22nd November 2010.

Exploring New York City

Day 1

Regardless of having little sleep due to jet lag, I was eager to get onto the streets of Chelsea and the surrounding suburbs to witness the city. The winter weather was bearable today, as we begun to familiarise ourselves with the local areas. While making our way through Chelsea, I was gobsmacked by the architecture, neighbouring apartments were built one upon the other, a practical system I thought, once it was brought to my attention that the population of Australia lives in Manhattan Island alone. The streets were bombarded with yellow taxi's, which did not necessarily abide by the road rules, I did not see one indicator in use today or any speed limits displayed on the streets, and I believe this is why the sound of honking horns is consistent and overwhelming.

We found ourselves walking in the direction of the meat packing district, where we discovered Alexander McQueen. To our disgust however, we soon realised that in New York the stores open late and close even later, so the closest we could get to Alexander McQueen at that stage was peering through the security roller door. With the surrounding stores also displaying 11am - 7pm trading hours and our clocks set to New York time, which read 9am, we decided to stop in to the next diner we come across, hoping to experience an American style breakfast in a classic American diner. My first bagel was consumed, nothing fancy just plain with butter (tax wasn't included) and my first tip was given.

Wondering around the streets of the meatpacking district I came across an intriguing hole in the wall, which seemed to be a shop of some sought. I had an urge to touch the walls surrounding the window that an old man stood within, and to my delight I felt an amazing texture, an array of keys, gold, silver, bronze and brown were all individually glued to the brick wall. The gold keys were placed together to form a pattern of swirls and loops. The store was a key cutting business which had me enchanted, I would come here to get my keys cut just because this man is obviously passionate enough about his business for him to individually glue millions of keys to the brick wall surrounding what would have been a very inconspicuous hole in the wall/ store. I was instantly inspired by the use and quantity of the material, as well as the texture it created and begun pondering, how can i create such a unique texture within my work?