Its a bird, its a plane, its... The Flatiron Building?!

"Everything begins with yourself." - Carl Jung

There seems to be a recurring theme for me lately, and it isn't something I'm at all used to, although it is a tenet I've aspired to over the years.  Have no expectations, and then you can only be pleasantly surprised.  Well, OK - this might not be entirely true.  Unless you are a monk meditating on a mountaintop somewhere for a year or three, I don't think its entirely possible not to have ANY expectations at all.  I mean, I EXPECT that the sun will rise each morning.  I EXPECT that after I exhale, I will inhale again.  You get the point.

Yesterday, I spent the day with Brigid in Manhattan visiting an exhibit that she was excited about viewing, it being the intersection of Jungian Psychology and art, her two passions.  I didn't want to go so much as I wanted to see my friend.  As a matter of fact, I had turned down another invitation to see the same show a couple of weeks before.   If you're reading this, Cuzzin, I'm sorry - I love you and I'll see you another time, I promise.  The exhibit was interesting and Jung's images were easy enough to "read", although they did reveal layers of meaning, benefiting from us viewing them from different vantage points, spending some time with them and using our historical filters.

Perhaps my favorite part of the exhibit, incidentally, called The Red Book of C.G. Jung at The Rubin Museum of Art, wasn't the folio at all, but some quotes by Jung that were being projected on a wall by a settee.  They got to the heart of the matter, and how.

• "Everything begins with yourself." 
• "What will come to you lies within yourself."
• "Understand yourself and you will be sufficiently understood."
• "The wealth of the soul exists in images."

Eerily appropriate for me right now as I am rediscovering my love for art (it never went away, really).

So now what?  We digested some more of the Rubin's collection, as well as a tasty snack in their cafe, and it was time to move on.  Art is everywhere in New York, you know.  We didn't have any real plans - a couple of ideas, and that was all.  We never did happen across a gallery guide for Chelsea, so we didn't go gallery hopping as we thought we might.  MoMA and the New Museum both seemed too far out of the way if we wanted to stick to walking.  So after some shopping, we ambled over to Union Square, where some local artists had set up shop for the tourists.

Its about now that I should probably mention my recent infatuation with New York's Flatiron Building.  I spent some quality time in the library recently, looking for something... inspiration, company, quiet, time... and I happened upon this book about the Flatiron building.  Photos of it's construction and it's life with writings to accompany each image.  Fascinating to me, for some reason.  Still not sure why, exactly, but perhaps something about seeing the neighborhood change around the monolith, which stays the same.  It was on my short list of things I would have liked to have seen, but wasn't really expecting to.

OK - back to Union Square.  Union Square is the home to the Cooper Union, highly regarded as one of the best art and architecture schools on the planet, and just a short block away, some people trying to make their living as street artists, perhaps never having set foot in an institute of higher learning.  I give them a lot of credit.  They were all prolific, if not talented in a "high art" kind of way, and all had a sense of go-get-'em-ness, a little of which can go a long way.  So I kept happening upon images of the Flatiron building in their work and I bought a couple of small mementos.  OK - I know these things are made for tourists and that this building is famous all, but it has NEVER been in my consciousness before.  Now, everywhere I look is that Flatiron Building.  Its a triangle, you know.  And not an isosceles triangle either, as the name would suggest.  Its more of a right triangle.  Who expects a triangular building?  Buildings are square or rectangular.  But enough trivia - that's not my point here. 

Also seen in Union Square were some sidewalk artists, Felix Morelo, for one.  His "Felix's Faces" captured my attention.  How could it not.  Its like 30 degrees outside, maybe - and here's this guy with a piece of white chalk drawing and keeping count of a line of faces on the pavers.  Would I ever do such a stunt?  Hell to the no!  I'm looking to get inside at this point for a cuppa hot.  The last thing I would want to do to get my art seen is freeze my ass off outside making temporary chalk drawings.  But this technique is effective, isn't it - I visited his website, as I'm sure countless other passers-by have.  He's got charisma.  He's got chalk.  He got my attention.

Oh yeah - something hot to eat and drink.  Looking at art and strolling around the city can make a girl (cold and) hungry!   We looked at a few window menus and nothing caught our eye, so we headed north.  Walking and walking in the cold, searching for something comfy and vegetarian.  We finally decided on a pizza and specialty salad shop that was actually pretty good.  Just before we walked in, I looked up and  realized that I was in the shadow of the monolith - the Flatiron stood before me as it has stood for over a century.  I hadn't expected to actually see it and was giddy at my good fortune.  The light in the late afternoon of this clear, sunny day was beautiful and I darted across the square, de-gloved and shot away with my camera phone - I couldn't help but think about the origins of photography and the intricate photo set-ups that were once necessary to make an image with light.  Now I can just point my phone and *poof*.  I thought about ladies in long dresses with parasols standing where I was standing in my fleece-lined coat and horse drawn carriages in the streets where now the yellow taxi cabs zoom by.  I felt part of history for a moment... before my hand froze.

Being in NYC does that for me generally I think.  It puts me in another time and in another space, both figuratively and literally.  The mere act of being there seems to open doors and windows - not the kind I want to jump out of either, but the kind I want to let the fresh air in through.

• "Everything begins with yourself." 
• "What will come to you lies within yourself."
• "Understand yourself and you will be sufficiently understood."
• "The wealth of the soul exists in images."