Christine's Design Blog

These are taken from real life with Dad. Oh, Dad.

Always drawing himself with a pipe, Seymour Chwast, designer, illustrator and co-founder of Push Pin Studios with Milton Glaser back in the day, said that the pipe adds a special something. I must agree. This was at at the last big AIGA event of the season, entitled Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast.

Brightly lit variations of Chwast’s art for the event lined the theatre, with different words floating out of the pipe.

Held at the new SVA Theatre, the event was a conversation between Chwast and Steven Heller. Heller started the evening off by saying that Push Pin Studios was something that young artists either strove to be, or rejected — and Heller was in the second group. There was much bantering between the two (Chwast: ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about (not hiring me for jobs)’), though I must admit that a lot of the time I wasn’t sure if they were really joking or having a battle of wills. Chwast seems to have a rather dry sense of humor — many of Heller’s questions were met with ‘why not?’ type responses. But whatever the dynamic of two’s relationship really may be, it was a lot of fun looking through all the selected images from Chwast’s book, Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast.

My favorite part was at the end, when they treated us to a ‘surprise’ (earlier in the talk, Heller urged Chwast that they must hurry, ‘So we have enough time for the … the surprise at the end’ — ‘Oh, yes, the surprise’).

The surprise was that they brought out an easel so Chwast could draw things requested by the audience. They provided him with a smock (though he was using a magic marker — ‘what they used to call a magic marker,’ according to one of the two gentlemen, I forget which … though I thought they were still magic markers?). It was quite funny when Chwast showed mock modesty and retreated behind the easel to don the smock, like so:

See the arms fling about as he shrugs into it:

Buttoning up, I suppose:

And here we have a rhinoceros:

A cat/automobile (he couldn’t choose between two requests … or he saw an opportunity?):

And a shark who’s a fan of Darwin:

Some help from Steven Heller in drawing a portrait of Heller:

And my personal favorite, the last drawing, which was of ‘sadness’ (who also has legs):

Aside from the excitement of the conversation, the night was like a who’s who of the design world. My volunteer friends and I saw some of our professors from Pratt (I saw my former typography instructor, Herman Schaper), former employers/co-workers, designers from Pentagram including Michael Bierut (my volunteer friend Ann used to intern there and recognized many faces), my fellow Random House intern Livia (whose supervisor is on the AIGA board and brought her along) — and my personal favorite, Chip Kidd, who had his book signed by Seynour Chwast:

Chip was nice enough to let me trouble him for his signature, which wasn’t just any signature, but an amazing illustration of Batman:

I also grabbed Mark Byron, who coordinates all the volunteers and such for these events, for a photo, since I won’t be seeing him until the next season starts. Mark is such a sweet guy and does such a wonderful job.

It’s a pity that the events have to stop during the summer, but I’m sure next year there will be lots more exciting things coming our way.

Also two weeks ago, the Atlantic Avenue Artwalk was a great way to get outdoors in Brooklyn, indoors in galleries and studios, and just having a grand old time finding new artists.

Our first stop was The Moxie Spot, a restaurant hosting art by Caprice Freeman (we actually took the route backwards, it appears). She used spray paint for her work. I especially liked the metallic paint. It added so much more drama when contrasted with the darker colors.

This is a view of the Moxie Spot.

There was a canvas for people to help paint, propped up outside. I think these kids have got a natural flair, don’t you?

This is Aldo Pizzi, also one of my favorites of the day. His work uses lots and lots of layers of thin paint. It’s very expressive and beautiful … I also have to admire all the time it takes to layer things on like that. It’s only been one painting assignment in my illustration class, and my instructor, Joo Chung at SVA, already told me I need to be more patient. But anyway, Aldo said that he’ll usually draw something underneath just to get going, and he can never tell where it will go when he starts out. If you looked closely, you could see the red marks that he started with.

Adri standing by Aldo’s charcoal piece.

This was a beautiful public mural being painted by seven different artists.

And then we wandered into the Axelle Fine Arts Print Studio. Here, Liz admires the great wall of ink.

This lady got caught in my line of fire … but being in a print shop for the first time, I was in awe of the equipment.

Downstairs, it was the Cannonball Press, where they had beautiful large-scale prints, and this puzzling contraption. It was a game where everybody loses, and a man (I can’t remember if it was that man in the photo, or just … another man not in the photo) would have people pull the lever, push a button, and then take a large sheet of ‘money.’ When these ran out, he handed out wooden coins to one and all, including us.

Another favorite was Benjamin Boland, who studied architecture at Ohio State University. This piece in the window caught Liz, Adri and my eyes, seeing how we adore Milton Glaser, as well as typography created through real objects. Ben told us that he’d gathered these plastic utensils over six months, and he used it to make a pretty powerful statement about the city that we love.

You can see the influence of his architecture background in his other work, shown behind him here.

I forget which gallery this tinman one was in, but I enjoyed it.

Some artists whose work I enjoyed but didn’t get a chance to photograph include Sean Grandits (who unfortunately does not have a website), who made beautiful paintings layering color over very faint figures, and Eunnam Hong.

Eunnam did portraits using watercolor and ink, which were set up in a very interesting configuration. Here’s one of the portraits we saw, found on her website.

I also didn’t get a chance to photograph things in Oliver Jeffers and Mac Premo‘s studio, having been quite adequately tired out from the long day. But I did get a shot of this paintbrush stuck to the ceiling. I wish I’d asked about it. In any case, we were able to watch the animation of Oliver’s book ‘Lost and Found,’ which was just the most beautiful and heart-warming thing ever. At one point, Oliver was going about the studio singing along to the soundtrack (he must have seen it plenty). There will always be something about penguins that capture people’s hearts.

We didn’t get to everything, and weren’t able to return for the second day … but considering that, I think we covered a good amount of ground, and I’d recommend anyone who missed it to save time for next year’s Artwalk.

It’s already been two weeks since this event, but I’m playing some catch-up right now.

On Saturday, June 6, McNally Jackson Books hosted a special story time with Oliver Jeffers.

Liz and I were in attendance, stopping by on our way to the Atlantic Avenue Artwalk. It was a fun time, as Oliver drew pictures while his stories were read aloud to the kids.

Drawing pictures from ‘The Incredible Book Eating Boy.’

I believe the storyteller’s name was Stuart … I’m not positive, though. He did a great job.

Drawing from ‘The Great Paper Caper’ (my favorite scene — when the owl goes splat).

Then they had a paper airplane contest like in the book. Watch them fold!

Everyone looking to Oliver for instructions.

And there they go!

AIGA/NY
Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast
Tuesday, June 16 @ 6:30 p.m.
SVA Theatre
333 West 23rd St.

Designer, illustrator and painter Seymour Chwast, will be discussing his latest book, Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast, with good ol’ Steven Heller at this AIGA event, held at the School of Visual Arts Theatre. I haven’t learned too much about Chwast so far, but I’m very excited to be volunteering at this event. I do know that he is married to renowned designer Paula Scher and started Pushpin Studios with Milton Glaser, so tomorrow night we will definitely be in the presence of greatness.

It appears that they are still registering people at these prices:
$30 AIGA members
$20 AIGA student members
$40 General public

(Next time, be sure to volunteer so you can get in free of charge while also meeting other amazing volunteers!)

For more information, go here.