Monthly Archives: April 2018

As many of you guys may know I am an adventurous person if I say so myself. The picture below is a picture I took a few months ago. I was at Central Park with some friends and decided to get lost and ended up around this view. I decided to stand on top of a pedestal of some sort in order to take the picture. It was a beautiful picture in my opinion even though it did look like it was about to rain. You can see the blue water and the green bushy trees and the huge buildings as well. That is what New York is all about; it’s about the bonding of people, site seeing, the huge skyscrapers that make us look very small, and of course Central Park. I had really fun that day and thanks to google maps I was able to find the nearest train station. Overall, it was a great experience.

Wednesday April 24, 2018 it was raining. I was tired and cold. I arrived at 68^thStreet around 1 in the afternoon. As I walked to the museum I decided to look at what hour the museum’s pay what you wishpolicy begins. The pay what you wish policy begins at 2PM and when I checked my phone it was 1:13AM. I decided to stand under scaffolding for about 15 minutes and waited for the rain to pass. Then I decided to walk around Central Park until the time came. Time passed very slowly but I enjoyed walking through the park. When it was time I walked to the museum located on 1 East 70th Streetand got my bag checked. Then I walked to get my ticket. I paid a dollar. After that I got my ticket checked and proceeded to go explore the museum. I checked in with one of the employees to see if they allowed pictures to be taken. They did not allow photos anywhere except the garden. I took a couple of pictures in the garden and then entered the Oval Gallery. There was nothing special there, so I continued on to the West Gallery. At this moment I decided to take notes since I couldn’t take pictures.

The first painting that caught my attention was Hobbema’s Village with Watermill among Trees. This painting reminded me of the kind of genre paintings my mom likes. The landscape gave a quaint vibe. The green, blue, and grey colors gave the painting a slight feel of melancholy which I liked. The next painting that caught my attention was a Rembrandt. It was a portrait of a man which upon closer inspection one could notice the thin brush strokes which surrounded his beard. I looked at the art pieces for about 3-5 minutes each. Turner’s Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet Boat, Eveninghad very pretty peach tones. I really enjoyed this piece for the balance of peach and green-blue washes. I walked over to the Enamels Room. Gerard David’s TheDepositioncaught my attention because of its depiction of the foreground. At first, I thought it was odd or off but then after looking at it for about 4 minutes I realized that its depiction was alright. Barna da Siena, Christ Bearing the Cross, with a Dominican Friarwas done with tempera paint. Siena’s painting stuck in the back of my mind because the gold used in the background was so vibrant. Enclosed behind glass was a clock. A Clock with Astronomical and Calendrical Dialsby Veyt Schaufeel was interesting because it had the astrological signs engraved into it. Although I do not believe fully in astrology I found this aspect of the clock impressive. I understand that this room is small in size, but I was stared at a lot in this room which I did not appreciate. This happened in other rooms as well.

I finished looking at all of the paintings in the Enamels Room and walked back to the West Gallery into the North Hall. The North Hall caught my attention from before when I passed through the Garden Court. Walking into the hall I fell in love with the drapes. Comtesse d’Haussonville’s Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was beautiful. I could not find from at least my perspective any brush strokes. Everything was blended together seamlessly that it did not look like it was painted. I observed this painting for about five minutes not only because it was so well done but because I was in awe. I later looked up the painting and found out that it was oil paint, which is why the painting looked luminous and very pleasing to the eye. As I continued to explore I walked over to the Library Room. This room was memorable for two reasons. The first was because of Vase Japon. The vase had a lovely burnt sienna color with white and gold designs. The second reason the room was memorable because of the conversation I overheard of two elderly men. They spoke in Spanish with Spanish accents. The two of them stood in front of a painting. One of them talked about life, smoking and drinking while the other listened quietly giggling. I smiled to myself as listened to the man go on about what he had done back in his country.

The Portico Gallery was the last hall that had anything of interest to me. The Fired by Passion: Masterpieces of Du Paquier Porcelin from the Sullivanmade me want to buy porcelain tea sets. Everything in the collection was so delicately done that you could see the details of the faces of people distinctly. I enjoyed these pieces because of the lively burnt orange and blue colors in some of the designs. In all, I enjoyed the art very much. My favorite piece in the entire collection would be Comtesse d’Haussonville’s Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. I recommend everyone to look at this piece even if you’re not into art.

For this day long event I choose to go to the art club event of wax seal stamp making. We walked into the room and there were a couple of people already there. I was with Marcia and Brenn. We had meet Jessica and others there. When we got we were introduced to a series of wax sculpting instruments. A member from the art club told us what to do the clay and the process that would be needed to harden the stamp. She then handed all of us pieces of clay. I sat down and began to mold the clay into a stamp. I tried drawing the face of someone but it wasn’t working out so I smeared it off. I figured then that I would cutout a flower. The flower didn’t turn out as I expected so I smeared it off. The art club girl mentioned that five minutes were left before we had to hand in the stamp. I settled and decided to write “Hi”. I handed my stamp in and waited for 30 minutes for it to bake. Ten minutes before time was up the art club member taught everyone how to pour the wax and properly place the stamp. When they were ready I grabbed mine. It was very warm. I took an orange wax candle and lit it. I held the wax candle at an angle and let the wax drip on paper. When the wax puddle came to be of a sufficient size I blew out the candle. I dampened the stamp and then pressed it firm on the waxy puddle. After a minute I took the stamp off and it revealed the “Hi”. The workshop had come to an end at this time. I gathered all my materials and left with my stamp. It was fun making stamps because I had friends to talk to and I learned how to make wax stamps. 

