Recycling Windows Into Art

Just a quick post to show my latest window creation, a winter-themed one...

to be sold along with my Japanese one. My husband has cleared a wall for me at the shop for display...

This was the first window I attempted. Since I barely have any free wall space throughout the house, I had my husband put chains on it and we hung up in the sunroom...

Now that I have a system, each one takes me about a week to make...much better than the months the first one did! Don't throw out those old frames...recycle them!

Happiness...Love...Peace

Almost two years ago we had new windows put in. When I requested that the old windows remain intact as I wanted to keep them, I was met with strange looks. At that time I didn't know what I was going to do with them, but I knew it would come to me. Luckily we have an auto repair shop that doubles as a wood shop so the 15 undamaged ones could blend in and not be in anyone's way while I decided where they would end up. This is what the majority of them looked like before removal...

The first thing I did was scrape any loose paint off of it. Next I spray-painted the wooden frame black. Very messy as I got a defective can, or maybe it was me. I'm the sloppiest hair dyer I know, and it seems I'm the same way with painting. After the black dried, I painted over it with a gray/white/black speckled stone texture paint. It reminded me of a city street. I thought photos of New York City in each pane of glass would look great. Scrape the glass. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to fix the photo to the glass without seeing adhesive. Scrape the glass. I tried many different possibilities until the last one -- placing the photo on the inside glass and painting over it to make it stick while giving it a frosted border. It bled through. Picture ruined. Scrape the glass.

I knew I would need to paint the glass instead. I'm not an artist in the pure sense of the word, but that never has stopped me from creating. When I looked at the frame again Japanese letters popped out at me. Yes, it would look cool with black Japanese lettering amid a frosted pane. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a Japanese character set of stencils. Happiness...Love...Peace.

Without boring you with all the mishaps I had...scrape the glass happened about five more times until I finally got to the point I almost wanted to get to. And here it is...

After doing something I should have done as soon before I embarked on this project...GTS (Google That Shit)...I watched a Youtube video which imparted some great info and tips. I'm looking forward to getting to the next one. And who knows...maybe I'll be able to sell some at the shop. Heck, it'll be a better mark-up than the 35 cent royalty I get on my short story!

Besides, sometimes you need to take a break from what you normally do in order to get the creative juices flowing. Right now the painting muse is with me while the writing one is nowhere to be found...and that's okay with me. So if you don't see me on-line as much as I used to be, you know why. And it feels good to be unplugged.

Museum of Modern Art

The next museum we visited was the Museum of Modern Art. Back in the day, I used to go with my dad to see films there. That, and the cafe, were the only parts of the museum my father would visit. Here's a shot of the lovely courtyard...



Although there were a couple of works of art I finally got to see "in person" including some favorites from Van Gogh, Monet and Warhol...











...for the most part my daughter and I were quite disappointed with MOMA. As we couldn't feel moved by a lot of the "art" I guess us rednecks aren't quite as "cultured" as many of the people parading through the rooms. A string hanging from the ceiling, a pile of bricks, torn sheets from a notebook with 1 + 1 = 2 written over and over again, a video of a woman pinching her face over and over again, photos of pimples on asses and then this "masterpiece" left us scratching our heads...



Really? That's art? I'd like to know how much they paid for that piece of crap. In fact, had they put little price tags next to each piece I would have found that fascinating. I wonder if they'd be interested in the pitted wooden plank the boys use for target practice. If you look really close at the holes I think you could see Warhol's face. And I've got piles of bricks in my yard that have more character than the ones we saw in the middle of a room.

Although I became quickly bored, my daughter actually began getting angry..."You don't know how pissed off I am. Most of this crap is not art. It looks like shit I drew when I was three. I could have given them torn pages from my calculus notebook. That would have been more interesting. And the people are so pretentious, torturing their little kids who would much rather be anywhere else...'Look at his masterpiece Francois.' You know Francois wants to pull that string off the ceiling."

More interesting than what was dangling or hanging inside were the views looking outside from MOMA.





My daughter said this was a statue of a woman trying to drown herself after spending all day at MOMA. I said it would have been me if we had to pay $20 a head. Yup, we got in free and we still feel like we got ripped off.



We couldn't wait to get the heck outta there and head downtown to visit Chelsea and Tribeca...

Metropolitan Museum of Art

My daughter and I decided we would be New York tourists and stay in Manhattan rather than at the house in Brooklyn during our girl's getaway. After perusing Trip Advisor, looking at what hotels go for, and its close proximity to Penn Station, we chose to stay at the LaQuinta on 32nd Street, aka Korean Way, so named for the Korean restaurants that line that particular block. If you like Korean food you will be in heaven, if you don't, like us (bad experience at a local Roanoke Korean restaurant) you'll probably wind up at the Japanese joint like we did. Great move on our part.

Unless you can afford one of the luxury rooms in an exclusive hotel, this hotel is what you would expect for Manhattan...small, yet functional. This was the view outside our window.



If we strained our heads towards the right and looked up we could see the tippy top of the Empire State Building.



Seeing as we hardly spent any time in the room, the hotel suited us just fine. The girl and I loved the Temperpedic bed. We both have bone issues and we found the mattress quite soothing. I've got to look into how much they cost because we both want one. The best part of the hotel is that we felt safe. This was our first trip alone in the Big City and we couldn't have picked a better location. The street was always bustling, but not with riff-raff. There was even a film crew from some show called White Collar taping in front of the hotel a couple of days.

On our first evening in town we went out to dinner with a good friend of mine. Seeing as you can't just buy a bottle of wine at the local supermarket like we can in Roanoke, she brought a bottle to the room. After we polished that off we headed to Patsy's for a nice Italian meal. Another bottle down. We then headed over to Eataly, a huge marketplace with restaurants that has gotten rave reviews. Not from me. I thought it was over-priced and under-tasted. The desserts looked amazing but tasted like the ones found at Fresh Market. The gelato was subpar and the price of cheeses were twice what they should be. Most people shop while drinking wine, as we did, which I think they promote on purpose so as you'll be drunk and not realize you're getting ripped off.

Needless to say I totally over-indulged our first night in town. Not too smart. It was tough getting up early and brutal walking around town the rest of the day. My cousin was our Docent for the weekend...



His precious Museum membership card got us into the Metropolitan Museum of Art for free.



Here's a fraction of what we saw...



















We loved it, and even spending four hours there wasn't enough to see it all. Outside the museum were typical New Yorkers spreading their talents...





One of my favorite works of art...the New York City hot dog cart...



Next up...MOMA.