ARTY PARTY 2009

part of the ARTY PARTY projection

I can’t believe that 4 days have already passed since my Arty Party last Saturday!  It came and went in a blink!  I couldn’t have been happier!  Great turnout (~100 guests), great vibe (Gstaad bar and lounge), great music, and great friends!

I have announced The Big News countless times that this was supposed to be the year that I was going to make It happen — to follow my true passion and do something about my art.  So I set a date (October 3rd, 2009) and went to work on assembling my art to share.

I spent one month prior to the party reviewing and studying my 50+ journals and sketchbooks.  I have to say that it was a fun and self-indulgent exercise.  I essentially forced myself to read my illustrated diaries from the past 24 years!  I approached my Arty Party with low expectations.  I didn’t pressure myself to create any earth-shattering masterpieces.  The event was an excuse to throw a party and force myself to create something.  Anything.

Some observations or recurring patterns in my journals:  (1) I have been complaining about how lame I am for not pursuing my art, yet I created 24 years’ worth of art (in the privacy of my sketchbooks), (2) I have been repeating like a broken record how much I want to work on some sort of film production, (3) I like to make lists and diagrams, (4) I seem to enjoy drawing mountains, buildings, plants, animals, portraits, random everyday objects, as well as images from my dreams… I know.  I know.  That’s everything!  It’s true.  I seem to enjoy drawing.

I pulled approximately 100 images and either cleaned them up in Photoshop and/or created an entirely new illustration based on a particular image or moment.  For the party, I pared down the set of images to 50 or so and animated them in Flash.  Time ran out pretty quickly so my husband, Brian, came to the rescue and animated my “mountain” sequence and stitched it together with the rest of my animation in AfterEffects to create the DVD.  The finished product was a 15-minute looping animation.

It was quite a learning experience to work in the DVD color space.  Because the venue only had a DVD player connected to their projector, I had to tweak almost all the colors of my original animation — toning down the whites and the blacks.  A pain but good to know.

I also made some limited edition prints of 10 of the illustrations in the animation.  (I’ve reordered new mats to make the rest of the collection available for sale at the Barkada(ko) website hopefully by the end of next week.)

some of the matted prints

Special thanks to my sister, Arlene, and my cousin, Stacy for matting and bagging the prints!  Wow!  I couldn’t have pulled out this event without them.  So glad that they flew in from California to help!

I also have to thank my sister-in-law, Lisa Nishii, who took my idea of providing gifts bags for the kids to another level!  She generously supplied the extra treats and went out of her way to get special snacks for the 12 kids who attended the party.  I think the kids had a great time!  I WILL take credit for these amazing LED glow cups that I purchased from ExtremeGlow.com.  Those were a big hit with the kids!  With a press of a button, you can change the color of the cup or even cycle between all the colors!

photo by Mike Wilkins

My sister also created custom stickers, tattoos, and coloring books using my illustrations!  As you might have guessed, assembling the kiddie bags was almost just as much work as creating the art for the party!  I have so many close friends and family with young kids that I wanted to make sure that they were properly entertained during the 3 hours of the party.

EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS:

• Brian Nishii: my loving husband & A/V expert
• Stacy Pascual: my cousin (aka Event Coordinator Extraordinaire)
• Arlene Ibañez: my devoted little sister & lifetime slave
• Lisa Nishii: my sister-in-law & Kid Party expert
• Kim Brothers: Ray, Chuck, Sonny (DJ crew)
• Gstaad: Anthony, Matt, Soraya, & Dan (43 W. 26th Street, NYC)
• Gourmet Garage: catering
• Rik Panganiban, Cori Kaylor, Anne Tamayo, Edowa Shimizu, Cliff Pershes, Mike Kearney, Remy Casasola: my investors!  Thank you for purchasing a print!

I finally did it.  No class project or client deadline to follow.  I finally made time for myself.  I finally made time for my art.  It feels good.

This is just the beginning.  Stay tuned for ARTY PARTY 2010. In the meantime, you can check out the animation that we projected below. You’ll have to play your own soundtrack or ask Arlene and the Kim Bros to come over and DJ for you!