Tag Archives: NYC

August 24, 2014 · 8:00 pm

Exploring Brooklyn

As part of my “pack light; wear dresses” motto, I threw on this cool dress for my excursion to Brooklyn.

Dress: Forever 21
Boots: Diba (from DSW)
Purse: Crystalyn Kae
Sunglasses: DKNY via swapped

The boots will look familiar. I wore them a lot on the trip (I swear I sometimes wore sandals and ballet flats too) because they were wearable, walkable, and added a funky edge to otherwise sweet dresses.

On this occasion, my parents and I visited a Brooklyn flea market (for my mom’s account, click here). We found one indoors as well. We checked out a couple of art galleries too, visited Vaute Couture (my favorite vegan coat store), and ended up at Champs, a vegan diner.

I’ve saved the best part for last: A week later, I wore this dress to New York’s Lower East side for vegan pizza (remember: four dresses–only my parents and you will ever know). Guess who I met at the table next to us? None other than Sarah Simmons. Sarah was on The Voice and is a powerhouse singer. She’s as sweet as she is talented. Truly humble and genuine. She should have a new album coming out soon, so be on the lookout for it.

If you missed her on The Voice, check out a couple of snippets of her amazing talent. Her audition blew all the judges away. She does a powerful version of The Story too.

Oh, some of you have been commenting (complimenting me on) my new tattoo–the most visible one yet! Thank you. I wrote about it on my other blog, so if you’re interested, have a read.

I’m joining Not Dead Yet for a linkup. Have a look at what all the others are wearing!

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Filed under Fashion, Travel

Tagged as boots, Brooklyn, dress, fashion, NYC, Sarah Simmons, style

February 9, 2014 · 8:47 pm

Studio Museum in Harlem

One of the first things I did when I went to NYC last summer was head to West 125th Street to the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The museum is a contemporary art gallery focusing on African-American works. It offers an artist-in-residence program too, so it not only reflects and showcases art in the community (and for the community) but it gives artists a space to practice their craft.

In addition to an impressive permanent collection, there is a constant rotation of exhibits. Here’s what I saw.

Robert Pruitt’s exhibit Women featured a collection of large-scale conté-on-butcher-paper drawings of women. There are pop culture and political themes in the work, which feature models of women in Pruitt’s life. They’re embellished with gold leaf.

I saw a high school photography exhibit featuring wonderful snippets of student life, from family and home scenarios to perspectives on high fashion. Here are just a couple of the 30 or so images from the collection.

I enjoyed Jennifer Packer’s work, which was varied in theme but related in its textures and painterly-ness.

Cullen Washington Jr.’s Untitled (Mondrian #6) echoes the geometric aspects of Piet Mondrian, only Washington’s are created entirely with found materials.

Another geometric piece was nearby, this one by Steffani Jemison.

Shooting without a flash indoors is limiting, but I did capture a few other pieces, including these from the Body Language exhibit.

The Studio Museum is a gem and I highly recommend visiting if you’re ever uptown.

Doors of New York

When I wandered the streets of New York a couple of weeks ago with my parents, I took a lot of pictures. We all did. Between the three of us, we had five devices–one DSLR, two point-and-shoots, a smartphone and an iPad! We didn’t set out to capture a series of doors, but there’s something about doors that drew us in. And when I looked through the photos, I saw a theme.

Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but my dad said you can tell a lot by the interior of a house by what the front door looks like. He should know–he’s a painter and decorator and I bet he’s painted a lot of doors!

I hope you enjoy a few of the doors we captured in pixels.

Here’s a beautiful building a block away from the place we stayed at in Harlem. Warm, inviting wooden doors and pretty flower boxes drew me to this scene.