In which I attempt to make up for the lameness that was the beginning of my semester

Okay, as you may have gleaned from that title and/or my previous blog posts, I haven't done as much fun stuff in New York as I'd like. I have, however, spent a lot of time folding paper. After a brief stint merely cutting and gluing paper, I decided I actually really hated it. So back to cutting and gluing and folding. Apparently the folding makes all the difference.

Look at all those cute little paper pyramids

I've made it a point to do some fun things, rather than spend all my time making art.

A couple weeks ago a bunch of us decided to get up at 3:15 in the morning and go to the Today Show. Why did we get up so early, you ask? Because Coldplay was playing live in Rockefeller Plaza. Despite the huge line already there, we managed to get fairly decent spots after almost getting trampled numerous times. It was completely worth my lost sleep. Coldplay was super great live, they played some of their most popular songs, as well as some new ones. Let's be honest, I don't like Coldplay enough to actually buy a ticket to one of their concerts, but I do enjoy them, so seeing them for free was pretty great. Seeing the Today show live was cool too, although most of the time they were in their studio, not outside where we were.

Not the picture I meant to upload, but close enough. This was before the line got super crazy.

I know you can't tell, but I'm fairly certain Coldplay is up there. You're just going to have to take my work for it. 

This week has been jam-packed with awesomeness. Saturday I went to Carnegie Hall, to see the Budapest Festival Orchestra. They did not disappoint.

Yeah, we were basically at the very top, and we had to hike up like 20 flights of stairs to get there, but for $10 I can't complain too much.

Monday was obviously Halloween, which apparently is a huge deal in New York. We went to the parade, but couldn't get very close because of the massive amounts of people watching it. Basically we just wandered around looking at people's costumes, as there were huge crowds of people in costume all around the parade route. 

Leslie Hall and Andy Warhol. Both winning costumes in my opinion. 

You know, took some photos with random people...

And a random person's rabbit...

We saw enough sexy bunnies and cats to last a lifetime. If you want to be a sexy animal, that's fine, really, just be something more interesting than a bunny. Like an aardvark. Or a platypus. 

Tuesday my friend randomly called me during the day and asked if I wanted to go to the Colbert Report. She had randomly gotten tickets that day, so I dropped all plans of doing anything productive. It was a great decision. Colbert was super fun live. Yo-yo Ma was on the show, which was SO FREAKING EXCITING. I sort of love Yo-yo Ma, and have wanted to see him play live for kind of a while. He and three other people just came out with an album called The Goat Rodeo Sessions, and they played a couple of songs from it. I didn't like this song as much as this one, but I very much enjoyed Steven Colbert's intro to it and how much the band is loving it.

Thursday I went to The Phantom of the Opera, which was my first broadway show ever. It was pretty bomb.

Monsieur Andre, looking much happier than I would be if I were soliciting donations from theatergoers.

We're now debating if we want to go see Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Although I desperately want to go see The Book of Mormon, I'm pretty sure it's been sold out for quite a while. Tragic, I know.

Now, back to the art making. 

Legitimate use of my time, right?

So, I worked really hard last week, and I feel sort of justified slacking off this week. But here's the thing: making this was essentially all I did all afternoon, fashion a paperclip for this bird's beak. That and eat a delicious falafel.

BOOKSNAKE!!! LOL!!! ROFL!!

I realize that I keep posting photos of my art. I'm sorry. I promise I'll stop soon. But after six weeks of work, I have finally (well, maybe...) finished my book snake. After much deliberating, I decided to call it The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 5000 Nights at the Opera. (BOOKSNAKE!!! LOL!! ROFL!!! was also on the table for a while, but sadly, it was not to be) So here, in all its glory, is The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 5000 Nights at the Opera: 

(and when I say "all its glory" I actually mean part of its glory, as the room was too small to get the entire thing in one photo)

The other end

If I laid it out in a straight line it'd be somewhere around 50 feet. FIFTY FEET PEOPLE. You should be at least mildly impressed by that. 

Yep.

All work Copyright 2011 Sarah Lee

Books I don't read

I bet you're all wondering, "How is Sarah's art coming along since last week?" Well, to answer that question, it's coming along quite well, thanks for asking.

If you ignore the table covered in crap and the lamp, you can see my two most recent pieces. Last night at like midnight, I literally got up out of bed to talk to my roommates because I came to the realization that these two pieces are really all I have to show for my long hours in the studio. Yeah. It's a little depressing. 

Complete with Josh trying to photobomb my pictures.

And the snake is growing. 

I would like to point out that before I started saving these gluesticks I threw a good deal out, and I also have used a number of bottles of elmer's glue, some book glue, and hot glue as well. This is just a small sampling of my glue consumption.

I would really like to post photos besides my art of New York but I haven't taken a whole lot. 

I will, however, throw in this photo of some old asian people playing hacky sack. They were pretty good at it, too.

Things made and partially stolen

So. I've been making things. Out of books. And glue. A lot of glue. Like this:

(See that sign behind it? Although it clearly states not to touch or move this, at least 3 people kicked it. Two have fessed up. I'm still waiting on the third.)

I sort of wanted to shoot myself making it, and it's still not done, but it's mildly enjoyable. I just hide in my corner crazily folding and cutting books for hours upon hours. 

I also made these:

Does this look familiar to anyone? I'm fairly sure all of the three people who read my blog will make the connection. Haha... Sometimes I steal my friend's ideas. But generally they're just Christie's and I call it collaboration. (On a somewhat related note, has anyone seen this?) I'm just waiting for Chris to end our friendship and sue me. (I would actually link that to something, but THERE'S NOTHING TO LINK IT TO.)

In future I will perhaps post more exciting things about New York, but for now, all you get is this boring book art crap.

Things I don't like about New York #1: Ballsy Pigeons

Seriously, I'm not going to feed you, get your little beaks away from me or I will not hesitate to aim a kick at you.

Things done whilst at work

At this point I still had like 70 juice boxes, but it was becoming a bit structurally unsound and I had to go do other work related things.