I worked as an artist for Trader Joe's a few summers ago.  I was responsible for illustrating chalkboards and designing templates for the company's products.  These are two images I produced for the store during my employment there:

This following illustration was installed for promotion of Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer.

The materials used in the construction of these soil bomb-balls are burlap, soil, egg carton, flower seeds (mexican sunflower, cosmos, snap dragon, zinnia, and others), twine, and small instructional illustration for each.  Last week, I cut 450 cups out of egg carton, making it so that I could successfully fill each of the 450 with seed and soil but unfortunately the project had to discontinue because my supply of burlap ran out!!!  I finished making about 200 and took to the streets... images from that experience will be posted later.  My idea was to give each of these small gifts to people I encounter in my community during the hours of 12-3 but my hands became emptier and emptier!  I had given 198 of the soil bomb-balls away and realized that it had only been an hour. THis project was exciting and it really lit up the streets(Sterling Place, Washington Avenue, Underhill, Classon Avenue), making strangers interact with one another.  I allowed people to take more than one if they insisted.  Something I learned while giving the bombs away, that people are truly skeptic of "free" things.  I felt that I had to clarify that I just wanted people to learn how to plant and that I want nothing to do with your credit card and your email address.

Cleanse (2010) from Andrea Solow on Vimeo.

Cleanse(2010), is a visual portrayal of a relationship with nature that encompass thoughts of ritualistic cleansing and self imposed burial.

By use of soil as a material to lather my skin, ideas about the human relationship to nature are conducted.  In most cultures, the acts of burials are demonstrated to symbolize death, to celebrate each occupant by returning it's mass to nature. 
The moon and the night sky are also present in this video.  The background my body is centered in front of indicates the celestial place of nature that I am reaching from my small terrace in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.   As my new skin consumes my body, I am unified with the sky.  As my skin virtually vanishes into the darkness of the night sky, I am unseen. I am cleansed.

close up image of cut egg carton, click on each of them for larger scale

there are exactly 450 "cups"(egg-sized)

and yes, my right thumb and index finger are completely swollen.  I'm pretty amazed that my little scissors survived...

I don't mean to be cryptic but I can't explain this image. Except that I adopted these here FIFTEEN-BULK Egg cartons off the street!  30 "cups" were cut from the egg cartons , and I used "cups" because I am having a hard time identifying that part of the egg-carton... anyway, I just really like the form they make spooning one another in a chain like this. there are 450 paper-egg-cups in total.

"These cartons have a dimpled form in which each dimple accommodates an individual egg and isolates that egg from eggs in adjacent dimples. This structure helps protect eggs against stresses exerted during transportation and storage by absorbing a lot of shock and limiting the incidents of fracture to the fragile egg shells. An egg carton can be made of various materials, including Styrofoam, clear plastic or may be manufactured from recycled paper and molded pulp by means of a mechanized Papier-mâché process." -wikipedia

 I can't believe how natural it is for me to think a thought and then if i'm even the slightest bit curious about it- without hesitation, I "google" it. Or I search for videos on whichever object I am hankering. Ohhhh internet. How I love this strange desparation to know things about "everything" but then realize I am not leaving my own 4 walls.

Making things does help though. While I go through phases of having zero ability to focus(is this, like, specifically a day time thing?), I can leave it to physical work, cutting, cooking, glueing, building, whatever, hours just SLIP by.  It's pretty spectacular.

I feel I may be inspired from this family I am living with right now.
while, no, not one of us is related, so I don't know why I used family just then.. but three of the 6 apartments in the building are home to me and nine talented artists.  Some would never accept that I call them that, because six are photographers(one of which is a mix of playwright, sculptor, painter, draftsman, actor, puppeteer director as of two days ago, chef, gardener and chemist<3), one sculptor/performance artist, two bi-trilingual collage artist/writers?
We are always in our stations buzzing about whatever chaos is striking at the moment, some of us form gangs and watch videos, cook, or talk together, some other group activities take place as well that don't need mention.
Egypt, New Jersey(Princeton, New Brunswick, and other stuff), Florida(meeeeeeeee- even though technically Brooklyn-Long Island NY is where i spent most time growing up), Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, Long Island and Upstate New York, and Maine are where we crawled from before creating a home together.  Anyway they mean a lot to me, and so does feeling like a mother . making, holding,  and looking at things. you should try it, ima get off this weird site and join my things in that other place now

18x24

charcoal drawling

this one's for my mom

she needs to see where her money went.

 should i mention her biased to figurative work?

