I feel honored to have been a part of Airbnb's internal project for Black Lives Matter. I stopped by their NYC office and took portraits of the team. The ones above on black backgrounds are by me, the rest by their SF photography department. Read more on their design blog.
Melissa
Half fiery and half hilarious looks from Melissa.
Clinton Street Baking Company
A few shots of Clinton Street Baking Company (and their new expanded dining room) for Condé Nast Traveller.
From the Sketchbook 03
Sketchbook entries from the week.
So where are you from?
Kate and Yoko of So Where Are You From? A podcast that talks about being Asian in America, and explains why you shouldn't ask your Asian friends where they are really from.
New paintings
A short, but sweet new series of paintings. Three black dots.
From one end to the other
This Labor Day Weekend, I decided to stay in town and make it a real New York City weekend. It's a good weekend to go places that are normally busy because the city really empties out.
On Thursday night we had a little weekend preview by stopping at Prince St. Pizza for a pepperoni square and then going to a horror film at Williamsburg Cinema. Friday night we ate at Brooklyn Crab in Red Hook and then popped into Sunny's bar and Bait and Tackle for drinks. Saturday we had some emergency bike repairs then took a group ride to The Cloisters. We had beers in Harlem before eating burgers at Corner Bistro in the West Village. Sunday I had to work a little in the morning before heading to The Rockaways to watch the big waves roll in from tropical storm Hermine. We made a pit stop at Rippers for some beach joose, then went into Chinatown for dinner at 69 Bayard. Monday we returned to Chinatown for dim sum and then took the ferry to Governor's Island. We ended the day with a burrito picnic in Prospect Park. We hit all of my favorite kinds of food in four days and did a whole bunch of very New York things along the way. It was a good mix of old hits and first times. I would say it was 100% more fun than getting stuck in holiday weekend traffic.
Things you should read this week
If you don't already keep up with Shoko's blog, it's a must read. She recently came back from a hiatus and wrote a POV post, a series I can't recommend strongly enough.
I read this quote from Corita Kent on Austin Kleon's blog, and it resonated with me:
I moved to this place in October and the tree was in full leaf then. I watched it lose its leaves. I watched it covered with snow. Then these little green flowers came out and it didn’t look like a maple tree at all. Finally the leaves were recognizable as maple leaves and that in a way is very much how I feel about my life. It seems a great new stage for me – whether it will ever be recognizable by anyone else I don’t know, but I feel that great new things are happening very quietly inside of me. And I know these things have a way, like the maple tree, of finally bursting out in some form.
A little Getaway from NYC
I've been in New York long enough to know that occasionally I need to leave. I used to be able to hop on a bus and end up at my sister's house in New Jersey in just forty minutes. Spending a night or the weekend there was restoring. Her kids make me laugh and she makes sensational dinner spreads. It was a beautiful respite from the hustle and bustle here.
Now, I know that I still need those weekends away even though my sister lives very far from here, so I have to make them happen for myself. Last week, in the woods of the Catskills with friends I experienced my first tiny home. The drive up was idyllic, it smelled like the country and grass. Even though the house was tiny, it contained the space required to take a deep breath.
We hit four swimming holes, jumped off rocks, hiked to waterfalls and ate hot dogs for dinner every night. We discussed important things like what it means to roast a marshmallow to perfection, and the best front flip techniques. Our entire crew was comprised of photographers and filmmakers so our only rule was that you had to pull over if someone wanted to get a shot; it is camera club rule number one.
It was only a two day trip, but upon returning I felt like I had been gone for a month. Looking around on the drive back I was surprised that no significant changes had happened to the city, shouldn't it look different by now? All of the New Yorkers were going about business as usual, as if nothing special had happened.
That's when I realized it's never the city that changes, only me.
From the Sketchbook 02
Pages from my sketchbook this week.