March Madness

March has been such an exciting, wonderful month!  Right after wrapping up a super cool job for Cleveland Magazine (which I be posting samples of as soon as I get the final layouts) I took off for two back-to-back super fun adventures: my very first Mardi Gras in New Orleans, then my very first time to the SXSW music festival in Austin, TX!

Anyone that knows my work (or me personally) knows how much I love music....and food. Both these towns and events are completely about music and food and celebration—so I felt right at home and extremely inspired!

This was my 4th visit to New Orleans, but my first for Mardi Gras. A huge fan of costumes, parading, and all-around shenanigans,  Mardi Gras has been on the very top of my bucket list for awhile. I also have fallen quite deeply in love with the city of New Orleans from my annual visits over the past 3 years—I love absolutely everything about it. From the incredible food to the colorful culture; from the warm, fun people to the pretty sights and funky sounds; I truly cannot get my fill of that wonderful, amazing city!!

And Mardi Gras is one of the oldest, all-encompassing cultural celebrations the city holds annually. I'd been told by locals that it's truly a representation of what the culture is all about, and something that I just have to experience at least once in my life—especially if I really love the city. This year was just the year! After having gotten familiar with the city the past few years, I felt prepared to have a true (i.e. NON-frat boy) experience of this amazing celebration.

My best friend—New Orleans travel companion extraordinaire and costume-parading cohort, Kristin Smith—and I created some of the best costumes we've conjured up to date. Playing off the traditions of the Mardi Gras spirit, we designed something bright, beautiful and feathery, and made quite a splash! We were definitely a big hit and fit right in with the locals on Mardi Gras Day!! The amount of fun had in three days of dancing, parading, laughing, eating (and of course bead-catching!) is really hard to sum up or capture in pictures....but here's an attempt.  It really was one of the most fun, colorful, exciting things I've had the chance to experience!

Exactly one week after returning from New Orleans (meaning just one week of much needed recovery!) I was off to Austin for the SXSW music festival. My first time to Austin, I fell in love! It's such a cool city--It actually, in ways, reminded me of the spirit of New Orleans and Nashville—it's another city with music everywhere, every hour of the day, and some of the nicest local people I could imagine! I also really love the sort of "weird" eccentric, retro feel that the whole city has—there's was all this super cool signage all over the place. And I has some of the most interesting and most delicious food there—"artisan" hot dogs at Franks, the best BBQ I've ever had at Stubbs and Iron Works, Guiness ice cream at Amy's, fried avocados, breakfast burritos, bacon bloody marys and of course the Triple Lindy: Makers Mark, pickle juice, and beer shots (yes, each one chasing the previous! Yum!!)

One of my highlights was a double dose of Dancing Man 504 in both New Orleans and Austin! Dancing Man—or Darryl Young—is this amazing guy...a staple of New Orleans who's devoted himself to 2nd line dancing and sharing it with others—especially children. He's founded a program, Heal 2 Toe, where he teaches second line dance and culture to kids. He's all around an amazing guy with a ton of talent and personality, and I was able to meet and hang out with him for a bit in NOLA, then able to jump in his 2nd line parade down 6th St in Austin! If you are in NYC, he'll be doing A Jazz Funeral for Coney Island on April 3rd—I absolutely recommend checking it out!

And as far as the music festival—it was just awesome. Music everywhere!! Almost overwhelming to navigate, so we just kind of winged it, popping in cool little places for free shows as we walked around rather than buying a badge or rsvp'ing to get into the bigger shows. But I loved it that way. Got to see and hear a ton, found a few new bands that I super love—like the Orbans—and really just got to soak in the city as a whole. I can't wait to go back again sometime!




Just had to share these little tidbits....feeling really creatively inspired from weeks of celebrating life with great music, food, art and people! Ready to translate that into some good new work ...then on to the next adventure! :)

Sketchbook Project on tour!

This past weekend was the kick-off for the Art House Co-op's Sketchbook Project traveling exhibit with an opening reception at The Brooklyn art Library. I had a chance to stop by, but unfortunately it was close to the end of the night, and by that time they were trying to wrap things up and not allowing anymore check-outs. So, I didn't actually get to browse through any of the books, but it was a cool space with over 10,000 sketchbooks lining the shelves—I can't wait to get back there to peruse the stacks and take a look at how everyone interpreted their themes!

