I am an Artist
Photo: Make up from Mud Studio, February 2017
This is from my journal, typed by my mother. It may not be totally accurate as much of my memory was lost and my perception became quite distorted about human relationships and what was actually happening to me. This was written in the fall of 2021 while I was living with my father in Santa Cruz California. My mother has added some (corrections/comments) for clarity. The photos are approximate to the timeline presented. My paper Street Animal tells the more polished version of my adventures.
In 2017, after completing my studies at MUD Studio I lived in Kreuzberg, Berlin, in someone else’s apartment. It was a sublet agreement. I had met Jan through Matta, a drug dealer in the neighborhood. Jan’s apartment was the perfect size for one person. It consisted of 3 rooms: a living room, bedroom, then the bathroom and hallway. At the end of the hallway there was a small kitchen. Jan’s apartment smelt of coffee and plants though he drank a coffee substitute that had a more like cacao fragrance to it.
(There was a misunderstanding on the last day of the school at MUD Studio that was very upsetting to Kaya, she spent the next few weeks going out to the night clubs in the party scene to run away from the experience and the feelings. This situation brought up memories from being bullied in grade school, ostracized by those she thought were her family, and was unable to redeem herself to her community. It was during this time in Berlin several times she was drugged with date-rape drugs and took a lot of ecstasy. Research into the sources of ecstasy in Berlin and Amsterdam says that it can be contaminated or modified with LSD, Meth, or other drugs. Excessive use caused severe imbalances in neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine production and in some cases damage the receptors sites in those parts of the brain that store memory, particularly of your family. Also is disrupts sleep and eating patterns, both of which can activate psychosis.)
Photo: Make up from Mud Studio, February 2017
There was an old sewing machine on a cluttered and dusty shelf in the hallway. There was also a self-made closet space to the right of the front door. To the apartment. It was on the second floor of an old building with green trim in the hallway. There were brown heads in the molding on each side of every door. Something about the faces seemed happy and scary at the same time. Like there was a soul behind everyone.
While living there I got a job at the Café down the street called Saarbach’s. They served wine, coffee and chocolate cake. This would be the last job I held before going homeless.
After Jan came back from London, I had to move into a student room in Wedding. I continued to work at Saarbach’s while living in Wedding.
Before working there, I was not very well established in Berlin at all. I had no real friends and a loose family connection who I swear hates me now. Her name is Christina and she also lived in Kreuzberg in an apartment just down the street from Görlitzer Park.
Saarbach’s will always be very sentimental to me as it was a cool place; a cabaret bar on some nights and a chess club on others. The people there were good to me and in the end I was bad.
Christina never came to visit me at Saarbach’s and still might not have ever been there. It is possible she never thought Berlin was a good place for me and only tolerated my existence. She has a son named Julian who also did not show a great deal of enthusiasm for my presence in Berlin. We met a total of 3 times during the one year in which I resided in Berlin. That made me feel unwelcome and, in the end, Christina did not want me to stay at her place at all.
Photo: Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Fashion Show, June 3, 2017
After I gave up my apartment, I moved into Christina’s apartment for about a week. (This took place in late April. Earlier in the month Kaya started experiencing delusions that someone was in her mind in the night in the apartment she lived in in Wedding and she refused to sleep because she thought she was becoming possessed. I told her to stop smoking weed and go to Christina’s. Christina was happy to help and support her while her mind became clear. After about 2 weeks Kaya decided to get back the Antwerp to work in the fashion dept for the graduating class).
What I did was I took sewing, modeling, and make-up work in Antwerp while I was working in Berlin. This was foolish of as it resulted in me losing my job at Saarbach’s. I made a lot of money in the short-term, but I lost my rhythm in berlin for doing that.
I also lost all the money I made that month in Antwerp for the makeup job. The money was stolen from me out of the back of a black moleskin book. It was 400€ that no one could replace. I suppose Mark stole it from me. He was a guy I knew through other people at the Royal Academy. We messed around together in the hotel. We didn’t have sex though. (This took place in the last week of May 2017, leading up to the year-end fashion show for the Fashion dept’s graduating class. Kaya was a paid model for the runway.)
Photo: Safety-Pin Tattoo, June 2017
The hotel room was littered with flowers. We each smoked a cigarette in the hotel which amounted to a 375€ cleaning fee. I was so in the wrong to invite Mark to come stay with me or take the room out at all.
I thought is would have been like a perk to the job. I would have never picked that hotel room myself. Its odd to think that Mark and I wanted to stay another night because he had no condoms the 1st night we stayed there together. Maybe it was not Mark. In fact, more than likely, it was the maid.
At the same time 500 € went missing from my Wells Fargo checking account. The transfer was made out to the teacher from MUD Studio Make-up Dispensary 2 months after I had finished my studies there. I called the bank to try to get the money refunded but to no avail.
No one could replace the money that was stolen from me, so I gave up my apartment in Wedding and moved back to Kreuzberg. It was a student apartment contract and I finished studying and I had finished my internship for fashion at Studio 183 (Feb-March, 2017, Berlin). My internship was unpaid though. I received a small tattoo of a safety pin on my left arm. I was also asked to do make-up for 3 different jobs which were paid, and I was able to make rent. The month of May is when I went to Antwerp to do all that sewing.
