Valentina invited me to hang out with her in the city over the weekend so that we could go to her friend’s art event. It sounded like heaven so I said yes.
We made our way through a cordoned off street that was hosting a festival, though neither of us could tell you what was being celebrated. When we arrived, we met up with Daniella, another Sarah Lawrence student.
The idea for the art event was that each floor had a set number of artists on it and that you went into the room that interested you most. We started with Mahmoud Hamadani, an Iranian artist and personal friend of Valentina’s whose black ink paintings reminded me of Pollock’s drip paintings. They are beautifully simplistic and lacking that sense of chaos that comes easily to jet-black abstract paintings.
From there, we visited Katinka Mann, a woman in her 90s, who was easily the most modern artist there. She explained to us the roundness of her shapes and how that symbolizes what we so often see in nature. After discussing former Sarah Lawrence professor Joseph Campbell and the way that he could articulate a thought on paper better than anyone else we knew, we moved on to other artists in the building.
Almost every artist seemed to be operating in a different medium. There was crochet, sculptures, pottery, videography, and a few paintings that you could only tell were paintings when you walked straight up to them.
It was around this time that I discovered the tarot card reader who was promoting their boss’s recently designed tarot card deck. I could be fleeing a country and I would still be able to locate the nearest tarot card reader. This time I asked about the trajectory of my education. I am on the cusp of a rebirth apparently. I need balance and strength but I must look to teamwork for all of these things. My pursuit may even be something charitable. I cannot wait to see how that takes shape.
Afterwards, we hung out at Valentina’s apartment in the city and went for Dim Sum on Restaurant Row in Hell’s Kitchen. The whole thing was as amazing as it sounds. A quick little excursion into the city to view beautiful art and eat incredible food is my idea of a good time.
On the cusp of a rebirth,
Raquel
The Tragic Queen 