The exhibit will be at the Brooklyn Art Library in Williamsburg until February 27 when it'll pack up to hit the road on it's national tour. I'll coincidentally be in Austin, TX in March when it hits there—so hoping to check it out on the road too! The full schedule/tour dates are on the Art house Co-op's website.

Checking out the Sketchbook Project at Brooklyn Art Library

Opening reception, Saturday February 19

With Kristin Smith-my dear friend and also a participating artist in the Sketchbook Project

I also had a very cool opportunity to share a little piece about my experience with the project on Starving Talent—a resource site and online community for artists, by artists. It's a brand new website featuring all kinds of cool and inspiring articles and resources for creatives in all fields—illustration, design, photography, music, film. Sarah McGinnis—the organizer for the Tilsbury Publishing  project I participated in last May—now works on Starving Talent and and invited me to contribute. I hope to submit more to the site in the future. It's a really cool place for artists—check it out if you have a chance, and be sure to read more about the Sketchbook Project opening there! Thanks Sarah!

Inspiration from life

I usually keep from blogging about personal and/or non-work related things—but sometimes life just intersects with work, when something so lovely or beautiful or exciting or interesting happens, that my creative mind just begins to explode with possibilities! The 10-day adventure I took over the holidays—first to Colorado, then Hawaii—was just that for me; and just way too amazing to not share a few tidbits!

I feel like most of the pics I took on the trip are disappointing...I must be the world's worst photographer. (Guess I didn't have enough interest in my art school photo classes to retain much! Or, I could blame my little point and shoot camera....) Anyway-clearly, my natural abilities lie in a pen or pencil and not a lens. But it's also partly just because there is no way for anyone to fully capture the beauty of experiencing things so majestic and amazing as the snow covered mountain tops of the Rockies, the black sand beaches of Maui, or the sun rising above the clouds at 10,000 feet on a volcanic crater. These are absolutely some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen; I also experienced so many fun, adventurous things—like snowboarding for the first time, hiking through a bamboo forest, climbing waterfalls, cliff jumping and surfing! (and yes, all in the same week!)

The trip was incredibly rejuvenating for me. As much as I love living in New York City, I can't believe how refreshing it can be to leave and be out in such big, open, fresh-aired spaces! I haven't had the opportunity to travel as much as I would like, and so for me, this was seeing a world I didn't know existed; It made me feel like I walked through a door to a whole other side of life, just waiting for me to begin to experience it. I find inspiration for my work in so many places—other cultures, other artists, music; But, I feel like the best inspiration comes from personal experiences like these and I'm really excited to digest and translate some of this into some new work.

Boulder/Nederland CO

Took some amazing hikes—beautiful views!

Maui

Everyday started and ended with a beautiful sky

Stopped for a hike on the Road to Hana to climb some waterfalls

Black and red sand beaches on the way to Hana

Stopped at this tidepool on the way to Hana—one of my favorite spots of the trip! Did my first cliff-jumping here!

Watching the sunrise at the Haleakalā Crater

10,000 ft elevation—above the clouds!

"House of the Sun"

Such an amazing morning

Great Hopes and Massive Failures

A few weeks ago, I posted about The Sketchbook Project—a nationwide art project and traveling exhibit that I am participating in, organized by Art House Gallery. I've been having a blast starting to fill up pages in my sketchbook, and will periodically post some of my progress with it as I continue over the next few months (The deadline to submit the finished book is January 15th).

Each participant was to choose one of the provided themes to base the sketchbook on. (Though these are just to be used as a starting point and completely open to interpretation.) I chose the theme “Great Hopes and Massive Failures”.

Like many single women, especially in New York City, I've racked up countless stories of bad dates over the years. And, I would guess I'm not the first of these women to hear friends repeatedly say (after living vicariously through my tales of single-dom) that all these stories would make for a great book. I don’t, however, consider myself much of a writer—so instead decided to use this opportunity to create a visual diary of some of these stories. After all, what greater hope is there than the exciting possibilities of what might come from meeting someone new? And how much more massive failure can you feel when those hopes are smashed...like, by the realization that the guy who just showed up for your first date with a half-drunken 12-pack of beer is a total loser!?

