Figure Drawing at Art Stop in Rochester, NY

Every Monday there is a figure drawing session hosted by Mia Bell at the Art Stop in Penfield, Rochester, NY. I've been going on and off since 2023. 

The sessions are pay as you go and last for three hours. I usually only have energy for two hours of drawing before calling it quits. It takes a lot of mental power, it's in the evening after a full day of work, and I only have so much patience before I get discouraged and put the pencil down. 

Since I moved back to Brighton I've been trying to go every week as I'm just a few minutes away via car. I also really want to get good at drawing before I die. I'm serious. I don't want to die as a shitty draftsman. 

I fantasize about taking lessons back in New York at the Grand Central Atelier. They're now located in Ridgewood, Queens which is just a few minutes drive from Richmond Hill. I've had a few colleagues from college go through that program and they came out producing some absolutely gorgeous work.

I want that for myself.

Sometimes I think about moving back home, but I'm reminded each time I visit my parents of the crowdedness, filth, and how expensive NYC is.

Living there might be different now that I'm married and have dual income and make a lot more money than when I left New York, but my wife happens to hate NYC quite a bit. She doesn't like how dirty and noisy it is.

NYC is like a shitty girlfriend that you keep hooking up with long after realizing she is toxic as all hell and you know she isn't right for you - but she's hot so you keep coming back. 

Every time I come back home to visit family and friends, I have mixed emotions. I miss being able to visit my family and friends whenever I want; now it is every few months if I'm lucky.

Maybe one day I will return. Who knows?

COVID 19 Lockdown Era Drawings - 2020 Sketchbook

 

During the lockdown era of COVID 19 around early March 2020 to late April 2020 a lot of things were happening around the world all the while a lot of nothing was happening at home simultaneously.

I was sent home from my job until further notice. I was one of the lucky people who received a paycheck every two weeks for over three months from their job despite doing essentially nothing for work. 

I was lucky to have been dating someone at the time the lock downs happened. I would have gone insane if I had to go through it alone. Companionship is underrated. Connection is everything.

I was attending Baruch College at the time for my MBA in Healthcare Administration. I went from the annoyance of commuting every Tuesday and Thursday evening to using a platform I never heard of until the pandemic - Zoom. 

I had never participated in remote learning before then. I had never done remote work.  I had never stayed indoors for that long until the pandemic. 

While people were dying from this disease by the truck load at Jamaica Hospital just a few minutes away from where I lived, I was learning jazz guitar, drawing, recording music, studying for my MBA, and growing my hair out.

Eventually around late April 2020, my friends and girlfriend at the time began to venture out on long hikes and small weekend get aways with me.

It was a very productive time creatively, especially with regards to music. I re-learned to play the piano and read music again. 

I learned jazz standards that were challenging for me to learn when I was younger. I learned to play almost every single page of music from a Hal Leonard book for jazz chord melody.

I look back at that era still confused.

I am still angry with how people acted during that time - the political divide, the violence, the lack of empathy for others, the refusal of understanding, the appeal to authority instead of critical thinking and common sense. 

I am happy I was able to pursue my creative passions with a corporate sponsorship similar to the characters from the book, Fight Club. I was literally paid to just wait. I did whatever the hell I wanted at home and traveled. No questions were asked of my whereabouts or what I was doing.

I understand a lot more about myself having spent so much time alone. 

I know that I'm capable of leadership - I led my peers through difficult assignments; I competed in a case study at Yale against top business school students and was able to hold my own. 

I accomplished things I did not know I was capable of accomplishing - studying for and passing the GRE, getting into business school after years outside of an academic setting, passing statistics, operations management, accounting, finance - all math heavy courses when I have historically been terrible at math, and landing a position at a highly competitive administrative fellowship at Rochester Regional Health.

Despite all these positives, ultimately, the pandemic is something I would not want to go through again.

Female Figure Drawings - 2019 Sketchbook

Figure Drawings of Women. Alex Ariza 2019.

 

Female Nude Reclining. Alex Ariza 2019.

Woman in Fetal Position Unfinished Drawing. Alex Ariza 2019

Nude Female with Bear Head Figure Drawing. Alex Ariza 2019.

Nude Female Figure Drawing Stretching Arms Overhead. Alex Ariza 2019.

Spirit of the Fox Sketch. Alex Ariza 2019.

Nun's New Outfit Sketch. Alex Ariza 2019.

Evangelion Studies - 2019 Sketchbook

 

Head Study of a Black Woman - 2019 Sketchbook Painting

Head Study of a Black Woman. Acrylic on Paper. Alex Ariza 2019.

 

Mosquito - 2019 Sketchbook Painting

Mosquito. Acrylic on Paper. Alex Ariza 2019

 

Comfy - 2019 Sketchbook Painting

 

Comfy. Gouache on Paper. Alex Ariza 2019.

Honey is Gold and Gold is Priceless - 2019 Sketchbook Painting

Honey is Gold and Gold is Priceless. Gouache on Paper. Alex Ariza 2019.

 

My Rejected Entries for the 69th Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition

Water Tank Overgrowth

Acrylic Paint on Canvas, 24 x 36 inches, Alex Ariza, 2019

Water Tank Overgrowth. Acrylic Paint on Canvas 24 x 36 inches.

During a trip to Puerto Rico in 2018, I came across many abandoned buildings and man-made structures that had become completely overgrown with a variety of plants. This contrast became a subject matter that fascinated me - it represented the fact that everything has a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Upon my return to New York, I made a series of paintings that aimed to capture this concept. In Water Tank Overgrowth, vines, leaves, grass, and rust consume an old, neglected water tank. The surface of the canvas is raised with thick paint application and different acrylic mediums to give a variety of rough textures throughout the piece. 

 Rochester Incinerator

Acrylic Paint on Canvas, 24 x 36 inches, Alex Ariza 2025

Rochester Incinerator. Acrylic Paint on Canvas 24 x 36 inches.

Along the Genesee River in Rochester, NY there is an abandoned garbage incinerator that remains standing and is slowly being eroded by trees, weeds, the weather, teenagers, and junkies. The smokestack and incinerator plant was built in the 1940s by Decarie Incinerator Company of Minneapolis. The plant was decommissioned and taken over by Delco (an automotive parts manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors) in the late 1950s and eventually abandoned sometime around 1990. The painting captures the quiet inactivity of the building bathed in the bright summer sun while plants grow around it.

Hammer and Plants

Acrylic Paint on Canvas, 24 x 36 inches, Alex Ariza, 2025

Hammer and Plants. Acrylic Paint on Canvas 24 x 36 inches.

Hammer and Plants, is the artist's second attempt of an artwork originally painted in 2019. The concept of this painting is how the tools we use today will inevitably get lost and reunited with nature similar to ancient civilizations before us. The hammer is rusted and covered in small plants and moss in a larger scene of lush green plants and rocks. The rocks have a rough texture created by pumice stone in acrylic medium.

Additional Thoughts

I submitted these paintings in hopes of entering a juried show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY where I currently reside. They were not selected. It's okay. I'll try again in 2027. I have a long way to go before my work is good enough to hang next to some truly talented artists.

Subject matter will need to be more interesting and my colors a bit more varied.

My brother Kevin now owns the Rochester Incinerator painting which is hanging in his dental practice office in Queens, NY. The other two paintings are hanging at my parents' house.