Month: May 2009

Where else but New York City! I just got back from a whirlwind 4-day stay in the Large Apple with some of my most excellent illustrating gal pals. Two of the aforementioned pals had their own booths at Surtex for the first time, and the rest of us went to cheer them on, help out, and walk the shows. Barb’s booth was bursting with licensing goodness:

And Monica’s was all a-flutter with fun freshness:

Barb and Monica did an AMAZING job of putting these booths together, they truly looked excellent! Surtex (or any show like this) can be grueling in terms of setup/breakdown, and manning the booth for the whole time. Way to go, girls, for managing this. We also got to see a bunch of other blog buddies and other illustrators, like Jannie Ho and Holli Conger. Very fun to see everyone converging in one place!

Laura and I also got to check out the ICFF/International Contemporary Furniture Fair.
Despite the name, there is no cotton candy or pig racing at this fair. You will, instead find things like this:

Lots of furniture, lighting concepts, and home fixtures of all kinds. I always like to check this show out since some of my Fred work falls into this genre of design. Speaking of design, here’s Laura in the fabulous Japanese pavillion:

Here’s one of Mary Beth’s two Louie-nominated greeting cards at the Stationery Show:

And OH! Look! Here’s Mary Beth with the actual Louie Award that she won! WooHoo! The Louies are given to the the best greeting cards of the previous year. MB’s cards were designed for the Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

Our hotel had excellent views of about a hundred water tanks!

And look at this ridiculously green rooftop garden amongst the grey. I never once saw anyone up there enjoying it!

As usual, you can never predict what you’ll see in New York.
Maybe you’ll see:

A ginormous button and needle. We couldn’t figure out the weird configuration of button holes on that button. Then we decided it was “art”.

I love this homage to the city’s immigrant garment workers!

Weeniemobiles…times three!

Giant rotating lobsta! And a chick in a bathing suit looking on. Weird.

Serious M&Ming going on at the 3-level M&M store…

Or, if you prefer your chocolate to be Hershey’s, just go across the street.

My hero George M. Cohan will gladly show you the way to any of the freaky sights in Times Square. Just be glad I didn’t take a picture of The Naked Cowboy.

One of my must-go-to-places in NYC…the giant Toys R Us, complete with Ferris wheel inside!

Life-size functional Tyrannosaurus? This is always amusing no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

Likewise insanely large things made out of Legos.

Speaking of which, look at these cool Harry Potter Lego guys in the FAO Schwarz:

To cap off the Surtex/NY experience, we went to Angelo’s in Little Italy for an amazing dinner. It was sort of like Federal Hill, but, um…more so!

We’ll be back next year to do it all again!