NSS setup day 1!

i should start by noting that day 0 involved a 13h travel day from raleigh, NC to NYC to unload the van, and then to doylsetown, PA to stay the night with my cousin and his family. they fed us a great home-cooked meal and we had a fun miniature jam session around midnight before craaaashing. anyway, that was a lost day. it's behind us now.

FRIDAY! friday really was day 1. we woke up in PA and enjoyed an extraordinary homemade cappuccino before heading down to fred's breakfast club for some grub. guys. fred's breakfast club. i wish i could adequately describe how fun it was... or just how nice our few hours spent in PA were. it was just the lull we needed between stressful packing, driving, unpacking, and setup!

after breakfast, we took the NJT from trenton, NJ to penn station in NYC and dropped our stuff off at our hotel, then it was off to the javits! we got a couple of coats of paint on my walls, assembled our ikea "table" and i blocked out the mural i'm putting on my back wall to lure people into my booth. we got all of our friday setup goals accomplished in a reasonable amount of time so we rewarded ourselves with lots of sushi & sake! CELEBRAAAAATE!

everything hits at once

this past weekend i worked reeeally hard to get every painting finished, scanned, dust and cat fur removed (oh. my. god.), and uploaded to the printer! a marathon painting and scanning day sunday, an entire monday spent in a coffee shop overhearing terrible conversations, a sore wrist from attempting to use the mouse pad instead of an actual mouse for the first dozen cards, and one (ok, three) minor meltdown later... everything has been uploaded! the lady at the print shop said i should be able to review proofs as early as thursday this week! i am so anxious to see the final product you guys. YOUGUYS.

in the meantime, after i get home from long days at my real job (you know, the one that pays me?), i'll be resizing images for a catalog to take to NSS and an online store (launching in june)! here's what that looks like:

the dream becomes the nightmare

WELP! last night i had my first NSS nightmare... i got to the javits to set up my booth and my walls were already built, but my back wall was the wall of a house instead of wood. in the middle of my rear wall there was a huge fireplace. the floor was extremely old hard  wood and was sloping downward toward the fireplace. i stepped on the floor to test its stability and the beams sagged and separated and gave way under my feet.

we complained about this to our across the aisle neighbors, but they wanted no part in voicing or resolving the problem... jerks... we tried moving my booth forward a little into the aisle to get the drooping floor behind us, but it didn't work. and then i woke up. problem not solved.

you're a lizard, gary!

happy monday!!

my friend kathryn texted me a couple of months ago asking if i could do a painting for her husband josh for his birthday. "you're a lizard, gary!" is one of their inside jokes because they're extremely adorable people. anyway, this is what i came up with. it made me really glad. i hope it makes you glad as well.

and now back to your regularly scheduled NSS preparation freakout...