Ah! New York!

After two and a half years, I am finally back in the big city of dreams. Now looking forward to find inspiration and prepare for my 2022 creative working plan.

It was due to COVID restrictions, that I was not able to come over to the US for such a long time. I missed the move into a new apartment, some art shows and exhibitions, two summers out on Fire Island and at the beach, some family and friends events and all the normal daily life, living with my husband between the Upper Westside, Midtown and the rest of Manhattan.

At last a change of scenery

Right before the immigrations restrictions were lifted, I applied for a visa, so that I was finally able to enter the country NIE UNDER ALL P.P.S ON NOVEL CORONAVIRUS as it states. Traveling to New York was my first real international trip since this crazy pandemic time begun and I was so glad, I could sit in an airplane again and fly over the ocean to see something different than Basel and the Alps. As beautiful as they are, I really felt like something different. New York City is in many ways just the complete contrast to my life in Switzerland and completes the influence I need to be creative. From regulated order to vivid chaos in 8 and a half hours. I had a great trip leaving a cold and foggy Basel and arriving in a New York that welcomed me in warm orange and dark blue tones of a sunny late winter afternoon.

A winter in New York

Since I quit my office job last summer, I am no longer bound to the 6 weeks of annual vacation time I had for almost all of my life and free to stay as much as I want. So this time, I will spend the whole winter here and return only at the end of February. Enough time to compensate for the absence of the last two years.

I had some doubts about how I would endure such a long time without painting and the farewell from the studio was correspondingly difficult for me. But I have brought a long list of works that I want to tackle in the next few weeks and that do not include painting and necessarily require a workplace. And then, as I said, I want to once again bring a breath of fresh air into my thoughts and feelings and simply be inspired by the big city life.

So I am looking forward to some exciting weeks here, hoping that the course of the COVID pandemic does not restrict me too much – I will, however, make the best out of it!