This Year's Christmas Windows!

This was my fourth year working as a scenic painter making Christmas windows here in New York, and here are the results! (PS--Our design company didn't get the Macy's contract, so I sadly didn't get to work on them this year.) To see MORE PICS from this year or previous seasons, check out my separate annual blog: itneedsmoreglitter.blogspot.com

Lord and Taylor

Here are a few pics of these windows showing families celebrating Christmas in various decades in New York...




Saks

Here are a few pics of these windows following a girl traveling through her imagination...





Dylan's Candy Bar


And I also posted lots of photos that I took from behind the scenes...



Thanks everyone for putting up with me and my hectic schedule over the past few weeks!

Poetry Conversation

I am so busy with the big Hendricks installation that I forgot to put together a proper blog post for this morning! So here is some overly-personal-non-visual creative expression to keep you entertained.

My beau and I had an argument this weekend, so I apologized to him with a poem...

I know I can be selfish
distracted and careless
and the fact I don’t mean to be
doesn’t make it hurt less.

I’m sorry I put on blinders
I get stressed and tense and vent
Hence I strive to hide this
from my fair ladies and gents.

I’ve been so long in solitude
my feet prepared to run
sharing myself though drawings
rather than one on one.

You accepted me no question
You love my every quirk
We fumble making mistakes
learning how our love works.

But I hate that my mistakes
can hurt you as I falter
as I learn to share my life and heart
with a particularly caring other.

Please know I respect your efforts
I love you more than I can stand
I’m simply not used to holding
a true love’s heart in my clumsy hands.

***

Then this was Kurt's reply:

I saw my alone
as a prison to flee
Not as a happy
wonderland
inside.

Reciprocated love
is new and more
exciting and gleeful
than they ever wrote about
before.

So I sit alone
at home
thinking of you painting
and sweating,
Creating a
Wonderland
for all to see,

And well, that's when I found me.

Abrams Spring Catalog

Lookie! The Abrams Spring 2011 catalog! (I'ts online here.)

And look who's on page 26-27! In a TWO PAGE SPREAD!

Every year I make little personalized name-place-holders for my family for Thanksgiving dinner, and here are the ones I made this year! (there are words in the leaves) My parents Patty & Maurice, and brother Brian are up here in New York sharing the holiday with me and my 'new family members' Kurt and Diana.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Drawn Love Letters: Part 6

New drawings! Click to see larger.


I imagine our toothbrushes snuggling when I close the medicine cabinet. The title of that drawing is "I Miss Him, Too."


Apparently my heart is more the obnoxious smartypants while my brain can be the big dummy. Brain makes things complicated but heart knows the truth. (This drawing accompanies the nut/ ice cube drawing I did a couple months ago.)


The caption reads, "Love is not the good china." Because in my humble opinion, people use the word love too sparingly. Share love so sparingly, treating it like the good china for fear of chipping it with everyday use. That's not my love.

Open Mic Live Painitng

Last week at HiChristina! I did live a LIVE PAINTING AT OPEN MIC!

I poured out paint, took off my shoes, rolled up my sleeves, and asked the audience to shout out which visible body parts I should use to paint with. As well as which color. (I did use a paintbrush at the end to tie it all together.) I ended up using my chin, elbow, toes, lips, fingers, nose, and special guest Tommy D.'s butt.



This pic by Reid Harris Cooper...

Here is the finished painting! Click to see larger.

On a side note, my beau Kurt read some of his writing for the first time at an open mic. And it was a story inspired by our relationship, which meant I was totally standing there crying as he read it because I was so moved. You can read it here.

Bored to Death Follow Up

Back in May I was an extra for the HBO show Bored to Death, where they set up a fake comic con at Brooklyn Lyceum. (Yup, where King Con was last weekend!) The episode "Super Ray is Mortal" finally aired, so you can see me in the background! (Click to see larger)




And here is a pic of me and my comic-tablemate Maja Szychowska with our friend Dean Haspiel, who is the basis of Zach Galifianakis' character! He also does all the comic art for the show and recently got a creative emmy for his work on the opening credits.


The crew got Bored to Death wine. And yes, it tastes good!


More pics from the set (including me with Zach) and our viewing party are on Facebook.

King Con Panel Follow Up

Here are some photos from King Con (Brooklyn's comic con) at Brooklyn Lyceum last weekend!


I made my comic panel debut an all female panel called "Hips, Lips, & Pencil Tips: The Sexual Female as Feminist Focal Point." We discussed topics such as how sexuality plays into our work, why comics serve as a suitable medium to express these topics, our experience as women in the comics industry, etc. We represented a good variety of backgrounds and aesthetics, so I think that fostered an especially colorful discussion!

It was moderated by erotica writer Rachel Kramer Bussel...

The panel included comics artist & writer Jennifer Hayden...

Comic artist & booth babe Paige Pumphrey...

Comic book writer & editor Valerie D'Orazio...

And yours truly...


Thank you Regan Jaye Fishman for putting this all together!

Enchanted Forest Set...Sneak Peek!

I'm working with event planner maestro Adam Aleksander as lead designer for a very special installation next month. We'll be transforming a 2000 square foot East Village gallery into a enchanted forest for Hendrick’s Gin!

Here are the set renderings I made this week. SNEAK PEEK! (Click to see larger)




This holiday window from a couple years ago (which Adam and I worked on) shows more inspiration...

Danger Halloween Party

Here are some pics from 2nd Skin's Halloween shenanigans at the Danger's Halloween party...



Before the event we painted dozens of people for the White Trick Army (an ashy white roving mob)...

Here was our stage in a side room at 3rd Ward where bystanders could watch the painting in progress...

Go team 2nd Skin! (AKA: The Mad Scientist & The Rainbow)

King Con Panel

I'm pleased to announce that I'm going to be on my first comic con panel...this weekend at Brooklyn's own comic convention KING CON!



HIPS, LIPS, & PENCIL TIPS: THE SEXUAL FEMALE AS FEMINIST FOCAL POINT
A conversation with female artists Paige Pumphrey, Laura Lee Gulledge, Jennifer Hayden, Valerie D'Orazio; moderated by writer Rachel Kramer Bussel.

Sunday November 7th 6:30PM panel
Brooklyn Lyceum...227 4th Avenue in Park Slope (The NY Marathon will be coming up 4th Ave so it'll be nutty!)
Tickets: $7 One Day, $10 Weekend

One of the directors Regan Jaye Fishman spoke to BUST MAGAZINE about our panel! Read the article here.

And our panel got a shout-out in TIME OUT NYC.

Blue Ridge Art Show

Sorry it took me so long to post these photos from my ART SHOW at Blue Ridge Community College! (Technical difficulties...) The show is still up for another couple weeks if you'd like to catch it, but otherwise here are the pictures!

I hung illustrations that inspired scenes in my graphic novel "Page by Paige" as well as pages from the book showing how those drawings were adapted. They gave me a lot of wall space and I was quite determined to fill it. (Click to see larger)












I also gave a couple ARTIST TALKS to the students and faculty, discussing how my experiences have influenced my process and how my little art-therapeutic-sketchbooks evolved into a graphic novel. Everyone was incredibly lovely and seemed to forgive me for my rambling tangents!