Tag: cell phone

It Happens

On July 6, 2011

Today marks the 104th birthday of Frida Kahl o.

I’ve expressed my love and admiration for her work in past posts. But lately I feel a particular kinship with this most incredible of painters. She was many things through her short 47 years: wife, artist, daughter, sister, rebel, political figure. She was a supremely feminine figure as she reveled in masculine archetypes, and played with gender roles, power roles, expectations of what and how a woman “should” look and express herself, and always, always, she seemed driven by love: of craft, of country, of ideals and desires and of joining the utterly ethereal with the deeply earthy.

She was a victim of ill circumstance, health problems and outright tragedy… but she was never, ever a victim. Her paintings are so alive with her life, her experiences, her… Frida-ness, they draw you into their present moment, drowning you in a gorgeous rush of blues and greens and reds and always, always black.

I thought about Kahlo and her fierce spirit recently. A few weeks ago I had my cell phone stolen. It was taken stealthily, right out of my bag. As is to be expected, I felt stupid, angry, and violated. It was the start of me looking at New York in a different way. I’ve been coming here for years, reveling in its culture and creative spirit; I’ve never once been the victim of a crime. Why now? Why did it coincide with my three-month anniversary here? What was the universe trying to tell me? As I kept telling people online and in-person, that phone (which I got my first week living here) contained over 3,000 photographs, a visual diary for all of my experiences. Maybe it was time for the gritty sheen of the city to fade; maybe it was time to wipe the ego-driven slate clean. Maybe it was time to return to Toronto.

As I looked out over the green carpet of Central Park this past July 4th (my first in the Big Apple), two thoughts came to mind: I want to drink champagne up here, and, I want to paint up here (also: why can’t I do both?). The roars to resume painting again are growing louder, and I’m not sure what to do. All my equipment’s back in Canada. Artists have relationships with the tools of their craft, and you can’t simply go and use someone else’s and have everything be just fine. It may be a kind offer, but it’s like giving me a size 0 dress and expecting me to be comfortable. Since my phone’s been stolen, the howls to get back to using my own tools have been more shrill than ever. I come to understand my experiences through both words, and, I’ve discovered, images. The act of expressing them, moment to moment – whether photographically or with paint -is what matters, not the finished product.

So the shapes, faces, moments, all the “you would“s and the street art – all the stuff I lost and can’t leave behind – isn’t what brings comfort at the end of the day. “They’re just passing fancies… and in time may go…” This sense of living squarely in the moment (is it something akin to love?) has most keenly been experienced via culture for me -in a theater, through hearing music, seeing film, staring at art -those things that have an alive “present”-ness within them. One gives so much to art, and one gets back so much in return. Not so people; sometimes people simply take, whether figuratively, or, in the case of my long-gone phone, literally. Why cry over the past? Why cling? Seems like a recipe for terrible art, if not a terrible life.

And so, I thought of Frida: a victim of a awful circumstance, but not a victim. Horrible things happen, period. Lately it feels as if they’ve been happening to me more often than not, but there’s always tiny stars of goodness to balance it out: invites to the ballet or the theater, or the gallery or museum are always met with a sense of jubilation and glee. They feel like home – a new home, an old home. This home, NYC.

New York,
you’re a drag, a dig, a drab bitch of skulduggery
and wait-for-no-one, can-do, keep-up perversity.
You’re ragged, you’re filth,
you’re falling apart and put back together in gilded thread for the billionaires in the black SUVs. You’re thunder, lightning, sunshine, wind and rain.
I think I’ll weather you just a bit longer.

Now, if only I had my paint brushes and easel, and access to that beautiful view all the time.

Fine, Actually.

By Catherine Kustanczy

On January 20, 2011

In personal

My phone died yesterday afternoon. The main source of my communication with friends and family and the outside world overall, not to mention my camera… gone. *Poof*

Words can’t begin to convey the outright sense of panic this created, followed by the hours of self-denigration. “I used to be fine here without a camera,” I told myself, “why does it matter now? Why should it? Can’t you see the world without wanting to share something every single minute?”

Ah, how life and the world have moved on since my days of wandering New York City as a wide-eyed teenager. Yet looking at -experiencing -New York was a much more visceral experience in the last twenty-four hours of being camera and phone-less. Colors were brighter, noises were louder. I was forced to be fully present in every single thing, and look at curiosities and small shards of beauty -graffiti, flyers, people’s expressions, subway murals -in a very different way. “Subtlety” isn’t a word most people would associate with this city, and yet that’s exactly the quality I managed to somehow tune into (amidst the ego howls of “Go buy a phone… right now!”). I’ve always been a photography enthusiast, but stripped of my equipment, it was as if I was -am -in a living kind of gallery, noting the shadows, fine lines, tones, and expressions. I’ve struck up more conversations with people as a result of not hiding in text messages and emails. I’ve met some kind, helpful people with their own interesting tales to tell -this is unquestionably a city made up of dedicated, hard-working immigrants proud to call themselves both American, and New Yorkers -and I’ve even made friends with a few local fuzzy four-legged creatures who wag tails and chase away my blues at missing my own little pup. I am part of the divine noise of the city, and I sense that connection more keenly as a result of being receptive to it.

Lastnight I took a trip to Brooklyn to see Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, and Lindsay Duncan in the Abbey Theatre’s fine production of Borkman by Henrik Ibsen. I loved the humanity Duncan brought to her role as Ella, the title character’s long-suffering love; played against Shaw’s stern, stiff-as-cardboard wife, it was a beautiful kind of yin-and-yang energy that came together in a beautiful poetic moment by the play’s end. Alan Rickman, was, as ever, masterful, authoritative, and mesmerizing. He has one of the best voices in theater, and is such a powerful presence onstage, that seeing him alone, groping in the dark or standing awkwardly on a stage snowbank, became a masterclass in the art of being fully present -a task that any actor will tell you isn’t always easy. Not having a phone made experiencing Borkman somehow more cutting, its struggles more real, its characters more immediate. I couldn’t get on my Palm Pre at intermission or after the show and tap out “great!” or “you must see this!” I had to sit there, with the salty-sweet taste of Ibsen’s work, working out tone, texture, and timbre of the production I’d witnessed. Going back to Manhattan, I looked out on the lit-up Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline, and found, in the reflection, that I had a huge smile on my face.

That same feeling -of masterful, joyful, alive presence -was with me as I took a stroll through Times Square tonight. The place has a masterful kind of gaudy majesty at night, lit up brighter than Vegas, as ads for retail everything compete with lit up theatre marquees; it was a strange, if inspiring sight, to see Diddy’s vodka ad beamed next to scenes from The Lion King. As Jenny Holzer noted, contradiction equals balance.

And maybe that’s how it should be in approaching this new-ish world for me -finding the balance amidst the seemingly-impossible, the seemingly-opposite, the mad, the bad, the brave and the fooish. I’ve felt all of those things to varying degrees in the three days I’ve been here. And I want to return -for good -more than ever. One of the sights in Times Square features a gigantic live feed of people below -watching themselves. Would-be New Yorkers are their own entertainment, whether they’re walking, stopping, staring, dancing, laughing, or simply standing and watching the world go by. It was a beautiful reminder for me, and a powerful symbol.

Next stop, work-visa office. Oh, but maybe an iPhone first… maybe.