thats not really an issue, as i like to kick it in that arena too? I don't know how I feel about it as ART but cartographical mark-making on flat surfaces or how a line can lead a life, mapping a space and falsely alluding dynamism.  Drawing is the experience of this collapsed physical space, regardless of phenomena that occurs in it, like a stage. Anyway here are some photos I took with my cell phone for you mama.

there's a gentleness

looking down versus looking up

is it found when you are lowered to the ground

tying your laces, tripping and falling

the sophistication and treasures of the small child

buried in the bubble gum cigarette butt fossils

 

 no i'm not finished with you yet, dear chil'en.

pokes in roof top

garlic net

 

  

Black and White Paper on Paper

part of an ongoing collage series, 11"x24"

January 2010

Last year, Collective Concepts PR(CCPR) and About Time Boutique joined forces to bring to Crown Heights their 2nd Annual Kid's Day Event.  I was asked to present something artistic and playful with the children so with the help of two friends, we made a family of puppets and a stage.  With music by Talking Heads and Pixies the kids sang along.  The children made "Where is My Hand?" a parody of "Where is My Mind?" 

Here's a photo taken by my friend, Tom Curcuruto

 

 

(cell phone photography) my mother during our thanksgiving holiday in pittsburgh

daisy and frederic on our way back

four for you glenn coco

September 19th, 2009

we had a barbeque in prospect park and saw a strange light coming from the sky. the morning after I reported what my friends and I had whitnessed on a message board/forum. Residents of Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York posted illustrations using this drawing application..
The environments were different but the cone of hovering light was the same! Nasa released information about a rocket they launched for an artificial cloud study. I guess that's cooler than spotting a UFO! not.....

Figure study
charcoal on paper, 18" x 24"

I've been preoccupied with my budding new school year.
Taking a drawing workshop with artist, Elena Sisto.
I haven't worked from a model in years and it feels really
meditative to just reduce thought and work with the
figure. I'm enrolled in various humanity courses this term, so
the drawings I do will be my only escapist vice away from all
the literature I am to read each week. I'm really excited because
although I love so many different forms of art, I've always felt more of a
challenge in negotiating pictorial space. Things just kind of appear
or hover above one another and I'd like to establish more technical practice.
It's a weird concept to create works on flat surfaces.. works as a mark-
making mechanism, or a self-observational study?
I'll figure that out at some point but for now, I will enjoy
that erratic, manic feeling before an easel.

fall semester:
Personality Theories -M
Drawing Workshop -Tu
Visuality and Modern Art I -Tu
Civilization and its Discontents -Th
Society and Nature -F

My favorite courses so far (can a majority of them be considered "favorites"?) are Visuality and Modern Art, the aforementioned drawing workshop ..... and Civilization and its Discontents(yes this is a Freud class!). In Visuality and Modern Art, we are studying different ways of seeing and as visual devices gained the public attention, art movements and sub-movements unearthed. Optical instruments play a number of roles in art in the mid 19th century. In our first lesson, Isabel Taube, our professor had us read a publication by neurologist Oliver Sacks(in which he investigates the common and varied experiences of blind people/synesthesia) and she showed us that secret optical illusive painting for devout Napoleon Bonaparte followers. a link here: Napoleon, Josephine and their son.

Anyway, I had Isabel as an instructor for a previous class, Modern Art through Pop, and she's great. The only art history professors I find who have really done their part to help keep me loving what I love are Ann Wooster, Isabel Taube, and Amy Taubin. The class entitled Civilization and its Discontents, is a phenomonal consumption of my time. Led by novelist and journalist, Jim Knipfel; a literature class focused on Freud's writings among others. This last week's session, we were presented the 1972 cult film, Pink Flamingoes by John Waters. It was a controversial comedy(NC-17) to say the least, but truthfully, watching this just felt like someone fed me a plate of my own feces and my dog's and then sprinkled old lady bunyon shavings on the top and then for dessert, a dismembered penis in a pool of phlegm. Twas that gross. Anywaaaaaayy, we are reading good things. And Jim is really hilarious, soft spoken, and is friends with the Church of Satan's preist, Peter Gilmore... better known as Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan.

As for outside those class, I have been investigating secret societies, psychology, philosophy, media, buddhism, and architecture. I'll update later on how excited/depressed this all makes me. How priveleged my viewers should be to read thangs they already know about. womp womp.
I have to go read and finish up a birthday gift. Ta taaaa for now!

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing entirely straight can be built."

-Immanuel Kant