She's back in the game!

After over a month long absence from blogging, I'm happy to say that I am now back and in business. While part of my absence was due to sheer laziness, I also filled that time with a good dose of nail-biting, finding a new place ( a House!), working to afford the move, packing, throwing stuff out, getting new stuff, moving, and settling in.

I moved to Bensonhurst, a neighborhood in South Brooklyn close to Coney Island. It's a lot farther out than what I'm used to but there are so many advantages to living out here than I initially realized. For one thing, it makes me appreciate the things I took for granted before, like coffee shops, gentrified grocery stores, and being 15-30 minutes away from Wburg or Manhattan.

I also started working at a wholesale bakery in Queens and that pretty much rules. I get to prep, bake and collate two days a week and it's the bee's knees. Between that and the nightly bike rides, free time, and the starting of art projects I've been putting off forever I have to say that life's pretty sweet right now. I'm not even going to get into the heat situation in New York right now.

Artwork to follow, I'm working on something for someone's birthday and will post after the birthday has come (this weekend).

Also, get psyched for guaranteed once-a-week posts! Woohoo!!

Now, for some food photos:

I made this bread shortly before I moved; it's a braided bread with a lemon curd filling, which was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be to make. It was also my first time making bread and I was quite pleased with the results.

And, this was Alec's dinner at the restaurant we went to on my birthday. I took a picture of his because it was a lot more interesting than mine. Viva La Mexico!

Did I mention that in front of our house, we have a vegetable and herb garden? Heck yes!

i'm into this

As I am in the midst of another moving crisis (not really but who doesn't love a little drama), I've been scatterbrained and instead of focusing on furthering my artwork I've been focusing on looking at sweet time-wastin blogs, catching up, workin', looking for work, looking for apartments, and general activities that surround what happens when one runs around the buroughs like a chicken with its head cut off. In short, the usual.

In this light, I'm asking for donations for the "Help Stephanie Find An Apartment" fund. This is not because I frivolously spend my money on stuff I don't need, but rather because the rent I pay now is quite expensive and hasn't really afforded me with an opportunity to save, and yes, while maybe that Texas trip had something to do with it, I really didn't plan on being kicked out of my apartment when I signed what appeared to be a short-term sublease back in February. Now, as it stands, if I can't find an apt. I can afford in the next month and a half then

I'm pretty much fucked. So help a girl out! I am willing and ready to take any odd jobs that anyone has to offer. This includes helping people move, building shelves, photo assisting, taking old ladies down to the post office, dog/cat sitting/walking, WHATEVER. I will also take your portrait for a small sum, like $30? Or something like that. I could draw your likeness as well but that would just be a waste of time.

Don't forget, I'm also a great cook and baker! Hire me to cater your dinner party! Luncheon! Cocktail event! Friends/Aunt's/Parent's Birthday! I am open to work for you.

Plus, it's raining today. Hence the drivel. I'm so not going outside until the weather realizes its May already. CMON.

So if you think you'd like to commission me, please leave a comment or email me. I'm for sale.

*Picture Credits:

Psycho Wipeout @ Loftapallooza taken by me, SLL, Esther Pearl Watson/Unloveable, found on some TUMBLR blog, X, Jaime Hernandez/Love & Rockets, The White Lioness, Las Robertas, this great Costa Rican lo-fi girl band, the good ol days of Brooklyn.

Fight For Your Right; You Don't Have To Party If You Don't Want To.

Memories I Don't Have

you'd better watch it baby, you're too young to bust your guts.*

I went to Texas. It was beautiful and amazing and everything I hoped it would be, possibly the best vacation I've ever had. My friends & I went tubing down a river, swimming in Barton Springs, went to a movie theater that served beer(titillating, I know), but mostly walked around in the sun. Hence the sunburn I got that still healing a week later, and the layers of skin that are coming off of my shoulders. It was all worth it.

