Today reminiscing about early experiences in New York... When I first arrived here, I couldn't imagine how I would ever have time to do all the things I wanted to do. I got a job with the exhibitions team at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum on 91st, which was a great experience, worked on some top shows, met some interesting people and enjoyed the museum perks; like having the garden to myself every morning before work! It was contract work and so in between shows I was able to work in the studio on all my own art projects. It was a great job that came to a close for renovations and only recently reopened. Loved this museum!                                                                                             

Cooper Hewitt Museum, NY

At that time I lived on the upper east side, five blocks from the museum mile, so I had access to some of the best galleries in the world, How many times I wandered over to the Metropolitan Museum, paid a buck and went nose to nose with the art. There are hundreds of galleries in the Met but my favourite place of all is the Rembrandt Gallery, but always many great shows to see, some highlights - Balthus, Neo Rauch, Koons, Francis Bacon, Vermeer, Katrin Sigurdardottir, George Bellows - the list goes on and on and on... just too many to remember.                                                                                                      

Rembrandt Gallery, Metropolitan Museum, NY

At that time I had a studio in Queens in the old 5 Pointz building, a friend split his studio in two, built a wall and voila! I had my first NY studio! It was small, I could only get back a matter of feet from the drawings and because the building was a graffiti artists haven, I had to hold my breath going in to get by the aerosol fumes. ( 5 Pointz: The Institute of Higher Burnin'^[1] or the 5 Pointz Aerosol Art Center, Inc.  was an American outdoor art exhibit space considered to be the world's premiere "graffiti mecca", where aerosol artists from around the globe painted on the walls of a 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m²) factory building.)   I used to get the 7 train from Manhattan and coming into Court Square I could see the graffiti artists like ants crawling over the buildings. Unfortunately, 5 Pointz is closed now to artists, taken over by designers and fashionistas! but grateful I was part of that really important history of artist's in NYC.

5 Pointz

 I eventually moved to Brooklyn to have a bigger work space and that's where I am today!