January 1st 2009- I was asleep at 8pm, as I was very sick with the flu. Phil woke me up to give me a kiss at midnight. I always had this superstition that the way you spent New Year's Eve was a reflection on how you were going to spend the rest of the year, hence me usually trying to have as much fun as I can with as many friends as possible when the year switches over. This year's rather understated festivities however were no reflection of how cray-zee the rest of 2009 would pan out.
January 9th 2009- My FIRST SOLO ART SHOW! "Hips, Lips and Pencil Tips", my first ever solo art exhibition at the Ottobar in Baltimore was host to well over 50-some of my friends from my homestate of Maryland. Former high school classmates, co-workers, Charm City Roller Girls, tattoo artists and even fans from out of state came to join in the drinking and merry-making. I made lots of sales, including one fella who bought the framed copy of the Gutter comic book issue cover right off the wall!
February 6-8th, 2009- New York Comic Con table at Artist Alley!! With the help of my friend and fellow pin-up artist Amano Jyaku, I got to invade NYCC's Artist Alley and with but a quarter of table space charm the pants offa the comic book community! ~__^ I met the illustrious, inspirational Molly Crabapple for the first time, who is headmistress of Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School, which for those not in the know is the most kick-assedly awesome cabaret life drawing event ever! Check the website- there might be one going on in a city near you! I also got to meet the one and only Method Man, which was hilarious to behold as I was completely star struck and calling him 'Mr. Method Man' like a giggling school girl. I also got my first ever limo ride, had my first weirdo con stalker who recited the Joker monologues from Dark Knight to me and ate both cow tongue and intestines! What a fun weekend!
March 8-14, 2009- Walt Disney World vacay with Phil, Fenny and J!! My first ever adult vacation! It was great fun and MUCH needed, though I did gain like 7 pounds. :T
April 1st 2009- My 2nd year anniversary of moving to New York City! Best decision of my life! Never before moving here would opportunities such as the ones presented in the last 2 years of my life have happened while still living in my parent's basement in Baltimore. For the first time in my life I feel accepted, supported and comfortable with being myself and doing what I want. I've never happier than I have been living here. It's insane. It's like everything crazy and off-the-wall you could possibly have an interest in there's a strong, welcoming subcultural presence here for. And to an obsessive-compulsive like myself, It's been nuts going out to different events and meeting shit-tons of people and seeing and learning all kinds of new amazing shit. Like, to live here you really need to accept the fact, especially as a 'settler' here, that this city is huge, living and will never truly be yours. The best you can hope is to grab hold and ride as long as you can. This city is so much bigger than me. It continually blows my mind that I walk down the same streets Mick Jagger sings about and go to work everyday two mere blocks from Times Square, where countless movies and tv shows have taken place. It's surreal. I mean, I have friends here now that have lived here their entire lives and had no idea of the stuff I've dragged them to even existed. Which blows my mind that they can take such an amazing place like here for granted, because I was starving for creative outlets like this when I lived in Maryland in my parents basement smoking my dreams away in an ::ahem:: dead end mall job. 9__9 But I digress, yeah living in NYC is amazing and the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I have my boyfriend Phil to thank for it.
June 11th- Dos Equuis Party, after joining up with Molly Crabapple's merry band of Art Monkeys as a sort of 'Associate Member', I was invited to take part in the Dr. Sketchy's room as part of the Dos Equuis's Most Interesting Academy series of parties. This was perhaps the most surreal experience of my life, the party took place at this school-like building in the financial district of NYC. It was 6 floors, with several rooms, including a giant dance floor where ?uestlove was DJing, a pool where they were giving out bikini's to swim in, a lounge, a Tesla coil with a guy in armor zapping music, a marching band, free beer and coffee drinks. It was nuts. And that was all the stuff I didn't see. I was on a floor that was set up like a school, with different classrooms, including a dojo where karate guys were doing demos and board-breaking, a culinary entomologist who had various freeze-dried insects on crackers for consumption (I ate 2 scorpions!), a drum circle, a barbershop giving out free fades and the room we were in which was a Dr Sketchy's setup with models the Bambi Killers and Amber Ray and Darenzia. This whole event had to cost a few million. It was nuts. And in the middle of a recession, no less. And the punchline? It was only open for an hour and a half before the fire marshall shut it down. Oops.
June 24th- The birth of this very blog! At the urging of my coworkers at my dayjob, combined with the declining popularity of Myspace and the inaccessibility of my Facebook profile to non-friends, I finally broke down and got a blog to be used as my hub for all things Paigey. It's been great so far, especially since I added the Clustrmap feature, which counts how many visitors and shows where in the world each visit comes from. I am overjoyed to see visits from so many places in the world!
July 11th 2009- My table at Artists & Fleas Indoor Designer Market in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Though I barely made any money the one day I had a table I met some really sweet folks and got a good reception of my work. It was also my first foray into my side-project of Shrinky-Dink jewelry and accessories, which is paying off awesomely and has so far been very well-received.
Aug 3rd- My very first interview with online roller derby publication Fracture Magazine!! So excited! I accomplished one of my 2008 New Year's resolutions! I think I came across Fracture through one of my friends in Charm City Roller Girls via Facebook. Seeing they had a gallery for derby bout posters, I submitted mine and got hit back by the site owner asking if I'd be interested in an interview. Ummmm.... YES!!
Aug 9th- Beautiful Woman show at the Paul Vincent Studiosin Hoboken. My first group art show out of Maryland, I was invited to take part in this show by my friend Lau Klohe. I had 4 pieces- OMGWTFBurlyQ, Bettie Blue, Miss Mary Jane and Swing Shift Cinderella. A very cool space full of amazing pieces, my only wish was that it wasn't so damn hot and muggy when we went- we could've stayed longer otherwise!
Sept 9th- 1st session of Drink & Draw NYC. While me and my friends were at first skeptical that Khary Randolph's NYC chapter of Drink and Draw would turn out decent, since the legendary LA chapter set the bar really damn high- we were pleasantly surprised that it exceeded our expectations and we would continue coming back. It's going on it's 5th month now and the creative talent that shows up is stunning. Even better is that such a sizable chunk of the people who show up are comic artists or in the animation industry, there's something I prefer to the company of these types of artists to the so-called 'fine' artists. I think it's the talent to pretension ratio. Comic and cartoon artists are way more talented in my opinion than alot of the people calling themselves fine artists out there and are usually some of the most down-to-earth type guys and gals in the art business that you'll ever meet. If you have a chance to make it out to one of these, I highly suggest it. And shoot, if there isn't one in your area, start one up! It's not complicated or structured, just get some artists together at a bar to draw and shoot the shit, it's that easy!
Sept 10th- My Miss Mary Jane figurine is up for sale on PatchTogether.com! Miss Mary Jane started out in 2007 as a little doodle I sketched out during lunch at my day job shortly after I moved to New York. I used to smoke ALOT, about 3-4 years ago and had kicked the idea around in my head for awhile. And it just came out one day, and I took it to finishes and it became one of the more popular pieces in my portfolio. A girl back in Maryland even got her tattooed on her arm by a friend of mine who's a tattoo artist. It's always a bit of a 'test' with those who see it, as it's about a 60-40 split between those who think she's a broccoli girl/ the Jolly Green Giant's wife and those who realize she's a girl made out of weed. It's kind of like my little test to see who's a stoner. Though as soon as anyone realized she's a weed girl everything starts falling into place- the green tint to her skin, the hair texture, the plastic baggy hoodie with the multicolored seal/zipper. I entered her into Patch Together's ongoing design contest primarily for $hits and giggles. I'm a big fan of MissMonster (missmonster.com) and have both her Foo Dog and Tentatiger toys, and thought I'd give a shot submitting and thought nothing of it. I was accepted and started getting votes and after it was approved for preorder I was all 'Oh crap- this is real now.' Especially once I saw the sculpts start to take shape. Seeing my artwork interpreted as a 3D sculpture and ultimately having my own toy out on the market is so surreal and awesome at the same time, and this is definitely not the last collaboration I plan on doing with Patch Together. The journey of making Miss Mary Jane into a toy has been a tremendous learning experience. The sculptor I worked with- Miller, has done an amazing job and had nothing less than the utmost patience with my 8 million revisions going back and forth. Kudos and high fives all around!
Sept 26th- GirlsDrawinGirls.com table at NY Anime Fest. So by this time I had joined up with an all-female art collective of about 40+ super talented pinup artists based primarily in Southern California called Girls Drawin' Girls, of which I am at this point the sole East Coast member. Two of the founding members came out to New York from LA to exhibit for GDG at New York Anime Fest, and I offered to help out at the table and show them around the city. I was left to handle the table completely on my own Saturday afternoon/evening as the poor girls weren't used to the insanity/retardation of an anime con, which I barely was myself, seeing as the last one I went to was back in 2002. When I cosplayed. So... yeah. Either way, I rocked the spot and made a bunch of sales and generated interest in the group when otherwise it would've been a bit of a loss for them. Hopefully I'll get to come out to San Diego Con in 2011 to help them out with their table and rock even more sales.
October 3rd- Blood Dumpster's 'Salon' show in TriBeCa. My first group show in New York City and I couldn't even make it as I had previous plans already of attending the New York Burlesque Festival with my best friend Fenny and her husband J. Blood Dumpster, another art collective I joined up with, is NYC based and a bit more varied with their artwork, as I am the only comic book inspired pin-up artist. They're a bunch of cool cats and super nice people and hope to do more with them in the coming year.
October 10-11- Baltimore Comic Con! No need to reiterate- you can see my con report here!
October 30- My 29th birthday! And so starts my last year of my 20's.
November 7-8- King Con Brooklyn! No need to reiterate- you can read my con report here!
November 11- Drink & Draw w/ my fellow Kubies! No need to reiterate- you can read all about it here!
December 16th- Drink & Draw December Edition. This time I ended up coming by myself and met up with a couple friends, and met some new ones as well! Had some great conversations with Kyle Baker and Alberto Ruiz, two artists whose work I've followed/idolized for years, so getting to talk to them as people in such a relaxed setting was kinda surreal but insanely awesome.
Looking on to 2010:
~I'm planning on attending at least 5 conventions as an exhibitor in the New York/Baltimore/DC area: namely Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Fest, The B in BK (a Barbie show-LOL!), New York Comic Con, KingCon Brooklyn, Baltimore Comic Con and SPXpo.
~As I'm turning 30 this coming October (eep!), I'm planning on taking better care of myself. One of the first plans of action is to lose 40 pounds by my 30th birthday. Now that I've written it for you all to see, it's become real. If you see me with a piece of cake between now and Oct 30th, feel free to slap it out of my hand. ;)
~Getting my etsy store in gear. By you know, actually USING and UPDATING it.
~Trying out this Livestream thing while doing art. It seems neat.
~Getting enough art accumulated to have a new artbook available. Even better if I can have it put out via my pal Alberto over at Brandt Studio Press.