Of course, this diary isn’t meant at all to be a venue for some man-bashing rant. It’s simply meant to be complete fun for me, and just to make light of some of the ridiculous dating experiences I've had in the past. Taking a personal approach to interpreting this theme allows perfect ground for me to freely experiment with visual ways to tell a story. I really want to push myself conceptually, using metaphors and composition to create a narrative in new ways. Also—the nature of this kind of story-telling allows alot of opportunity to incorporate hand-lettering which I am always interested in exploring more of too. And the sketchbook format creates a chance to experiment with medium without the need for executing finished, polished pieces.

I'm sharing here my title/first page—I had alot of fun with this, looking to old circus-y/sideshow poster type for inspiration and weaving in hints of gold leaf accents. I'll share alot more as I continue sketching!

Gallery piece

A few months ago, I signed on with MacWorthington Gallery in Columbus Ohio. I'll periodically show paintings there, and my work can also be seen and purchased through their online gallery. The first show that I'll have work included in there will be in September, so I wanted to share the in-progress painting I'm working on.

The gallery is open to any subject matter and medium, so it's a great opportunity for me to explore themes I'm personally excited about and also experiment with medium a bit. I had so many images in my head that I would just love to create--but thought a lot also about something that might sell to the kind of clientele a gallery like that might get. I decided to tap into a recent inspiration--the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.

The Mermaid Parade stems from Coney Island's Mardi Gras celebration that was celebrated every autumn in NYC from 1903-1954.  It was re-born in the early 1980s as a celebration of summer, held each June on the Saturday closest to the summer solstice. 3 years ago, some friends and I decided to participate, because with our love of costume-making, it just seemed natural! We've marched in it each year since, and it's one of my absolute favorite events of the year! This most recent parade was our favorite to date--we played off the Coney Island sideshow/freakshow and created marine representations of old-time sideshow performers, "The Spectacular Seashow". (I was an Octupus-woman..."Suzi Squid"!) Here's a few photos of our get-ups!:

There's a "Freak Bar" at Coney island--adjacent to the Freak Show performance space, and we found ourselves hanging out there for a good portion of the day after the parade ended. There were quite a few people who wanted our pictures--and the American flag hanging outside was a perfect backdrop for us to vogue a few pin-up style poses. We were also handed a "golden bird" by another participant, who informed us it's a Mermaid Parade tradition and good luck to hold this bird on Mermaid Parade day. Not sure how much truth is in that--but we had alot of fun posing, and these are the photos I've derived my inspiration and reference from:

And this is my sketch for the piece I will be submitting to MacWorthington Gallery. I am super  excited to get going in color with this!

ICON6!

I want to share some highlights from my experience at ICON--though it's hard to pare it down because the entire weekend really was fantastic!

There was just so many great speakers! There was a major focus on the world of publishing and what the future of illustration within publishing holds for us, with all the rapidly changing technology and media formats. Alot of interesting (and differing!) opinions from art directors, designers and illustrators created alot of discussion throughout the entire weekend. Obviously, no one can really answer the question of what the future holds—in any context—but it is an important time to be thinking about how our changing world is going to affect visual artists' careers in the all-too-near future...for the better or the worse. I personally feel that the industry will be very different in just a few years--but not in a good or bad way necessarily. I think as artists we just all need to be open to adapting to what's next, and keeping our eyes open for new markets that will be created as technology continues to change. It could be a very exciting time.

There were some really great panels on the use of illustration, rather than photography, from some top art directors & companies--including SooJin Buzzelli, Sally Morrow, Irene Gallo, and the creative team at United Airways. There was a really entertaining discussion from children's book illustrators John Hendrix, Adam McCauley & Istvan Banyai, and a pretty memorable overview from Wayne White on his illustrator-to-cartoonist-puppeteer-to-fine artist career path. There were also lots of cool presentations from motion graphics/animation studios (of course, it was LA!)

