this is one of the programmes i will be teaching in lima, i've been so focused on the fact i'm leaving, i forgot to think about the upcoming challenge, which will be so amazing...

i'm giving my sketchbooks one last look and chose one randomly, opened it and found this as a print out http://www.vorticeargentina.com.ar/ac/03/index.html

it's a page from an artist book made in argentina by a very cool mail art group called vortice argentina. each artist was invited to make a page of the book as an edition and then vortice compiled the books. my page was a coca tea bag silkscreened with part fo a photo of famous peruvian photographer martin chambi of an indian pulling coca leafs for chewing from his coca bag.

unfortunately, i never received my book copy, i was mailed a different edition (this publication is made by vortice annually), so this is all i have of that piece.

now i have to stop looking at my sketchbooks, or i'll never leave the house...

it's easier/cheaper for me to send them to g in england and then he will send them to me in lima, they're in two boxes right now. I treasure these books so much, they contain my story in new york, all my process, my questions and doubts, my ideas and thoughts-my whole life... I am feeling very uneasy to part with them but at the same time I know g will take care fo them like no one else would and I will eventually have them.

i play a lot in my sketchbooks, i experiment and figure things out or just make without thinking too much and many times the results are freer and therefore better in them.

i took some photos of random pages a while ago, when i first left bushwick, bye dear sketchbooks, i will see you soon...

i made this piece a long time ago, maybe two years into coming to new york. i covered my own suitcase in band aids, it was painted white when i re-used it in my fallen angel performance (there's a slide show of it in my website under galleries). the piece was about emotional baggage and leaving/migrating/being nomadic/carrying your life with you. when i exhibited it, i drew a rectangle on the floor with band-aids and it was placed inside this as if contained and not allowing visitors to get too close to it.

the suitcase was one of the pieces i had to let go of because i cannot take it with me. it was placed outside (exposed to the elements like the snow, looking even more beautiful) and taken by the trash collectors this week. it made me sad but i also understood it will now be in new york forever as it was meant to be. some pieces are made to have short lives, i felt good about being able to let go of it with serenity.

 tonight g said to me that my previous post was too negative and dark and that i should post something positive today. so here i am, feeling better and stronger. so many things are in my head, many of them related to the noguchi, everything always takes me back to noguchi. today is yet another snowy day (thank you new york for taking my snow prayers so literally) so my third grade class at the museum was canceled. and it bugged me because it's one of my two classes left to teach. we were going to talk about 'exploring the world' and discuss four pieces: the well, sun at noon, open column and leda together with brancusi's heads and then make a sculpture inspired by a place they had traveled to, even if it was not another country but had had an impact on them. i'm crossing my fingers that my group does show up tomorrow, more third graders, also with the theme of exploring the world but with a different focus, i somehow need to relate noguchi to van gogh who they're studying in school. all of this to begin to say how much i will struggle to not have the noguchi in my life anymore; out of all the places in the world it is new york where i have felt more at home than anywhere and it is the noguchi where i have felt a sense of belonging. i feel i'm at home there, i feel the place welcomes me and gives me happiness, isn't that what a home does? i have been working there for five years, spent almost every sunday of those years there (i only missed a few ones due to sickness) so it has become like prayer and the artworks became my family. this sunday is my last public talk there and i have no idea how i will do it. it seemed like this day would never come and here it is. yesterday was my official goodbye with staff and i asked permission to take a rock from the garden with me. i will choose my rock on sunday and use it to begin my new altar (i make little shrine like installations in the spaces i inhabit, not religious ones, more punk than anything else) in my new space in darkest peru. (darkest said with love as a wink to paddington bear)

p.s. also went to MoMA today to say goodbye to warhol and also drooled in this drawing exhibition but the coffeeshop i'm in is closing so i'll write about that tomorrow...

blogging from heights cafe in prospect heights

these are my last days in new york and i'm a wreck. i'm disorganized and in permanent anxiety, in pain and unable to function. a lot of ugly things/encounters with very vile people have happened these days (that i won't share here) that have added to the already stressful act of moving to another country. i'm exhausted, am unable to focus on anything and also have no real living space. add all of this up and you have a very weak and ready to give up person. i knew it would be hard but not this hard. i have stopped eating and have no will to do anything while at the same time, i see my precious time in new york slipping by. what to do? force myself to keep going? give up? just sleep until february 7th? i have not been able to make any art in this state, had planned to document my last 14 days in a beautiful old ledger book my coworkers gave me... but i feel in a permanent haze and out of control. maybe it/ll be better tomorrow.

i think one of the things that has me so down is not being able to take my art supplies, books, artworks with me and having my stuff all over the place at this point. i'm also having to give up works for adoption until i can get enough money to ship everything.it's incredibly hard.

i hope all of this is worth it, i hope this huge leap of faith is not a mistake...

around my third year in new york i started thinking about my wounds and scars, the physical and the emotional ones. i thought of the subway as the guts of the city and how anything visual that you placed in a station would be seen by a vast quantity of people. this drawing was an idea i had about subverting the subway exit signs using the letters and colors of the subway trains/lines to spell words like 'scar'. after a while i dropped the project as it was almost impossible to make it happen but i found this drawing yesterday and thought how i would love to do this right before leaving.

looking at the photograph i realize what a bad circle maker i am, but it would not be my work if it was perfectly made...

i want to do some more graphic stories at some point; it's amazing how sad i was six years ago...

this piece was sold to a curator who never gave me a picture of it so i'm really glad i found this one...

more recylcing at a time when i should be packing. this used to be a shirt and i used it for a long time... should i paint the passe partout and the frame? should i stop doing this and pack?