Oanh Le

New York Trip!

The Trip was AWESOME! It was sunny and really really hot; I was unprepared. All of the speakers were SUPER super cool; my absolute favorites would have been Marcos Chin and Yuko Shimizu, cause I really love their work.

I didn’t get to do a lot of tourist-y things as class usually starts at 7-8 and ends around 5pm. We did get the weekend and around 5 hours (plus more if we wanted to stay out later) of free time after class though. As a class, we went to the Empire State building, Metlife building, New York Times Headquarters, Society of Illustrators, New York Public Library, Brooklyn, 3x3 Magazine Headquarters, Illustration House, and did a small mural art crawl. Some places I did manage to visit outside of class were, Kinokuniya the Japanese bookstore near Bryant Park, The Strand (AWESOME!), The Neue Gallery, Central Park, some shops (which did eat up quite a bit of time), Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty (saw from the bridge) and MoMa! 

The week went by really fast, although it didn’t seem that way. Wished I had the energy and time to visit the Mets, Guggenheim, or the Museum of Natural History (especially this one!!), but I’m really bad with super hot weather. 

Went here on the first day! Saw the painting Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907) by Gustav Klimt. It was simply gorgeous, and is something that really has to be seen in person! I ended up sitting in front of the painting for quite a while just gazing. 

Went to the Society of Illustrators for a tour of their archives and galleries on the second day of class. It was really really awesome. If you didn’t know, they have some illustrations hung up in the washrooms as well; in both the ladies and gents. We also got served lunch on the patio! The food was really good and the weather was really nice. I also managed to get my own copy of the SOI Annual student Competition booklet! Afterwards, some of us in the class decided to stay behind and attend the life drawing session being held at the Society. It was fun.

Visited the New York Times Building on the third day of class! The guys that we met up with, Paul and Rodrigo, were super cool and funny. The photo above is one of the desks in the office; it’s laden with cookie jars and it seems as though the person it belongs to is really busy. Well, it was a cool space nonetheless. 

Had to get up super early to get to Brooklyn to visit Marcos chin in his studio! (which is a pretty awesome space) He’s a phenomenal speaker and he makes great cookies! (I think he made those? Not quite sure, they were really good though!) Met up with 3-4 other speakers that day, the next one was Charles Hively, publisher of 3x3 Magazine. He was actually really nice when I showed him my portfolio. (He made people cry before apparently.) We also met with Murray Tinkelman! He was really cool to listen to. That’s all I got to say. Our last speakers of the day were Ted and Betsy Lewin. They are amazing people. Their stories of traveling, work, and their home/studio is absolutely amazing. (I’m pretty sure about 90% of their walls are covered in frames!!) That day was pretty memorable because it was also scorching hot. (I really can’t deal with heat.)

I also managed to walk the Brooklyn Bridge that day! It was really refreshing, and the views were amazing. Got some dinner, and managed to hit the Strand right after! Spent a lot of time there before leaving.

Also visited the library on the last day of class! Managed to look around at the architecture, and ceiling murals, and see the Winnie the Pooh exhibit downstairs!

Had Yuko Shimizu as the last speaker of this trip; she’s so cute! Gave me some good feedback/critique on my portfolio as well. 

Managed to check out the MoMA with a friend real quick afterwards on the night with free admission! We had to leave soon to meet up with the class and some of the speakers we met that week for one last dinner. I was already really tired by the time we got there.

On the last day, I had a late breakfast with my group of friends and then I pretty much took refuge in the nearest Starbucks for their AC. Spent at least 4 hours there before I had to leave for the airport. Had a nice conversation with the photographer dude sitting next to me for a bit. 

Very brief post on the trip as there was just too much to cover (and remember); it would have been very text heavy. (Also, cause I wasn’t very diligent in taking photos of every single thing!) It was a great trip and I’ll post about the stuff I collected/got soon!

Tina