Photo: Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Fashion Show, June 2017
I felt so accomplished to have gigs set up in two cities in Europe. Staying in the Hotel was the biggest mistake I have ever made. (At this time, she called and asked for money to pay her rent. That week I did not have extra to send as I had already sent her rent money a few weeks back. This phone call was the last we had before she blocked me on every communication platform. There must have been more drugs involved at this time as in the week prior when she was sewing and working the delusions had gone away and we spoke several times a week and she said she was doing well.)
From Antwerp I flew to Sicily to go somewhere without consciously thinking of where I was going because I had the feeling I was going to go homeless in USA so I wanted to go to Sicily to run away. I bought a one-way ticket and spent all of my money on a strange hostel. I had nightmares about being betrayed and stalked by my own mother. It was in Catania where I first went homeless. I was very confused at this time about whether or not my parents were really my parents or not.
(There is about 2 weeks of timeline missing here as Kaya had stayed on a week more in Antwerp after the fashion show and she flew to Budapest to meet a high school friend, Mitchel. They hung out for a day or two then she took a bus to Sicily. She was also delusional at the airport in Budapest when she arrived and thought her phone was being traced. She threw the phone in the garbage can and someone found it and hacked into her PayPal account and took money out of her accounts).
Photo: She started changing, March 2017. “Kaya Rose Pro”
Before going to Sicily, I was a bit homeless in Antwerp too. I was able to stay with some friends I had made while waiting for money to be transferred. I stole a pair of Levi Jeans from a girl their and went to Sicily with them. I walked with my little black suitcase for three days and ended up completely delusional at the airport with no trust for anyone in my family. I emailed Christine and she sent me money to fly back to Berlin.
I was so confused I even threw my mobile phone away at the airport after writing an epic poem. I’m not sure why but I felt like I could trust no one. My phone was completely glitching out and out of credit, so I threw an 800 € cell phone away.
While in Antwerp, before flying to Sicily, I stayed with a friend Peter. I was so terrified and embarrassed about going homeless I started throwing my things away, I was confused and thought they were evil.
Christine helped me get back to Berlin from Sicily. I stayed with her for a week until I found a room to sublet for the month of August. I was pranked very badly in that house by a roommate named Kristofus. He peed into my suitcase which had my portfolio of all my art in it. He also woke me up yelling at me and took my keys and tried to through me out of the house barefoot. (July 15 or so). (I had one Call with Kaya at this time and said she needed to come home. There was something happening that did not make sense, but she refused and wouldn’t talk any longer).
After getting pranked out of that sublet I made a police report about his hostility towards me. I lost the police report, so the renters did not give me back my rent which was 500€ as well.
I lived in Kreuzberg, though my desk and chair and other belongings of mine were still in Wedding.
I didn’t’ ask for my deposit from Wedding, which is how I was able to leave some of my stuff there. I met some guys at a bar called Lylees and was told about the Greenhouse which was an art squat in southern Berlin. A man who lived there named Serge helped me move all my stuff from wedding to the Greenhouse where I was a guest in several people’s rooms. (August).
Photo: Last days in Antwerp, June 2017
First, I was a quest in Andreas’s room. I slept on the floor for 3 nights until I met Serge who allowed me to stay in his room. Serge had a car and we drove to Wedding to collect all of my furniture. Mitchel also helped me at this time by buying my electronics from me. I sold a projector, microphone and broken camara to him for 175€. I stayed with Julio who’s room was across from Serge’s room. Julio had no windows in his room and was a random arrangement because it was his brother’s room who was not there very much.
It was during this time I started walking the streets randomly. I spent the last of my money on expensive cosmetics. I also went and had my body waxed from head to toe, knowing I could not afford it. Julio did not want me to stay permanently because it was not his room. At this time, I was going by the name of Sky.
Then I stayed with Mitch and at this time began scattering my belongings. I left my favorite Prada boots in Görlitzer Park and my favorite book by Alexander McQueen as well.
I had sex with Julio and Mitch, Not Andreas or Serge. I then stayed on the floor. At this time, I arranged an interview with the bosses at the Greenhouse to get my own room.
Before moving away from Kreuzberg I was checked into a mental institution because I admitted to seeing and hearing things which weren’t there. I was released after 10 days without my passport.
All Of these people who helped me lived on the 6th floor. I moved from there the month of October after being admitted to the same psyche ward………
Photo: Paris, November 4, 2017
(This is the end of Kaya’s raw version of what happened. It was early August she was first in the hospital, and she only stayed for 2 days, and escaped over the wall, thus leaving her passport inside. A missing person’s report had been filled out with the Berlin Police in mid-August by her father who had gone to try to find her. In the last week of August, she was kicked out of the greenhouse by the Boss for not paying any rent. She was staying in a Berlin Squat, and someone made contact with me to tell me so. Labor Day weekend I flew to Berlin to try to bring her home. She had made contact with the Berlin Police that same weekend for shoplifting and had given a made-up name (Christina Spade). She also had stolen some camaras from a girl to sell for money.
I found her in the squat on the last night I was there, but she refused to come with me. In the second week of September, she started walking and hitch-hiking to France. By the end of October 2017, she was found starving, sleep deprived, delirious, and delusional on the streets of Paris. I happened to be in Amsterdam at the time and she was submitted into a psyche ward in Paris for a few days until I could come and bring her back to the USA. After arriving at home, she changed her clothes, stole a credit card, and flew to Los Angeles. In a few weeks she called both me and her father and said we were not her parents, and don’t come looking for her. That was November 23, 2017.
At this time in our journey, we did not really understand what had happened to her.)
To read more about some of her adventures in Europe from 2017, and USA in 2018 and early 2019, while being homeless read Street Animal below.
I am an Artist 