Yulia Brodskaya is an artist and illustrator, widely recognized for her elegant and detailed paper illustrations. Each of her masterpiece creations are made by hand – intricate swirls of colored paper coming together to form true works of art
I was first introduced to Brodskaya’s work when Google Chrome came out with their personalized themes for users. One of the themes featured Brodskaya’s paper bird and delicate leaves. I found this art form incredibly intriguing, wondering how someone could create such detail by simply twirling paper. After a few Google searches, I found and endless supply of paper “quilling” (as Pinterest users called it) inspiration to view.
Brodskaya started off as a graphic designer, but quickly abandoned the digitalized drawings for paper ones – that is drawing WITH paper.
“Paper always held a special fascination for me. I’ve tried many deferent methods and techniques of working with it, until I found the way that has turned out to be ‘the one’ for me: now I draw with paper instead of on it”.
Yulia found her passion in paper illustrations and quickly found fame thanks to her unique talents. She is represented all over the world through different clients, having work featured in magazine covers, in offices, advertisements, and more. 
You can view more of her work on her website.
“Founded by the former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater principals Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, the troupe prides itself on multiplicity — claiming to champion ‘the artistic and aesthetic appeal of the multicultural’ — yet operates within a distressingly narrow aesthetic spectrum.” – Siobhan Burke, The New York Times
It was truly a pleasure to be able to watch the Complexions Contemporary Ballet at the Joyce Theater. As a dancer and gymnast, I’ve always been inspired by movement and there was certainly no shortage of moment in this performance. There were kicks, jumps, turns, leaps, twists, swivels, and movements of every kind throughout each performance and just when you begin to think that you can predict the next movement, the curtain closes and something entirely new takes center stage.
Celebrating it’s 20th year in production, Complexions Contemporary Ballet put on a stunning performance, consisting of three pieces. The two-hour program started off the first two segments slowly, a complex combination of moves, dancers flying on and off stage. The third segment brought a new life to the performance, waking up the audience with an upbeat roar. Dancers moved quickly in time with the patterned sounds, and lights flashed to highlight the glistening bodies as they entered and exited right and left.
Only a quick walk from the High Line and a short bus ride away from Baruch College, is Taglialatella Galleries, which I recently visited and was delighted to find some treasures in. For nearly four decades, Taglialatella has built distinguished collections worldwide with locations in New York, Palm Beach, and Paris. Tagliatella Galleries opened in 1978 in Lambertville, New Jersey, and opened its New York City branch in 1981. Amongst the featured artists were Lichtenstein, Warhol, Indiana, Hirst, Christo, Frankenthaler, Appel, Calder, Hay, Katz, Young, Basquiat, Sanzi, and Wesselmann, some of the biggest names in the art industry.
When I visited the gallery, I had the opportunity to get up close to many of the pieces, and even got to watch as the curator and staff members hung up the artwork, made phone calls to what I might assume were potential buyers or collectors of these fine works, and every once in a while, stopped to just appreciate the environment they were in. The gallery had a busy vibe with everyone hustling and bustling to put all the artwork in place. The artwork was even reflective of this with its brightly colored Warhols, and fun Harrings.
Is A New You Is A New Me
is a boat is a train is a train wreck is a hospital bed is a comforter is a pillow is a deathbed is a sentence is a widow is a heartbreak is a smashed window is a car is a text message is a “hey” is a greeting is a farewell is a departure is a plane ride is a shuttle is a fare is a farewell is a get well is a get well soon is a congratulations is a celebration is a gathering is a birthday is a new day is a new test is a new passion is a new drive is a new feel is a new you
is a new life is a cool day is a fresh air is a new lung is a no smoking is a new perspective is a competition is a win is a loss is a regret is a doubt is a joy is a carefree outlook is an email is an opportunity is a cookie is a bake sale is a dollar is a bill is a declaration is a rule is a law is a restriction is a limit is a promise is a best friend is a connection is a bond is an unbreakable undefinable invincible new me
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I really enjoyed listening to Saeed Jones, and writing our own poems. His format of “is a ___” is a really simple concept that when repeated, creates a powerful emphasis on each word. The repetition reminded me of a winding pattern which led me to create this “circle poem”. The poem begins going outward ending with “new you”, and then continues going inward ending with “new me”.
On Saturday, September 27th at 3:17PM I left my 97th street dorm and headed for the downtown 6 train. I was heading to Baruch, not for class, but to attend TEDxGramercy which was being held at Mason Hall in the 23rd Street building. With my Business 1000 textbook in hand to study for Monday’s exam, I waited anxiously on line, only looking up to take a few steps forward.
The topic of the night was grit, but what is grit?
“Life takes grit. From the smallest organisms surviving in the void of space to the bravest children growing up in abject poverty… from the boxing ring to the surgical table and back, the tenacity of life is unassailable!”
There were a total of 7 speakers: Caroline Adams Miller, The Moments that Make Champions; Harriet Taub, Creative Reuse; Harvey Rubin, Keeping Inoculations Cool; Nir Barzilai, How to Die Young at a Very Old Age; Michael Crouch, The Cost of Courage: We Need to Pay Attention; David Ginspoon, Terra Sapiens: Planetary Challenges of the Fourth Kind; and Amikaeyla Gaston, Dare to Be Dauntless!. Each speaker told a different story and with each story came a different emotion, a different feeling, and a different definition of how to live the “gritty life”. A summary of these stories wold do them no justice, but to put it in the words of the speakers:
Grit is Why not me? Grit is art. Grit is saving lives. Grit is courage. Grit is music
Grit is being limitlessness.
Check out the list of speakers at tedxgramercy.com/grit and keep an eye out for the recorded talks at ted.com
“I, an Artist” is a found poem created from quotes about art, many of which are by famous artists.
The role of the artist is to ask questions,
not answer them.
Art is not what you see,
but what you make others see.
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art.
If only we could pull out our brains and use only our eyes.
There is no abstract art.
You must always start with something.
Afterwards, you can remove all traces of reality.
Without art, the crudeness of reality
would make the world unbearable.
Living is an artistic activity,
there is an art to getting through the day.
Art is a selective recreation of reality,
according to an artist’s metaphysical value judgments.
Without magic, there is no art.
Without art, there is no idealism.
Without idealism, there is no integrity.
Without integrity there is nothing but production.
The object isn’t to make art,
it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
Art enables me to find myself,
and lose myself at the same time.
I want to move certain parts of the interior of myself
into the exterior world,
to see if they can be embraced.
These figures are not projections of my muse,
but projections of myself.
My art is not a reflection,
but a carbon copy of the artist I call “me”.
Art is the only serious thing in the world,
and the artist is the only person who is never serious.
All forms of madness, bizarre habits,
awkwardness in society, general clumsiness,
are justified in the person that creates good art.
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
Life beats down and crushes the soul,
and art reminds me that I have one.
If we can’t, as artists, improve on real life,
we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality,
and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.
The dream of my life is to make beautiful art.
I dream painting and I paint my dream.
We all know art is not truth.
Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.
It is what you can get away with.
Art is the reason I get up in the morning,
but the definition ends there.
It doesn’t seem fair that I’m living for something I can’t even define.
If you ask me what I came to do in this world,
I, an artist, am here to live out loud.
*Quotes by: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Edgar Degas, Susan Sontag, Pablo Picasso, George Bernard Shaw, Viggo Mortensen, Ayn Rand, Raymond Chandler, Robert Henri, Thomas Merton, Jonathan Lethem, Oscar Wilde, Roman Rayne, John Irving, Stella Adler, Barbara Kingsolver, Miguel Ruiz, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol, Ani DiFranco, Émile Zola
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