One of my other favorite sessions was a talk from Melinda Beck and Gary Taxali on issues of exposure vs. fair pay. They shared some great stories, and are both artists whom I admire so much—not just for their work—but also for their knowledge of the business and the ethics they practice when dealing with clients.

The ICON bookstore always has a great selection of books to pick up from the featured artists and speakers. I just couldn't resist buying Paul Rogers' Jazz ABZ--the art is so beautiful. I love the graphic quality and the sophisticated palette and design. And, of course I am completely inspired by the subject matter. I also had the great opportunity to meet Paul and have him sign my copy--he's a pretty awesome guy!

I also was really inspired by Todd Oldham's presentation, and love his book on Charlie Harper—a collection of his work over the span of his 60-year career—which is gorgeous! He spoke a lot about the time he spent with Charlie during the last few years of his life, cataloging all his work, which was fascinating. I also was super excited to meet Mr. Oldham at the book signing.

And the other book I just had to pick up  and get signed was The Dress Doctor, illustrated by fashion-illustrator Bil Donovan. Bil's style is just so inspiring--the way he captures so much elegance and grace in such simple, bold forms. And, he was an incredibly sweet person also!

Of course--aside from all the great info and inspiration in everything I attended, it also proved to be another wonderful conference of connecting and networking with so many amazing and talented peers. I met lots of great new people, but also re-connected with tons of people I've met at previous conferences and illustration events...and once again, I'm reminded that illustrators are the most fun people in the world!

Some new inspiration

I don't typically post a lot of personal things on this blog, but it's been a wildly inspiring and creative month, so I wanted to share a few things that have gotten my creativity bursting at the seams....

Earlier this month I took a trip to Nashville Tennessee, which was just amazing! The entire city is filled with live music--day and night, and there's a lot of history everywhere about Americana/roots music (which I am a huge fan of). There's lots of really cool memorabilia, in both museums and all the honky tonk bars--from all the greats, like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline.....some really amazing stuff! Here's a few pics of some of the things I found really visually inspiring!



In addition, Nashville is home to Hatch Show Print--one of the oldest and most well-known letterpress shops still operating today. They had a big part in creating the woodblock-type look popular for concert posters, and most concert posters in Nashville are still done by them and can be seen hanging all over town. I have always been a huge fan of their designs and fascinated with letterpress & woodblock printing, so it was especially cool to stop in the shop and see them at work (and pick up several posters of course!) Here's a link to there site, and some of my favorite posters of theirs:

http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/experience-hatch.aspx



The other very exciting and inspiring event this month was, of course, Halloween! It's by far my favorite holiday, mostly because it gets me super creatively charged. I absolutely love making a unique costume each year and always challenge myself....this year was a creepy wood-nymph/fairy with light up wings! tons of fun making this and I was pretty happy with how it turned out!



Also, my office goes all out at Halloween time too, so I get to lend a hand in transforming our office into something spooky and spectacular in addition to my own costume. Here's some photos of how we changed our work space into "Dracula's Dinner Party". we even ended up winning 2nd place! I wish work could look like this all the time!




So, you can see I always put a ton of work into Halloween, but it's all more than worth it!

I've got some exciting projects around the bend, so October has been a fantastic and timely source of inspiration! (also, insanely BUSY!!)
More details to come on those projects-in-the-works soon!

Inspiration is oozing!

I just got back from my 2nd trip to New Orleans for Jazzfest--was hard to believe I could fall even more in love with that city than I did last year on my first visit-but it's true! I have never been to a more inspiring place! (though living in NYC is inspirational everyday...) The music is the best I've ever heard, the food is the best I've ever eaten, the colors the most vivid I've ever seen, and the culture-is just completely unique! My friend and I took about 400 photos over 5 days-and I have come back feeling so inspired to create! Here's a few pics that captured some of the arts and culture I found most vividly stimulating. My brain is swarming with new ideas for some personal work...so stay tuned for new projects!

N'Awlins

This is a small personal piece I did, inspired by my first trip to New Orleans last year. I based this off a photo I took-I loved how iconic the beads hanging over the lamp post are!


Here's the photo: