The National Museum of American Illustration

Spend the weekend in R.I and went to a Newport mansion for the first time. It was the National Museum of American Illustration. It was open to the public for the first time this year. It is a very unique place. C. and I saw lots of very old enormously beautiful trees outside in the garden area, and a fairly elbaorate mansion on the inside, with many paintings meant for commercial art, like advertisements and magazine covers. Lots of Maxfield Parrish works- such fabulous stuff with amazing forms and colors.
I am huge Charles Dana Gibson fan, and was happy to see some representation there- not the best stuff, but a couple of pen and ink and a couple of paintings....
http://www.americanillustration.org



Above is the invitation that I designed and made for my sister's wedding- it is an October wedding, and it will be in Sedona, AZ, in the desert! It is in a booklet form with a vellum overlay and trimmed with marble paper, ribbon rose, and raffia ties. Note the customized "Zazzle.com" stamps! They will be arriving in her invitee's mailboxes this week, how exciting!

Chicago is the new "West Coast migration"

I am discovering a lot of my friends are returning to Chicago after leaving it for various reasons.
Some are even trying it out for the first time.
-H. and A. will be running the US operations of the family business.
-T. is returning home after his MLA is finished and his girl M. is starting a new Job with a major cultural institution.
-M. is on an urban planning internship.

I think I need to make a trip out there one day soon!

One reason to visit Chicago is to come to my alma mater, IIT on Chicago's south side and visit the Marimekko exhibit at Crown Hall, the architecture building:

http://mies.iit.edu/upcoming_events/#marimekko

Marimekko is a Finnish textile design company, famous for the much overused oversized orange poppy pattern in so many home textiles.

The IIT campus also has a new building that opened a couple of years ago designed by Rem Koolhaus that is truly entertaining to visit.

Conchens is volunteering

There is going to be a new building on the waterfront in Boston- it is the ICA, the Institute of Contemporary Art.
The building is going to be soooo amazing, and I can't wait for it to open.

http://www.icaboston.org/Home

Oh wait, I can wait- I just volunteered to become one of their drop in tour guides to show museum visitors the new building! I hope I learn enough to be able to say the right things. I also hope that my voice will carry- it has a tendency to disappear in vast expanses...
The other volunteers seem to be pretty neat too- I think that they are all interested in art, and are fascinated with the new building as much as I am. Having such a modern building w/contemporary art in a historical city like Boston may change things a bit.