Adieu, Adieu to you and you and you!

Doing the show was a lot of work and a lot of fun. I was so honored to have worked with these 10 amazing artists and to have met a couple in person as well! Thanks to everyone who helped make the show a success; the artists, the visitors, the faculty and organizations that brought groups in for tours and worked with me on the workshop, my coworkers who dealt with my frazzled nerves, etc, etc. It was a great experience, and the show will live on through this blog for as long as I can leave it up :)

Thanks again!
~nancy

Two weeks left!

If you haven't yet been to the gallery to visit the Paint for Print show, I suggest you hurry up.

The show is open though next Friday December 19th. That will be the last day every to see these particular works by these amazing illustrators gathered together in one convenient location. I mean, after the 19th, you'll have to go to Toronto, Montreal, Tel Aviv, Winona Lake Indiana, New York, Altadena, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Bremerton Washington and Apex North Carolina to see all of them- and that's assuming that the artists are home when you show up- which is unlikely because they're busy people with a lot of stuff to do. It would just be a logistical nightmare. You're far better off stopping in the gallery.

Which is: Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S Wabash, Chicago, IL 60605 With convenient parking nearby, close to public transit and tasty restaurants. See you there!

The catalog

This is the exhibition catalog. I have awkwardly posted it here (can't get the pdf to link up to the blog) b/c there seems to be a northern version of the bermuda triangle that sucks up anything I post to Canada (i.e. Gérard and Joe never seem to get my mail!) Perhaps it's stuck in line at border security (?). The actual catalog is a 9 x 12 tri-fold, so viewing it in single pages is a bit awkward- but you get to see the content regardless! Enjoy!

panel and reception night

The panel and reception went great. The previous post was my take on it after having drank a bit of gallery wine- it is important information though.

The panel was moderated by Caroline Cook Juhlin who works in the Portfolio Center to bring students together with industry people. As a photographer and former photo rep, she knows everyone and is really good at getting people in to talk to students. Steve Munro is an artist's rep from the firm Munro Campagna. He had a great take on how artists should go about getting a rep and getting work. John Hendrix was there for it, he gave some really insightful info (companies wanting rights to media not yet invented?!). Liz Miller-Gershfeld is the Head Art Buyer at Energy BBDO and was great to meet. She really came across as someone who is inundated with mailers and promos all day and yet still cares and still wants to comb through and see everyone's work. Dan Bruce is a Group Creative Director and only hires art directors who can draw (which I thought was refreshing!). He also stressed that he is not the target for illustration mailings and promos as he has zero time to look at them or space for them. The consensus seemed to be to have a strong portfolio, send mailers to art buyers and have a strong online presence. Good info. We recorded it- both the audio and video, and will start to work on getting it online either through here, the Portfolio Center or perhaps youtube (?) I'll update this w/ the location of the video once it's up.

The reception went good as well. The weather (rainy and crap) put a bit of a damper on the attendance, but particularly earlier on it was a good crowd. At the very end of the night a class came in (applied drawing) that was SO interested in the work and so appreciative of seeing that everything is perfect and in its final stage on the walls and was all done by hand with no digi tools :)

John attended the reception as well and had the best time of his life (this is just my inference- but I'm pretty sure that was the case). His lovely wife and future baby came to the party as well (seen here). I was really glad that they could make the drive from St. Louis in and that the students and attendees got a chance to meet him and talk shop.

I had a great time. I'm happy to have done the show (despite any conclusions you may have drawn from last week's posts). It may be a bit on the selfish side, but I've gotten a lot out of it :) Hopefully other peoples do too!

Hardly any degrees of separation

Okay, so I should probably be posting pics of our highly successful panel talk featuring the super nice and talented artist John Hendrix and the equally pleasant, articulate wonderful panelists Liz, Steve and Dan. Or I could show pics of the people who came to the reception- and I will.

But- tonight I have to say I walked away with a funny thought. Back when I was researching bios for the artists, I saw that Robert MacKenzie had worked on a Harry Potter movie. I am always excited when I find the actual lineage of a degree of separation, and there was a huge one. I heart Harry Potter. And there it was. Me to Robert. Robert to Harry Potter (or to someone to someone to Harry).

And John establishes 2 more. Really one more, but kinda two. My husband worked on a My Chemical Romance project featuring James Dewees of the Get Up Kids who I LOVED for years. (me to Davey to James to Get Up Kids-btw- this pic is one of James holding a sign that says "hi Nancy" from when Davey worked with him- he made James do that which Davey is so great for making him do!) Well, there are two roads to TGUK now! John went to school with Travis Millard who did the covers of Something to Write Home About and On a Wire (by TGUK). So cool.

AND also- John worked at the New York Times and met the puzzle master himself- Will Shortz! (me to John to Will Shortz).

So yeah. Super f-ing cool. And those are just the ones that I know about. I'm sure through the other 8 artists there are even more shortcuts to my favorite things (Terry Gross? Jim Henson? Obama? Oprah? Morrissey? The possibilities are endless!) Just more reasons why these artists are superfly coolio! (as if the work isn't enough!)

dust off your party clothes!

Don't forget to press your best suit and polish your dress-up heels, the reception is Thursday!!!

Here are the details:

Paint for Print: Contemporary Illustration, Traditional Media
Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S Wabash, 1st floor
Chicago, IL
5:00 pm-8:00 pm

Also, if you have the day off, there's the not to be missed panel talk earlier in the day featuring JOHN HENDRIX live and in person , along with Liz Miller-Gershfeld (Head Art Buyer Energy BBDo), illustration rep Steve Munro (Munro Campagna), and moderated by Caroline Cook Juhlin. That info is:

Paint for Print Panel
Conaway Center
1104 S Wabash, 1st floor
Chicago, IL
11:00 am - 12:30 pm

See you there!

done. (almost)

Done. Except for lighting, labels, and some odds and ends (plex cut to the wrong size, needing to add printed thing, etc). It's very nice. Was very rushed, but really came together. This morning 1/2 of the professional work wasn't up, none of the shelves for printed samples, and no student show. So today was productive with the help of Michael, Katie (who single-handedly hung the student show!) and Kyle.

I'm really happy with it- it's weird to stand in the place and be physically surrounded by everything that was ideas, notes, or images on websites or in magazines. I don't know why it's so different with this show, except the massive scale of it all. I really was blindsided by how different it's been from other shows that I've worked on. Now we have the reception to look forward to. I'll meet John on Thursday when he's on the panel talk and then at five is the reception.

Now, I have to wake up a bit, finish my Halloween costume and go have some fun!