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Sarah's Room

Sarah Booz. Not booz. Booz (like the speakers). She speaks for herself and her personality is rather unique. When we first met, Sarah said, “Do all girls in Knoxville look like elves?” followed quickly by, “You have a pig nose…and a butt chin.” And just like that, I was immediately confused.

Sarah being serious...this never happens.

My dear friend certainly has a way with words. Aside from her lingual elegance, she demands attention just in her way of being. She really packs a punch. Seriously. She looks for excuses to punch my husband anywhere she sees fit. Most of the time a reason isn’t hard to find. Needless to say, Thomas suffers many bruises after her visits.

Painting soon

“I’m a pretty princess,” is her catch phrase and anyone with an objection to her self-titling can pretty much go screw themselves as far as she is concerned. She’s tough as nails yet graceful (sorta) and very eloquent.

Sarah Booz

Sarah’s family bought their NYC apartment in the village almost 18 years ago and now they are going to move on and sell the place. (Some of you may follow Wendy from Encore and are privy to all the fun antics of preparing to sell a home…if now…check it out.)

A lot of history comes with all those years. Sarah’s room definitely speaks the loudest.

Words to live by

In order to sell the house at market value, they will need to make some adjustments…mostly by painting. Painting means covering up years of memories writen on the walls of her childhood bedroom. Some wish walls could speak…well in Sarah’s room, they do.

Playbills

I could never tell the stories as well as Sarah whose relationship with this space is nearest, but I hope the images can tell a tale of their own. Sarah, please fill in the blanks as you see fit.

Love you, Sarah

Enjoy.

Click a thumbnail then click the image again to see the full size. There are far too many to post individually.

I live in an area of Brooklyn called “Bushwick”. Admitting you live here used to get some very interesting reactions from the locals. Let’s just say, if you were interested in taking someone you just met at the bar home with you, you might get the, “yeah, I actually have to get up early in the morning…that is unless you want to come to my place. It’s in Williamsburg!”

Basically, saying you live in Bushwick is like saying you live in Bed Stuy…10 YEARS AGO!!! So, my point is, it’s not like that anymore. In fact, Bushwick is home to some of the most prominent emerging artists and musicians in the NYC area and is quite “up-and-coming”. I’m pretty proud to be part of that.

Bushwick Open Studios started in 2006 with a few artists willing and generous enough to open their lofts and studios to anyone off the street to showcase their art. It started out with a very small community and quickly gained notoriety around 2008. Last year’s BOS did not disappoint and our building, though a bit off the beaten track, was a hot spot.

These are images I took of a performance piece performed by an improv dance group on our roof under a full moon at the last BOS in June 2009. Everything was so perfectly synced and executed. If I remember correctly, it was about 30 minutes in length and quite beautiful.

The beginning started out like this...just girls in white walking around the roof. No one noticed them at first.

Said topless girl and token "dude"

I had my doubts, though. Inevitably, you get those kids banging away on some toddler toy while strumming a harpsichord with their toes (or some crap like that) while another person draws penises on their face in sharpy and ALL in the name of “art”. SO, this group certainly made me a little skeptical. It’s probably because the topless girl was standing outside the front of the building throwing cotton balls at people to get them to come to the roof. Hey…whatever it takes…I guess.

This was intense. Their bodies moved so perfectly together.

Hard to believe this is improv.

She looks like a child here. This is my favorite.

Hard to place this emotion...

The spot lights made amazing natural contrast for photos. I wasn't the only photographer taking advatage of it.

There were several groups of dancers performing at the same time, but most of the time they would direct the audience's attention to other dancers in different areas.

Feet. Like I said...

Ring around the rosey...

The end...

Any teacher will tell you–when you do something repetitively, you start to see patterns in what you produce. Maybe it’s a word or phrase you say often (for me, that word would be “evidently” Don’t ask. I have no idea), or maybe the first thing you notice about a person is their blank (insert, eyes, smile, arms, nose, etc.)

When I was in high school art class I almost predictably exaggerated my subjects eyes. I was so obsessed with the “window to the soul” thing that I made it the focal point of any artistic idea I was trying to represent. I did, eventually, make portrait eyes less alien-looking and much more natural, but that was always the area I concentrated on most. Back to fairies and unicorns.

I graduated and left all the hippy-dippy stuff behind me. Ok. Not entirely. Just my paintbrushes. Mostly.

In college I probably went through 5 majors before settling on journalism, and I only stuck to that because I had been told I was a good writer (you English majors can stop shaking your heads now…ok, gloat a little longer. Ok stop). I took maybe one writing course before I threw myself into the photojournalism track. It wasn’t long after my first photo class when I started seeing a new trend in my “artistic eye”.

