To Begin

Antonio Lopez: Fashion Illustrator

“The CD is in the computer.”

Pause.

“You mean the images are on the computer, but the CD is where…physically?”

“It is in the computer.  I put it in to help you, but fine I will take it out.”

With annoyance the hallmark of my movements I pushed the start button.

“No!  Just…you’ve helped enough just go!’

With a train to catch, and in stunned disbelief at just witnessing my mom in a Zoolander-style moment, I walked away with a Cali girl-style “What-Ev-er.”  Such was our inaugural day of working together so that she will finally (this time it is for real) publish a book on her friend, the 1980’s fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez.

Beginnings aren’t always chocolate milkshake smooth, but after years of compiling, archiving, and writing my mom is on her way to crafting her book and presenting it to the world; and petty drama aside, I am proud of her.

As for me, my own beginning is directed towards the fairly noble (at least in my mind) if foolhardy aim of sustaining myself as a photographer in New York City.  From today, September 12, 2011 to the 4th of July it is my time to make it happen.

With a D.C. power lawyer cousin making more money in a year than I have made in a lifetime and a close friend who is supporting his parents financially it really is time to show what my investment in money, sweat, and tears was all for.  So while working part-time jobs at BookBook; being the substitute receptionist at the NYU Muslim Center, and just about any free-lance gig that comes my way will probably be my lot, I am ready to show that I can indeed create art.  At twenty-eight years old, I feel that I am out of the “late-bloomer category” and into the “will it bloom barrel!” but here goes nothing.

In the words of Tony Kushner, the commencement speaker for my graduation from SVA:

Working won’t really kill you; completing your work won’t really kill you; you’re afraid it might, but you won’t really die.  Being late with your work, never finishing your work won’t really make you immortal; you only think it will.

And so to begin: This is the first of hopefully many posts to document my attempt at being an artist; and (whether I succeed or fail) to tell of the characters that I will meet along the way.