The Old Man's Apartment

The apartment held that familiar musty scent, an oder of dust and age permeated throughout the small 3-room studio.

He hadn't stepped foot in that apartment for what must have been at least four years, but he did so today. The apartment belonged to his grandfather, an 80-some odd year old diabetic who had moved to New York City from 臺山 China, bringing with him his two sons.

The apartment was a mess; it always had been. Littered with miscellaneous items from bird cages to books and magazines dating back at least 30 years and they were all covered in dust. Inside the bathtub, which rested several feet from the broken down kitchen stove, rested the old man's umbrella as shirts hung to dry from the curtain bar above.

It had been years since he had stepped foot in the apartment building and since then much had changed, though his grandfather's unit itself, had remained quite the same. The bathroom door still didn't shut all the way, the markings still remained on the door post, chronicling he heights of his brother and himself growing up, the bed in what could conceivably be the guest room remained dusty and browning, as did the old man's bed in the master bedroom. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be used was the new flat panel t.v. that sat on top of the old antique table-sized set.

Moments earlier he had spent a good 10 minutes with his brother ensuring that their grandfather, weak and shaking uncontrollably from low blood sugar, got up the six flights of stairs to his apartment and to a seat where he could rest and catch his breath.

Upon entering the old man's apartment, he was immediately reminded of his childhood moments spent in the apartment while visiting with his parents and he also immediately came to the realization that his grandfather was a man that was terrible at taking care of himself, from leaving food out on a table unattended to for days to letting junk amass in piles for years. He wondered how two children could ever be raised in a place like that.

Painting Pt. 1

When I was a child I loved painting using water colors. At the same time, however, I hated it because I could never get my pictures to look nearly as good as the afro-wearing instructor Bob Ross whom I watched regularly on PBS. Despite my frustration I still loved playing with paint and it helped that painting and art was an old hobby of my mother's (actually, something she did in college alongside her mathematics and computer science studies), which meant that there were always plenty of water colors and brushes around for me to experiment with.

I discovered that one thing I loved to paint, mostly because I discovered that it was relatively easy to me, were sunsets. Maybe it wasn't easy for me to do at first, but the bright and saturated colors, alongside the wonders of mixing colors to create another, was enough for me to thoroughly enjoy making them enough to pratice enough to get to the point where I felt as though I did a good job.

Fastforward 15 to 17 years. The old watercolor sets (which were, in fact, older than me) no longer reside under the sink, neither does the cup full of stained and poorly cleaned brushes. They've all been moved... or thrown out. Searching for them I stumble upon a box in the living room holding most of the old art supplies I used so many years ago. The oil and acrylic paints sit in their jars or tubes, dried and crusted after years of neglect. The brushes lay, some stained and mistreated others brand new, never removed from their original packaging. The tins of watercolors, what I was looking for, however, are not there, probably thrown away years earlier as they ran out of paint.

I however, still wanted to paint with watercolors in preparation of a short animation idea I've been playing with in my mind, so I went to Blick's and bought a set and a brush. The following are the results of my more recent ventures into the world of painting: