At the end of 1999, I was working part-time at The Frick Museum’s admissions and gift shop. In the following summer, I visited Istanbul and the Aegean coast of Turkey with my boyfriend and showed him several historical places. After the trip, I got inspired by Hittite Civilization and created an art series called “Hittite Art”. I was selling them with the “HandMadePlace.com” label at Open Markets in Manhattan.
A year later, I got hired by the museum library (see pic 2) and shortly after I took several courses to further improve my computer skills. Also, I learned how to keep records and be better organized. While I was working at The Frick, I started to collect tree leaves from Central Park, to use them afterwards on self-crafted handmade paper pieces (see pic 4) which I sold them later on at the Upper West Side Market to people who had enthusiasm to write on handmade paper.
In the Summer of 2001, after moving together with my boyfriend to SunnySide, Queens, we decided to get married. We had an official wedding ceremony in City Hall, NYC (see pic 5). Just a month later, not very far from there, the Twin Towers attack happened. We have very sad memories from that day. We all got shocked; it deeply affected every Newyorker. A few months later my husband took me to Madrid, Spain (see pic 1) to introduce me to his Spanish family. Once again, I mesmerized with this beautiful country and its people.
In 2002, I took an intensive mosaic course at Unicorn Mosaics in Manhattan. I mastered about mosaic materials and practiced with them (see pic 3). Same year, I participated at the staff exhibition at the Frick Museum Library.
In 2003, an economic crisis hit NYC. Many people were laid off from their jobs and friends had to move out from the city. New York was changing; it was starting to lose its magical atmosphere. The high pressure of the city was giving us a lot of stress, which is a bad enemy on mental and physical health. At that moment, my husband’s working visa had expired and he would have to leave and wait about a year abroad if he wanted to comeback and get a new work permit. Things were getting complicated, so we both, partly sad, partly relieved, decided to finish the New York stage of our lives early, and move to Canary Islands, Spain, where my husband is originally from.