Whenever I am in New York ( or any other city for that matter) I try to soak up every bit if culture and architectural detail I can find. Living in the West in a city that is only a few years past 100 years old there is not much of anything here with any architectural merit. So I absolutely love classic ornament and historic detailing.
Here are a few of the jewels I spotted on my trip a couple of weeks ago.
Love It!
I'm packing up my original illustrations - all 785 of them - for my new book today. Got to ship them off to my fabulous editor Madge at my publisher Gibbs Smith to begin the process of putting together my new book for release in the Fall of 2012.
I wish the process wasn't so long so you could see the finished book right away, but I promise you it will be worth the wait! In the meantime I will be doing regular posts again about slipcovers and many other things so stay tuned.
May has been a busy month with trade shows almost every week. First was the IWCE show in Vegas. We sponsored a Slipcover Showcase booth to show off the many talents of some of the countries best slipcover artisans.
The ingenuity and craftsmanship of these gals is amazing. People just flipped for all of the designs.
I took some really bad photos of them all but luckily my good buddy Kay Ellen was there with her fabulous photo skills and she managed to shoot a couple of good shots.
Kay Ellen is a pro stager and she grabbed this pillow from another booth to show it off on the zebra ground. I think they look great together.
Thanks so much to the very talented Teresa Bennett , Deb Fowler ~ Christy Statz ~ Kippi O’Hern ~ Emily Pettit ~ Barbara Roth ~ Linda Meeks & Jackie for making these beautiful slipcovers. I will be posting about each one of these talented ladies in the next couple of weeks so stayed tuned to see more of their great work.
The next stop was my debut at Surtex, the nations premier trade show for artists who license their work for surface and pattern design. Companies come from all over the globe to meet with artists and find new art and patterns for their goods. This is where designs for tabletop, wallpaper, fabrics, stationary, and much more are bought and sold.
Here I am in my booth. It was such a great experience and I learned a ton about this new industry. My daughter Angelica and the handsome hubby came with me to help and we all had a great time.
Angelica was a pro as always.
The handsome hubby and I went to the opening night party for the ICFF ( International Contemporary Furniture Show) at the MOMA Sculpture Garden and we had a great time. The ICFF and the National Stationary Show run concurrently with Surtex at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center in Manhattans each year.
This was our neighbor from the UK, little Alfie. He was the show stopper.
We had great neighbors and met a slew of new friends and caught up with some old ones as well.
There is always a surprise every time I go to New York. This is what I ran across walking back to the hotel one rainy day. A Hawk just hanging out on the sidewalk. It was surreal. I’d always heard of hawks living in the city but had never seen one and I never thought I would see one just two feet away from me.
In short we had a great time as always! Here’s Angelica and her Dad drinking champagne at the MOMA! What a great time.
Now I am back home putting the finishing touches on my slipcover book that I have to hand into my publisher on Wednesday! More to come soon.
I know I have been bust but I seem to have lost almost the entire month of February! I cant believe I am halfway into March. Anyway, we’ve been busy around here getting ready for several shows, new product lines and other fun stuff.
I will be exhibiting for the first time at the SURTEX show in New York in May. Surtex is a tradeshow where artists and designers license their art to manufacturers for application on things like fabrics, stationary, table top, etc. I‘ve been working for the past few months creating new designs and art to show. It is exciting but also very intimidating to put your work out there for so many other professionals to see.
I’ve also been working night and day finishing up my new book The Design Directory of Slipcovers. It’s turning out to be a fun book and I can’t wait to see it finished. (It won’t be on the bookstore shelves until 2012)
Here are some Parsons chair slipcovers from the book. I desperately want to slipcover all of my furniture but it will have to wait for the time being. I still have more slipcovers to draw – no time for sewing right now.
In between those tasks I have been working on a super top secret project with the fabulous Helser Brothers. Can you guess what it is? I hope to have something great to show you if you are attending the IWCE show in Las Vegas in April!
How has your year been so far? As busy as mine? So far we seem to be off to a great start but I do wish that there were a few more hours in each day. Let’s not forget to enjoy life as we are working our way through it.
~ Have a Great Day ~
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