New York style, Modernism BC, and escape

Check out Tom Wolfe's suit, Bronze-Age art, and quit your stressful life

Sometimes, all you want from an exhibition is to feast your eyes on a host of New York nuggets, without having to read tedious explainers or think about what it all means.

The People, Place, Influence exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York has got you covered. There, you can marvel at disparate NYC-related items, such as Tom Wolfe’s white suit (surprisingly tall), a jar of fairy dust from Peter Pan (surprisingly small), and Cole Porter’s cigarette case (unsurprisingly chic).

Make sure to see the excellent This Is New York exhibition while you’re there, before it closes in July.

I’ve made the third papercut in my series of Art Deco New York skyscrapers - the fabulous Empire State Building.

I took some of the themes from the spectacular gold lobby ceiling, such as cogs and suns, and incorporated them into the design to make it more dynamic.

You can now buy bags (below), notebooks, and tea towels adorned with this image in my Etsy shop.

You remember Modernist sculpture, right? Ground-breaking simplified forms, that seemed to say so much about the human condition from their very lack of adornment.

Well, turns out, it wasn’t very ‘modern’ at all. People were making Picasso-esque stripped-back forms all the way back in the Bronze Age.

These beautiful Cycladic artworks look like they could have been made yesterday. Currently on show at The Met as part of a special installation.

You need a break. God knows, I need a break. We all need a break.

New York author, Colleen Newvine, has the answer to our tired-ass prayers with her new book Your Mini Sabbatical: Quit Your Life Temporarily.

In it, she gives you the tools to make your respite a reality and speaks to those who’ve incorporated major time off into their lives, such as people who’ve worked remotely, travelled between jobs, or gone on a formal sabbatical program.

I’ve already started planning my escape…

The much-loved Elizabeth Street Garden in Nolita is still fighting for its existence against the real estate developers, and is just a beautiful in winter as in summer.

Victorian statues of nymphs cup the frost in their hands, and the sun’s weakened rays poke through the trellis of the Japanese pagoda.

You can donate to their legal fund here, buy merch, or if you’re an artist of any kind, you can donate your work here. As ever, all the little New York spaces we love must be fought for, or we’ll lose them to billionaires.

Thanks for reading. If you'd like to support my work, you can buy one of my paper illustrations, commission a papercut of your home, Art Deco architecture, or an original on your own theme. You can also become a paid subscriber to this newsletter by clicking the link below.

If you need an easy gift, you can buy one, two or three of my books.

Big love,

Boo