For my New York Minute, I chose to talk about the Central Park Boat House. This place is located in the middle of central park and its a really big lake. This place offers row boats to rent at a very good price and you can use the row boats for as long as you wish. There is also a really nice restaurant by the water. Even though its kind of expensive, the views are all worth it.

The FIT Museum, located right across from the Fashion Institute of Technology’s main campus, is actually one of my favorite museums ever. I got to visit a few of their exhibitions a while back and completely fell in love with them. Some of them were the history of camouflage print on clothes and a rendition of black designers throughout the times. The exhibitions were absolutely divine, specially because I’m someone that likes to look at clothes pattern as well as the styling of clothes in my free time. If I’m not wrong, the museum is completely free, and I would recommend everyone to visit and get a little taste of the history of fashion through their many exhibitions.

Just a reminder that Wednesday’s class will be held in VC 6-160.  We will be using a computer lab to begin research for our final papers.  Please come to class with your topic prepared in writing.

See you there!

For the Art-A-Thon I decided to go to the piano workshop. I chose this one because it was the only one that got my attention and it worked best with my schedule. The lady in charge helped us by teaching the notes and then guided us to play a simple blues song. I already knew some notes since my sister used to play piano and taught me a little something on the piano. There was a guy then introduced to the workshop that played a song and taught us a little something. The workshop was not that boring and I did enjoy it a little bit. It was also my first time at the piano room at Baruch. I never knew that Baruch had a place like this.

Did you know that more than 120,000 vehicles, 4,000 pedestrians, and 2,600 cross the Brooklyn Bridge every day? Well  I was just one of 4,000 pedestrians last week crossing the bridge. It was a beautiful Wednesday afternoon and for the first time in a while, the weather was just perfect in New York City so taking the trip to the bridge was a must.

It had been a long time since I  had visited the bridge so I did feel like a tourist in my own city. For the first time out of all the times I had visited the bridge, I had noticed something I had never noticed before. When I was walking along the bridge, there was a part of the bridge that had locks on them. It really caught my eye so I stopped to analyze the locks to see what they were. The locks had the name of couples with their anniversary date on it. Then I started to think if some of these couples were still together because some of the locks like they have been their for years. I was also wondering if that if the couples who had broken up, would have gone back to take the lock off. I know if I had my lock up there and had broken up with that person, I would take the lock off.

When I was done walking the bridge, there were also new offices and a museum at Dumbo. I have seen these before but they were under construction and I had just thought that they were going to be apartments for the rich people. The place was all hipster but it looked very modern. The place offered a beautiful view of the bridge and the city. There is also a high class restaurant.

Walking along Dumbo throughput the night has made me realize how much it has changed all these years. I remember as a kid growing up my dad would tell me how bad Brooklyn was. My parents would never take me to Brooklyn so I would have to go on my own to see for myself as I was getting older. You could see the presence of gangs and drugs all over. Now when you visit Brooklyn, you can see that everything is urbanized. The buildings in Dumbo are all new or either renovated to still leave that style of old building.

For the ART-A-THON I attended the piano playing event as I already have experience with music and was very curious as to how to play piano. The program was lead by a very sweet woman whose name I don’t want to misspell. She taught us how to play a blues song on the piano. It was an extremely easy song and she also proceeded to teach us the which notes were which on the piano. There were different people in the room, some experienced, others not. After practicing the song for a bit the instructor then invited a man named Gordon to join us playing. He was absolutely fantastic and I played alongside the instructor and Gordon at the same time. It was extremely fun, and I definitely enjoyed much more than I thought I would. After this I went to the single piano rooms and stayed there for hours playing not knowing time passed. I’m extremely grateful to have learned of this room and event because I go to the piano room often at least twice a week. I’m currently learning to play the “Corpse’s Bride” duet. The single rooms tend to be empty and they aren’t bad in any way. I came to this event at first mostly because of the extra credit opportunity, so the fact that I was able to pick up a very relaxing and entertaining hobby was a great shock to me. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. This event was magnificent and I definitely encourage everyone to participate in any event like this as I had a great time.

This picture was taken when I was crossing the Brooklyn Bridge a few months ago. It was my first time walking the bridge with my cousin. It was quite a walk, longer than I had expected it to be, but I managed to cross it eventually. As everyone knows, the Brooklyn Bridge is a popular tourist site. When walking everyone was taking photos like myself as you can see below. Yes I added a filter to it to make it look better in my opinion. When crossing the bridge, there were many different locks that were locked on the cables of the bridge. I didn’t know what they were, but according to my cousin who I was with, he said that couples tend to put locks on the cables and write down their initial on the lock as a display of their love. I do not know if this is true or not, but it made the cables look colorful. Also I had a really good mango while walking the bridge so it made the experience even more better. I recommend everyone to have a chance to experience the walk with friends or family and it will be worth it.