some furniture now for the cafe and we are working on getting photos together of how to make them yourself! Eyebeam has a ton of different rooms for whatever you need to do. One is a woodshop and thats where we spent most of the day today getting a bookshelf and some rolling stools made. Once we get all of those things sent up I can show them more.

I got back home at a decent hour today which is nice, trains run normally when the hours aren't late! Go figure!

No extension cord

Today was an awesome day! When I headed out for the day I made my way to the train and realized that I had maybe 5 total stops before I got to Eyebeam because of the express trains and that kind of realization just gets you so pumped! Haha anyway, today was the first day that I met Caroline Woolard, my mentor for the New York Arts Practicum. She is awesome! She is very down to earth and honestly very busy. She has taken on a lot of things and its been interesting to see how she takes on the day. She is very personable and I think we are going to get along very well.

I met her at Eyebeam this morning at 10 am. Eyebeam is a technology resource center that facilitates working artists with a space to produce their work. It is set up as a commune, everyone helps out and everyone gets to use the space. If I must say something about the space inside, its that it is truly incredible! I have a few pictures of some of the areas but as my involvement there progresses, I will be sharing more. Caroline and I sat down to talk about some scheduling things for the new few weeks and tomorrow I am going in again to help her build some furniture that she is working on for the project. I have one example below of on type of chair she has made.

After I came home from working with Caroline and wondering around Eyebeam, it was about 8 o'clock and I had an appointment to go look at an apartment. I put the address into google maps on my phone and it was telling me that it was directly east from where I am currently staying. I thought, no big deal. The map said it would be like a 45 minute walk and there weren't really any trains running to make the trip shorter so I decided to walk. Before I left the house though I wanted to heat up some Chinese food that I had saved in the fridge for dinner. I put it all on a plate and stuck it in the microwave and went to set the time and it wasn't on... I opened the cabinets above and there was the power cord, sitting in on the shelf. It was not long enough to get even close to an outlet. I didn't even understand how this could happen. I search the apartment high and low for an extension cord and couldn't find anything. I searched and searched until the time was almost 9 o'clock and I had to be at the house by 10. I gave up and left the house, stopped at the corner store and got a Twix and started my walk to this apartment. On the way there I was passing a dollar store and stopped in and to my luck, they had an extension cord for sale. My Chinese Dinner Round Two was saved! I carried the cord all the way until my phone announced I had arrived. I called the man who was showing the apartment and to my surprise I was at the wrong place. I had just walked almost 2.5 miles to the wrong place...

I figured out what went wrong and then headed off in the right direction, again on foot, in an equal distance. I eventually made it to the apartment, and its pretty nice, its not too far from where I am now actually and close to the trains, the roommate seems like a nice guy and I think Im going to take it! I am going to rest on it and see how it all comes out tomorrow. I got back home safely and I just finished dinner, finally. Off to bed, I am exhausted! My fortune in my cookie ironically enough said: "Man who run behind car get, exhausted."*

*(Not really what my fortune was)

"but that's not why ships are built."

This post comes a little late. Yesterday was an interesting day over all, I really had no plans other than some computer work to get done for Caroline, so I took the day to do a little walking around. I went to a small convenient store to pick up some razors and shaving cream. The apartment that I am currently staying at is in the middle of a lot of Mexican and Chinese stores and restaurants (which makes for great meals!). I walked down to a small Chinese restaurant and got some food for lunch and brought it back to the apartment and continued to work.

Later in the day I coordinated meeting up with some friends, Luis and Erica! It was great to see them as they graduated from Flagler a year before I did and moved up to the city after. In the midst of all of the sights and sounds of New York I did not get many pictures of/with them, but I did get this video of me walking to their apartment and high fiving Luis. Ill get some more pictures next time. We went out to Williamsburg for dinner and ate at really cool Thai restaurant, that from the street seemed more like a club than a place to eat. The food was delicious and the company was awesome, we headed out to a bar after for a drink and met up with a couple of their friends. The place reminded me a little bit of St. Augustine, except this bar had skee-ball and a deer hunting arcade game.

On the ride back home I thought I had it all planned out, then I get on the G train to find out that it only went two stops after Luis and Erica left. There were some MTA workers in the subway and I asked them how to get where I need to be and they were helpful in getting me back, only I had to take what was suppose to be 2 trains, into 5 to get home. I made it back safely and all is well.

I know in the previous post I mentioned that I was going to meet Caroline for the first time yesterday, but in actuality, I am meeting her on Saturday (which happens to be today). Today I head to Eyebeam and meet Caroline for the first time in person! I'm very much looking forward to it.

Making moves

Today is May 9th and I have moved from St. Augustine, Florida to New York City to start my internship. My internship is through the New York Arts Practicum, which is an organization that pairs students and recent graduates with working artists in New York. Although the program does not start until June, I have come early to help my mentor, Caroline, Woolard, set up her project at the Museum of Modern Art. I have only been to New York one other time, last year. It is crazy for me to think that this has all come up so quickly! I have a few photos that I have taken on the journey so far and I plan to update this blog frequently and take a lot of pictures.

I am extremely excited to be here and have such an opportunity to be able to be doing what I am doing. I am feeling a little nervous and uneasy, as for the time being I do not have a place to live come May 27th. The program will end in the beginning of August and we will see what New York has to offer me then. Should I stay or should I go? This all is something that I have never thought I would be doing, but I am very open to making these moves to better myself and experience what the New York has to offer. Luis and Erica are some friends from college that live close in the area and I am going to try and meet up with them to find out more about the city.

Navigating on the subways with a suitcase and crammed backpack isn't the most fun part about being in the city, but I managed to make it to where I will be staying with no problems, and the rain held out! Tomorrow I am going into the city to meet Caroline for the first time in person and get set up at Eyebeam. More to come soon!