Surtex 2010

Back to life.. back to reality... everyone sing it with me!

I am back from Surtex 2010 and the National Stationery Show, and I am inspired and invigorated, and I have the fantastic feeling once again that THIS is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life - being an illustrator! I think with a creative career, heck maybe with any career, you go through ups and downs and periods of self doubt. But going to the show, and taking a couple great seminars and hearing other people's stories, made me connect once again with what I know to be true - this is my path. I was able to catch up with people in the industry that I know, and meet a bunch of others that I didn't. I saw some friends from school, some former colleagues, and some artists that I highly admire, and of course I spent some time with my lovely agent Kolea and her lovely assistant Lynette.

Artists of Kolea booth:

Here's my agent, Kolea Baker. She was being interviewed by a Surtex guy and was on camera at the time.

This year I took a couple of the seminars that Surtex offers - Core Basics Part II - this was an introduction to the world of art licensing, how it works, some tips and tricks for those just starting out. It wasn't anything I hadn't heard before, but it was a great reminder of how the industry works and it was very good to hear some things that made me say "yeah, I should be doing that" about several things that were talked about. I also attended The Art of Success, which was a panel of 3 well known and respected artists - Beth Logan, Kate McRostie, and Dena Fishbein - talking about their careers, how they started out, what they do to become and remain successful. I am so glad I went to this one - what made this particular seminar so good for me, was hearing Beth Logan talk about her first several years exhibiting at Surtex, and how everyone loved her art when they saw it, but not getting any calls or emails returned month after month, and doing it all again the next year, and nothing happening, and so on and so forth for awhile. I feel like that is MY story, and I hope against hope that I can achieve even a part of the success that Beth has. Yes, things have picked up in the last year for me, but only a little. Hearing these ladies speak made me feel much better about my art and my career choices, and excited to get back home to my studio.

At the M.Middleton booth at the Stationery show - they are a division of DesignDesign - I saw the purse pads that I created last fall - YAY! They looked so good and I was so excited to see that some of my flowers were used on the wall display of the booth, along with what I think is the talented Jess Volinski's butterfly. I did two of the purse pads that they had, and when I asked someone in the booth if it was ok if I took a photo, I unknowingly asked Anna Post - granddaughter of Emily Post - Anna has a line of wedding stationery produced by DesignDesign. Wow a famous person! Sort of! :) She was super nice and found someone for me to ask about taking pics.

These two are mine:

The wall display:

Anna Post & me:

Now I'm home again, and will get to work on the post-show "to do" items... ie: sending lots of emails. It was good to get away, but its even better to be home again.