Feet.

God help me. Yes. Feet. I have some strange fondness of feet. A gesture or a slight smile can make a simple photo extraordinary, but I’ve found feet are so expressive and incredibly genuine.

Many people focus on hands, and don’t get me wrong, hands are beautiful, but feet are so honest and painfully unforgiving sometimes. I feel they make lovely photos.

Here are a few of my favorites. Feel free to tear them apart, offer advice, or comment as you please!

Wall Flower

"Just a little off the top, Mac"

Status: Numeric

"Who? Me?"

Stomp

"I'm not weird. You're weird!"

Thomas and I have just done something a little…unconventional. We’re having Christmas in February. Today is the 25th and we started the morning off right! We opened presents!

This was our favorite….

Aesope the escape elf!

Let’s just say, he doesn’t enjoy wearing the hat…he’d rather play with it!

And Dia has NEVER been very photogenic…

Dia looks like she's in pain...

Anyway. Merry Christmas from the Grass family!!!

lol compplete with only ONE person looking at the camera...classic family photo

I think she works now…the blog. Let’s cross out fingers and hope for the best. Until then, enjoy some pics.

Wake up and smell the..chalk?

mmm…Cobbler…
Posted April 16th, 2009 by Samantha Grass

My husband is a chef…or cook, or whatever you want to call him (sometimes simply, Hey You). He makes amazing food. I’m always very challenged when cooking for him or by myself as he’s, well, the expert when it comes to cooking. This past Sunday, however, I one-upped him!

I was seriously hankerin’ for some homemade pie or pastry of some sort. I sifted through some recipes in the countless cookbooks lining our shelves and came up with a lovely blackberry cobbler that sounded so delicious I could practically smell it’s baked sweetness rising from the page.

I immediately set out with husband and trusty dog to Ridgewood, Queens (only a few blocks away) to get some fresh fruit from one of the produce stands run by some local Polish families.

For $5 in blackberries I was able to make this amazing dish:
Blackberry Cobbler

The breeze floating through our windows, fresh flowers tinting the air with just a hint of spring and that amazing biscuit smell emitting from the oven were all the things I needed to make my day perfect.

I took some shots of the cobbler on our glass coffee table while it cooled in front of the window to waft the alluring scent through the loft. Thomas obliged by cooking an accompanying dinner. We finished our day with amazing food and Marley and Me…to which I cried…copiously.

It was a perfect Sunday…

I forget sometimes I’m from the south. No. I don’t. That was a lie. Sometimes I do that…say something that isn’t true, and I have no idea why I said it in the first place, but here, there it is. In the grand scheme of it all (what does that mean?!) I guess I wasted more time explaining the absurdity of it  than just letting you all think that I actually did forget I was from the south.

I digress.

Back to that train of thought I almost missed. Thomas and I are finally unpacking. Oh sure, you say, you only moved a couple of months ago, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that we haven’t unpacked since we arrived in NY two years ago. What you may think next is, why on earth would they carry around stuff they don’t even need to unpack if it’s unnecessary enough to leave in a box? I have several explainations, but the only one that makes sense is, nothing is really necessary in the city aside from a bed (somewhat optional), clothes and toiletries (which you can pick up in a store).

Thomas taught me that lesson. I wish I could have left more things at home, but therein lies the problem…what home? I’m not really sure. I’ll refer to one of my favorite movie quotes of all time:

“You’ll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I don’t know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.”

When I first heard this, I burst into tears. I had to pause the movie to reflect on it further. He had put into words something I have always struggled to understand. Zach Braff is a genius. I love him deeply.

So, onto the point of this post. I found tapes. Of my youth (ugh. I hate saying that. I’m Young. Thomas is Young. We’re all Young. Why do we still feel old?)

We watched as many as we could before falling asleep on the couch. I was reminded of my spirit, but moreover, I was reminded of my HORRENDOUS accent! That’s right. Yours truly had one god-awful southern accent. Thomas couldn’t stop laughing at me and repeating choice phrases like, “Awww thanks gahhhyyysss!” and other horribly humiliating things I won’t repeat here.

Aside from realizing how spectacular my auditory memory must be in order to abolish my accent for a new dialect, I remembered how much fun I used to have. Regardless of all the crap that was going on in my life when I was 16, I was happy. I was the absolute essence of me. I think it’s part of that childhood innocence we struggle to remember was real at one point. I miss it.

I’m working on making that a new priority. Let’s hope it’s outwardly noticeable.

What does this have to do with a storm? Well…unless you’ve been living under a rock, New York is about to get hit with some snow… Woo hoo!