Yesterday's Photo Reference to Hokusai......

Just a note on Yesterday's picture over at the photo site ... It really DOES look like Hokusai doesn't it?  More than some of the other sightings I have had of oddities seen from the corner of your eyes..

If there are new readers out there, you don't know that I see Frogs in the subway ceilings, Bambi in packages of hummus and a variety of animals in subway walls.  

I find myself pondering why these things are revealed to me, but at least I have enough sense to share them here and not light candles and try to sell tickets.  I am sure you are all heaving sighs of relief...

More sightings of a visual nature

I know that I have an unusual view of the world. I am the one who saw frogs in the 181st street subway station and Bambi in my hummus.

So I now give you what I saw at the train station at 168th Street yesterday.

Nothing! you say. You got nothing....

I say ... a cat sitting behind a dog who is barking down the tunnel at the train. The cat, undoubtedly female, is waving her paw above the back end of the dog.

I know there are people out there who are very worried about me right now. I am just fine thank you, I have a very visual creativity sometimes.

subway art again Spring Street Station

This is at the entrance of the Spring Street Station and is called New York Subway Station, by Edith Kramer done in 1994. According to the Subway Authority, it actually shows the Union Square Subway station, (Go figure, typical New York).  I love the red and white poles marching in a row and the way the subway tracks seem to be above the platform.  Sometimes it feels like they are bearing down on you like that.

Can't keep making creative excuses

for long silences because thinking up the creative excuse makes the silence even longer!

Sometimes I just spend some time wandering and thinking.  

If you check out the photo blog you will see I spent time on trains lately.  The images of the A train 81st Street Stop - Museum of Natural History  are different from the series I did a while ago on the same stop  

The first set of photos are from the uptown station, which is actually located above the downtown station.  The uptown is all tiles and pictures, 

the downtown 

 

is all about fossils and bones embedded into the walls.  The glowing doorway is the one that links the two stations.  These are the kind of stations that make New York so amazing.  There are some old stations that are barely hanging in there and then 5 stops away there is something like this.  

I had company that made me think

Gill and Mark were here, and they always make my mind start whirling about things I should, could, would be doing. Add that to the subway being in one of its saddest states.. no C train above 145, shuttle bus (aka irregularly occurring cattle car) running above 168 and then next thing you have is lots of time to ponder.

SO first, I have to tell a bit about what we all did..
I spent time with some bus people, some of whom wore VERY cute hats..


















I did NOT eat either of the items on this sign, but I confess that I wanted to know how they would taste.























And I DID Imagine how it would be if I started doing some real artsy things again and decided that I have to swap around some of the things I am doing so that I have more time and more impetus to do things rather than reading blogs about other people doing things..
And I have started by deleting about 100 blogs off my Google list... everyone has to start somewhere, right?














Gill and Mark and I found a new subway station mural too, this is just a teaser about it.


















The last night, we went to Otto, and I remembered to take a picture of old faithful before I stripped out all the shells and ate it. YUM.


Now I am going to start hunting up a book to alter.. I hope Gill is doing the same??

Just to show you that I am not kidding about

the hills...


These are the steps up from Broadway to 187th and Fort Washington. I have learned how to avoid these... you go to the subway station just off Broadway at 184th street, even with Sienna you can walk in and take the elevator up to Fort Washington Ave. You never have to go through the turnstile.
Because I will tell you, these steps are KILLER and there are a lot of them.
If you climb the stairs, you then have to walk up the hill some more to get to Cabrini Boulevard.














Then you walk up some more to get to the top of the Cabrini hill. After you get to the top of this part, it is all downhill to get to my place and to the river.

And I STILL don't have great legs... WHY, I ask you? Must be because of the elevator at step one ...... sigh.

my continuing obsession with the subway

Anyone who has read this blog over the past several months knows that I have a continuing obsession with subway art and signage.









I was in the 42nd street station on the A line last week, and found several different art pieces. This was really fun. It is called "Losing My Marbles" and it rolls around the corner wall and up the tunnel.


According to the artist's online resume, "it is a glass mosaic mural project, consisting of 5 walls, approximately 90 ft. by 9 ft. in total."

This is just one of the marbles close up.. They are really fun, I would probaly rank them second so far behind the Circus at 34th Street.

here is the info listed and an inadvertent self-portrait

the sequels

to Bambi in my Hummus are Frogs in my Subway station...

Here they are

This guy is shy and hasn't come out as a frog yet, but I am giving him time.

I had a semi senior moment on Sunday

I mixed up the day of a class I was taking at B&H.. it is next Sunday ...sigh..

BUT, because I got all the way to 34th Street and 9th Avenue before I realized what was up, I got to spend some unscheduled money and time at B&H so I bought some Polaroid film for my Holgaroid before it all goes away, though they SAY the black and white Fuji fits in the small Polaroid back. We shall see, but I will be shooting a little bit of real Polaroid first.

AND

I got to spend time at the A train station at 8th Avenue, which is right there at Madison Square Garden, the home of the circus.

The station has some wonderful murals and I stood there a long time watching people walk past them without really looking.

This guy is both interesting and a bit spooky, no?

"She" I think is spinning above the crowd. There are a lot of images in the tile here, zebras, no giraffes alas, clowns, monkeys, a fire eater, and some other acts, but what was interesting to me -because I am always looking for a story in these kinds of murals - was over on another wall.

This man with the hat and the briefcase looking at the little dog who was doing a trick.

Then, over on the Circus wall, you get this lit-from-the-front image of a man with a hat and a briefcase tossing off the briefcase and entering the big top.

Has he joined the circus, given up being a salary man and entered the center ring? I found myself hoping for that one.

Of course, the fact that I am re-reading Water for Elephants for book club probably helped me get to that interpretation, but it sure is fun to see that briefcase flying away and his arms in the air as he walks into the light .