ICON5

A crummy cellphone pic of my Roadshow table with books, buttons, cards, and a little bit of Hell.

This week, I attended the 5th Illustration Conference, and it was such a good time. It kicked off on Wednesday with the Roadshow. In addition to meeting art directors, I shared a table with one of my all-time favorite illustrators, John Hendrix. I had e-mailed him a few years back before I moved to NY to pick his brain, so it was a real treat to meet him face to face. My row was full of nice folks, including the great Christoph Hitz (and his magic chocolate bars), the very kind Matt Hebermehl, and Heekyung Hur, who was one class behind me in the FIT Master's Program.

The conference itself started the following day, and brought forth 3 great days of presentations. The standouts for me were the video by fellow Ponca Citian James Yang and fellow scratchboarder Greg Nemec, Danny Pelavin's self promotion presentation, Ross MacDonald, and the amazing Gary Panter (especially considering my obsession with Pee-Wee's Playhouse as a child).

I got to know some really nice people as well. I befriended Rhonda Mulder after registration despite us both being shy. It was also really great talking with Kim Rosen, whose work I've been following for a while now. It is sort of amazing when people you admire turn out to be really cool people. But that seemed to happen left and right at ICON.

Early on in the conference, thanks to the ever-incredible Melanie Reim, I was taken under the wing by a great group of women, including Licensing Queen Cheryl Phelps, the hilarious Teresa Roberts Logan, and Jean Tuttle, another long-time favorite of mine.

In short, ICON was a fantastic experience. I feel energized and look forward to where all the inspiration will lead me.