Thanks to Sotheby's and Saks 5th Ave from me!

Oh, I totally forgot to tell you...
Weeks ago I was contacted by the wonderful Amy K. of Sotheby's here in NYC. We had met at a craft show I participated in here in NY, and she contacted me because she was curating a benefit. The wonderful benefit was for an organization called City At Peace. Have a look at this amazing city youth development through the arts happening in our beautiful New York.
I donated a lovely necklace, with a vintage verdigris patinated leaf stamping and chandelier crystal dangling below. I will have a pic soon, I hope it raised some nice money for this amazing organization.

On another note, I will be at Renegade BK with the Better Than Jam Co-Op, and Renegade Los Angeles with my girl Miniature Rhino and new friend Monkeys Always Look.
Dooooope! I have never been to LA, but I am soooo excited. I have fam all over that city, finally I can hang Cali style with them :0)

Just wanted to share something I see more and more as I drive on the FDR. It's so strange, how you can pass something by all your life, but never really see it. Seeing and looking are such different things, my artists out there will agree. On Roosevelt Island there is an abandoned structure decaying. In a city of constant stimulation, over development and motion, this structure is just there, untouched, unshaken. I researched and found that it's an abandoned smallpox hospital built in 1854 when Roosevelt Island was still Blackwell's Island. It has a name- "Renwick Hospital".
I want to go peek around. I want to know what keeps it decaying and alive there, untouched. I found that it is built in gothic revival style and blah blah blah, but I want to know more than that. What ghosts are trapped in the sliced stone walls...hmmm...
photos courtesy of NY Times

Belated Nowrooz Mobarak!

It's 1389, I want to wish everyone a happy, beautiful New Year full of freshness. This year I got a really great photo of the family babies in the grass in my Baba's backyard. The small joys of life are not so small, they are just as recognizable and grand as they are.

On another note we're moving! Two blocks away...LOL. I won't be listing or creating for at least two weeks, try moving with two kids and hardly any help! It's hard.
So the first show of my season will be one of my favorite places EVER, The Brooklyn Lyceum. Be there the very first weekend of May, it'll be tons of fun.
http://www.bkcraftcentral.com/
Check out the classes that are available those days, Deb Klein has made them insanely affordable, I'm talking $5 to $10...

London Town I- BUST Mag Craftacular

I was so, so lucky enough to be chosen to participate in the London BUST Mag Craftacular. I have to say, BUST Magazine is an amazing monument to women, it has given indie designers and crafters and musicians such exposure and mad LOVE.
When I heard about this opportunity, I just had to try to be a part of it. London plays a role in my family history, when my family's country went into revolution, they became somewhat "stuck" in London. They were visiting my aunt at university in England, and word came over the radio that homes of government workers had been seized and all kinds of stuff, so they never returned. For about two years they dwelled in an apartment with friends on Edgeware Rd. I went to this place and stood looking at the building. How strange and far it must have been to have to call this European city "home". Edgeware Rd. is beautiful, I have dubbed it the "Middle Eastern Upper East Side". Anyhow, my wonderful partner and husband stayed behind on this trip, and I was accompanied by two people that might as well be blood family, my Renee and Alejandro. Renee also left her husband (my brother from another mother) Ayman with the baby (who is 3! lol). It was a blast, but something about European cities makes you want your man (or woman), they are designed with romance.
(Me, Shadia, Renee and Alejandro smoking sheesh on Edgeware Rd.)

My family there, Shadia and Baba Mansour took care of us one day in a beautiful house in Wimbledon. Wimbledon itself is green, hilly and quiet, it has an overwhelming English charm, and this gorgeous creeky old house the Mansour's live in is overflowing with character, Baba Mansour collects antiques and grows everything in the garden which is abundant with green vines, apples and even figs! Figs in London!! I felt like I was in an British mystery show in that house, I loved it. We ate in the garden and he told us all jokes and stories about is childhood.

Well, I love London, I love, love, love it. I went all over from Camden to Brixton, I stayed in Limehouse and invented different characters and we did comedy skits on a double-decker, it inspired us to dare, as people are less stressed it seems, more willing to just chill.

I have some pics to share from the most curious museum, the Wellcome Museum. Renee and I were waiting for the red line @ Tower Bridge station, where I spotted the add for the museum exhibit with a Victorian wax anatomical figure cut open. "We're going!" I told her...Renee, a nurse, was just as equally curios. This place has everything from chastity belts to Darwin's walking stick. It is a GEM!!!

(these were designed to look Madonna-like to be more accepted by people, can you see it??)

(c.1890 tattooed human skin)

I will have more pics of ridiculously cool stuff in blog II of London! xoxox

::BUST:: Spring Fling

Hey you and you and you! So, the BUST show was fun, I want to share some new great designers I finally got to talk to and some I discovered, that will come in the coming days...but the consensus is that all of us indie artists are really feeling the hurt of the economy. So many great supporters came out, and so many were there for fun, jobless. Three, yes, three of my customers came to say hello, and had lost their jobs. I know that so many great people will rewarded for there patience and hard work.
Here are some pictures of the day we spent at the WARSAW in Crooklyn, thanks for all you fantabulous folks that chilled with us.

***You'll see the line of fascinators and the hat I made with a mink skull***



Dawn who used to work at BUST came buy and brought me some Swarovski crystals I love her and her cute self.

If You're Going To San Francisco...Renegade

Above is the image of a great San Franciscan, and great man in general, Harvey Milk. This painting is by a favorite of mine, Robert Lentz. Here's to you both!

I must say that I have always wanted to go to this unique city, so when the opportunity arose to participate in the Renegade Craft Fair, I figured what a chance!
So off we will go, July 18th and 19th on the bay! If you're out there please do come through.