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Tag Archives: film

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Reflection on Walking in New York City

  17 July 2015 , ,
Dedicated to Professor Brendan O’Flaherty for helping me apply to Columbia as an undergraduate. The following video lecture contains paintings and photos I compiled while walking in New York.

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Learn more about my New York walks in this collection of photos and drawings. They are organized into ten urban walks, with each day in a different Manhattan neighborhood.
Strolling in New York City is a world tour. The street fairs of Spanish Harlem mesh into college town Columbia. Columbia gives way to the shabby chic of Harlem. A few blocks farther and I am drowned by the tourists of Times Square. Further still and I reach the bustle of Wall Street brokers. I stroll and try to identify the passing languages. Spanish in the outer boroughs. Polish in Greenpoint. Russian in Brighton Beach. Cantonese in Chinatown. French and German shoppers in SoHo. There could be no more fitting a place for the United Nations.
Reading Here is New York by E.B. White, I realizethat  some aspects of New York have changed little in the past seventy years. The streets, cars, and tenements are different, but the essential spirit of dynamic and diverse urbanism remains. Here is New York.
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Handmade Dollhouse

  11 May 2014 ,
I built this dollhouse over several years. Using balsa wood, cardboard, and salvaged scraps, I glued together all the pieces of furniture. Odds and ends – such as bottle caps, fabric scraps, and earrings – enrich the rooms with detail. None of the materials are purchased from a building kit or model store. They are all handmade as a skill-building exercise.

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Dollhouse

Living room
Living room
Living room
Living room
Doll house
Doll house
Bedroom
Bedroom
Bedroom
Bedroom
Children's room
Children’s room
Children's room
Children’s room
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
sense of scale
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Film featuring a few of my art projects

  2 March 2014 , ,

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Visiting China in 2011, I was shocked by the reach of globalization. On the train, I witnessed an endless treadmill of mile after mile of identical crops, villages, and cities. The polluted skies and downcast weather hinted at the consequence of growth. Returning home, I earned greater appreciation for my own artistic creations. They seemed so much more innocent – a naïve refuge from reality.

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Scenes filmed from Levittown, Pennsylvania are paired with the corniest rendition of the Star Spangled Banner I could find.