For an artist, four different kinds of fish

Ingrid Alvarez, a 33-year-old artist and Staten Island Museum employee. Photo: Clemence Michallon.

Ingrid Alvarez sits, legs folded under the table on a tatami mat, shoes off, at Staten Island’s Osaka Japanese Restaurant. When she reaches for her bowl of miso soup, a tattoo of a skull with butterfly wings shows on her left wrist.

Alvarez’s tattoo, a skull with butterfly wings. Photo: Clemence Michallon.

Alvarez, 33, moved to the borough almost three years ago to live with her boyfriend, Gerald Harbour, a 31-year-old movie director. Osaka Japanese Restaurant is one of their go-to places for dinner, even though Harbour does not eat fish and usually goes for the chicken teriyaki. Alvarez likes the “calm, soothing atmosphere” – it is quieter than most sushi places they have tried and allows conversation – as well as the decor, especially the cherry blossom branches at the entrance. Sitting on the tatami mats, on the floor, provides what she describes as “an intimate and celebratory experience.” As the only fish eater in the house, she rarely cooks it and considers it a special treat. Alvarez orders a rainbow roll that includes four different kinds of fish – tuna, salmon, fluke and yellowtail, wrapped around crab, avocado and cucumber.

Ingrid Alvarez orders a rainbow roll at Staten Island’s Osaka Japanese Restaurant. Photo: Clemence Michallon.

Alvarez, who has so many different jobs she bursts out laughing at the idea of a typical workweek, is a visual artist, but she started working at the Staten Island Museum last year. Founded in 1881, the museum is a quirky tribute to the borough’s history; its natural history section features a four-legged chicken, a hairball from a cow’s stomach, and “oddly shaped pieces of wood and stones” enclosed in a display titled “strange things”.

A replica of the Staten Island ferry at the Staten Island Museum. Photo: Clemence Michallon.

Alvarez is an educator at the mseum, which offers 30 lessons for school groups on topics that include “Animal homes,” “Protecting frogs, bats and bees” and “A day at the beach.” So far, Alvarez has mastered ten.

“It’s really fun, like improv or acting,” says Alvarez. “It’s a performance. All eyes are on you, and you’re telling a story. I get a kick out of it.”

Most schoolchildren who come to Alvarez’s classes go to school in Staten Island, though there’s occasionally a class from Brooklyn or Manhattan. The rest of the visitors are a mix of locals, New Yorkers from other boroughs, and tourists.

In addition to her role as an educator, Alvarez recently came on as a floor manager, “the Museum mama,” she says, there on alternating weekends to make sure the museum opens on time, the cash registers are in order and the guard is present.

At Osaka Japanese Restaurant, Alvarez sips on sake and munches on complimentary soybeans. Originally from Seattle, she lived in Brooklyn for five years before moving to Staten Island, one of an increasing number of artists who come to the borough looking for cheaper rents and a better quality of life. The apartment she shares with Harbour, with “cool vintage details” like wooden floors and glass doorknobs, is located in a post-war house built in the 1940s that “looks like a Bavarian cottage from the outside.” She knows who her neighbors are and relishes the quietness of the place.

As an artist, Alvarez enjoys Staten Island’s parks, specifically Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanic Garden, an 83-acre former retirement community for sailors. It houses Art Lab, a non-profit art school where Alvarez discovered her love of plein air painting, when the artist paints outdoors.

The Secret Garden at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden. Photo: Clemence Michallon.

“Now more than ever, I have a direction for my artwork,” Alvarez says. “I was definitely at a point where Brooklyn was becoming too much, too detached from nature.” Her art, she says, was once full of bold, colorful skeletons, influenced by New York’s hip-hop and street art cultures. Now, she is back to portraiture and still life.

Alvarez’s art is not the only thing that changed after her move to Staten Island. Her eating habits, too, have evolved. She rarely ate any meat before her relationship with Harbour, who does. They love cooking together – she is in charge of vegetables, salads and baked goods; he has just mastered the art of the slow cooker and makes a mean pot roast” and “the perfect cheese omelet.” She gave him a grill for his last birthday, and he takes over the barbecue during summertime.

Still, she remains cautious about her dietary choices. “I think the taste of meat is enjoyable, and should not be taken for granted. It is a ceremony of life in its rawest form, and requires an immense amount of resources to achieve,” she says. “As consumers, we should be more picky of our meat and animal by-product choices, including the use of chemicals, hormones and, very importantly, humane animal treatment. It directly affects the taste of the meat!”

Her conversion into a meat-eater led, she says, to physical changes. “Once I started eating meat more regularly, I became leaner, stronger and was told that I generally appear more healthy,” says Alvarez, who wears a Fitbit tracker on her wrist, on top of her tattoo.

Since they moved in together, Alvarez and Harbour have started traveling more often, to places like San Jose, Phoenix and Boston, and she has begun working with him as a camera operator. Alvarez enjoys the variety and new experiences, but she brings fruit, vegetables and nuts – as well as Alka-Seltzer tablets – “just in case.” The rest of the time, they cook their own meals as much as possible, together or for each other.

Alvarez could see herself going back to Brooklyn someday. In the meantime, she travels – sometimes out of town, sometimes out of the borough. That night, after dinner, she and Harbour cross the Verrazano Bridge to Union Square. “Road Hard”, an independent film by comedian Adam Carolla, awaits.

Clemence Michallon