Coming back to New York was a relief as well as something to brace myself for; in a few weeks it will have officially been a year since I have graduated from college, and I find myself in a similiar position. The time away made me realize how little I've really accomplished, the goals I set for myself that I hardly motivated myself to do. Although I could make a list of the monumental things I've done, I know that it would be in vain. I know a lot of that time was spent lying in bed doing nothing. I'm not going to declare anything, I think I just needed to sum that all up.

So with that in mind, I'm trying to be more productive. I shot a lot in Austin and I have more plans to shoot coming up. If you don't try, how will you know what will happen? Yes? Yes.

I'm kind of over titles, for the moment. I think it tends to push the viewer into making a decision about the image, instead of just enjoying it for itself. Which is why I post them on this blog. Some of the stuff from Texas I'm planning on submitting to Capricious Magazine, and am hoping to find other magazines or blogs or anything of that nature to show my work in or at. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know. Don't be shy.

*Title of entry a quote from Flannery O' Conners' A Good Man Is Hard To Find.

April

Paper Bag debuted at MoCCA last weekend, for all those those interested parties. I was lucky enough to meet one of my favorite female cartoonists, Esther Pearl Watson, and leave a zine for Julia Wertz, who does Fart Party, as everyone (EVERYONE!) should know of.

Other great people who made great things and showed them at MoCCA:

Andrew Neyer, of Closed Caption Comics fame, and then some.

I fully enjoyed all the peeps over at the Sparkplug Comics table, including Austin English, Eroyn Franklin, and Nate Doyle.

Victor Kerlow. In addition to making several of his own books this year, which are available for purchase at Desert Island (BK) and Forbidden Planet, if you're in the NYC area, also found time to make a lovely drawing for Paper Bag. That thing I make.

the Incomparable Jess Ruliffson, who made a book called Keep Us Safe, is still tootin' away over at her blog and personal work. Check it out.

On that note, so is Alec Lewellyn, who published a 35 pager comic called Big Title, about professional wrestling. Check him out too.

And last but not least, I wanted to mention Joe Flood, from whom I got this mini-comic called Long Road to Liquor City, about hobos on their way to the veritable Liquor City, a town which holds the essence of Big Rock Candy Mountain. The story is solid and I love the intricacy of the drawings.

On a personal note, I've had a busy March and April. I picked up a second job, working at a bike shop, only to quite after three and a half weeks due to a particularly nasty incident involving four letter words repeatedly shouted in my direction because of the pricing of a tune-up.

I was running around like a chicken with its' head cut off for a while there. Haven't had a chance to work on many personal things, other than making bruschetta/various other dinners, reading comic books, seeing my mother, working on/printing Paper Bag. Those things count, yes?

On the plus side, I'm going to Texas this week, to visit some friends and take a general break. I'm super duper triple excited. Photographs to follow.

Oh yes, and if anyone was interested, I did make and photograph the "watermelon" cake I made, but it looked and tasted like utter crap, because I thought I'd be a genius and try to cut down an already simple recipe entitled "1-2-3-4 Cake", which makes enough batter for three layers, into a recipe that had enough for two layers instead. And I missed something and the texture was too dense, and my frosting, too sweet, and an odd texture. Definitely didn't look like a watermelon, in the end.

Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy this...it will be in my head until I get into Austin on Friday morning.

In Its' Place

A Straight Line Circles Sometimes, March 2010

follies

Well, well. It seems that winter maybe on its last legs, but I heard today that it's supposed to snow tomorrow. Again. But that's how a real winter in New York is supposed to be, right? Hopefully it won't snow tomorrow because Lloyd Kauffman is supposed to be at Forbidden Planet....doing...nothing really of signifigance, just hanging out and being cool. I hope he has some Troma superstars with him, to really rectify this whole experience. If you haven't seen PoultryGeist or Tromeo and Juliet yet, you're missing out. Go rent them. Or buy them.

I have an extremely chapped set of lips right now and it's straight bullshit. But I know that there are at least three tubes of chapstick rolling around my room and can't bring myself to buy another one.

Tonight I'll be making watermelon cake. Pics or it didn't happen, I swear.