How Did I Forget to Mention...

...THAT I WENT TO THE MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE!?!

That's right, after 23 years of waking up and watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade on the teevee with my family (which really is just a lead up to the dog show, right?) I have now officially seen it in person!

Thanksgiving morning, my wonderful father and I walked from my brothers apartment at Union Square Park to 33rd street to watch the parade. It was amazing!! It was so surreal to be surrounded by a sea of people, and then have a 40 foot tall Pillsbury Dough Boy come lurking out from behind a building. It reminded me of that scene in Ghostbusters and of course the first Batman movie where the giant joker balloon comes floating down the streets of Gotham City. Just a lot less terrifying.

Below are a few photographs of the crowds and the balloons. This was one of the many activities I did this week in New York that made me really love this city. Enjoy!

We passed Gandhi on our way to the parade and stopped for a quick hello. I will be going back to NYC a lot now that I have a great place to rest my feet. Any suggestions for future visits? I love new restaurants and museums or galleries are that off the beaten track!!

Thanksgiving and New York CIty

Hi All,

Sorry for the lapse in posts, I have been spending a wonderful week in New York City. My job had me traveling around in New Jersey for the week before the holiday so it was very easy for me to make the trek to the Village, where my brother has a beautiful, if not small, studio apartment to spend Thanksgiving with my family. I won't bore you with the details of what happens when a family of five is occupying a one room apartment for five days, but I have done a lot of great things since being here. This has by far been my favorite trip to the city. I think it is because I had enough time to sit and relax between adventures, usually I feel very rushed to get everything crammed in to a day or two, which ends up leaving me grumpy or overwhelmed. Below are a few drawings I have done since being here.

These drawings range from 3" x 4" to 5" x 6" all are pen or graphite on Bristol Board. I haven't done as many drawings this week as I normally would but have been busy with many other wonderful things. Below are a few highlights including a Kandinsky Retrospective at the Guggenhiem Musuem, and a photo take of me on the High Line in Chelsea. I also had my first celebrity spotting ever! Will Ferrell pushing a baby carriage! Enjoy!

This last photo is text that I found on a wall in Chelsea, I'm trying to figure out what the order was that the words were altered....what do you think? Better History? Bitter History? Bitter Future? Better Future?

Just a Note: Within 24 hours of this post Ethan Berry informed me that "Better History" was an exhibition installed in a garage on 10th street, where this photo was taken. Thanks Ethan! More information here.

2009 Creative Massachusetts: Artists Congress

This is a belated post for this specific topic, so I apologize ahead. I wanted to let you all know that the 2009 Creative Massachusetts Artist Congress went great! I was honored to be asked to sit on a panel moderated by Ja-Nae Duane discussing "How to Create Community, Network and Networking Tools" due to my involvement in "This Collective Pull" The event was held at the beautiful Boston Public Library in one of the conference rooms. There was a great turnout and some wonderful questions were asked, unfortunantly I was unable to stay for the whole event since I needed to be in Rochester that same night. This is an annual event so I encourage you all to attend next year! It is free and open to artists working in all disciplines in Massachusetts. Thanks to Mary Bucci McCoy for the photo of the panel!

More Hotel Drawings

Well, because of a "miss-communication" between a teacher and me, I was out of work by 9:15 today...that means a lot of driving around Rochester until checking in to my hotel early at 11:00. Although frustrating, it was nice to get out so early because I had a lot of time to draw. Check out these new drawings. These are the most successful out of the many I did today, above is a photo to show a sense of scale. Enjoy!

All drawings are ink on Bristol Board, some with colored pencil. Feedback is welcome!

A Day Off is a Beautiful Thing!

After being on the road for many days, and looking at my calendar and seeing I have many, many more to go, I decided to take a day off! It was wonderful. I woke up early knowing that all I had to do was be in the studio, and I was finally able to finish a drawing I have been working on. While I am on the road I am still making small drawings, but I truly miss being in my studio and working large so it was a great feeling to be in there all day on Friday.

This piece is 28" x 30", smaller than I'd like it to be. I feel the space is starting to expand but the format of the page somewhat limits the expansiveness of the piece. I have started a new drawing that is much larger, about 36" x 44" which I have been documenting at different stages of development, hopefully when it is complete I will be able to put a slide show for you to watch it evolve. Here it is in it's current state as it hangs on the wall:

Also, I had a chance to re-photograph the small works I have been doing while on the road, some of which will be included in Mini Mimi a show at Mimi Gallery in Ipswich this coming December.

All of these are graphite, colored pencil and ink on Bristol Board, and measure around 4" x 6". I am still not quite as happy with the image quality as I'd like, so I am still on the search for a good scanner. Any suggestions? Stay tuned for an update on the Artist Congress I participated in and Mini Mimi. Also, I hear back from Hambidge this week. Fingers crossed!

More Hotel Drawings

So here is today's solution to a hotel studio:

It's not fancy but it gets the job done! Also, I have a roommate:

Who I told was more than welcome to stay the night, as long as it was like this:

On a less gross note, here are two more drawings I worked on today, possibly for the show at Mimi, but we'll see what else is made between now and then. I am not used to working so quickly and on such a small scale.

Any feedback is welcome!

Hotel Studio

Hi All,

One of the downsides of being on the road all the time (besides living out of a suitcase) is not having a good space to work. Here's today's solution to that problem:

I'm working on some small drawings for an exhibition at Mimi in Ipswich. Below are a few of the drawings, both are 4" x 6" and are pastel, graphite and ink on bristol board. More information about the show and more images to come soon!



Sorry about the image quality (hotel lighting....gross)!! Better images to come soon! Take care.