It's been a year! I made a move from Sydney to New York, joining Spoon + Fork Studio. I found myself settling only one street away from where I stayed on my very first visit, four trips and about four years ago. At the time, I had been interning with some amazing illustrators, publishers and art directors, including Francoise Mouly at the New Yorker and Toon Books, Jillian Tamaki, Jessica Abel & Matt Madden. I was lucky to be here at a momentous and energetic time. President Barack Obama had been elected to much elation then, and re-elected to palpable relief now. I was living steps away from the early construction of Barclays, which I've returned to see complete, its doors open to a changing neighbourhood, and which I've been lucky enough to have visited to greet Brooklyn's new team for their very first game and explored backstage for a private performance with the Smashing Pumpkins.
This year, I've moved into new studio in a 140 year old ex-Faber Pencil Factory and baptised it with potent fluids. My work's found its way into some surprising places, including the New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, Men's Health & Esquire. I shut my ears and eyes to Hurricane Sandy to feverishly complete nearly a hundred pictures over a few days for a live, original radio play for the Sydney Opera House's Graphic Festival. Although I couldn't be there, I made sure to stay up late to stream the audio through FBi Radio from the other side of the world and was so proud of the truly special work my supportive and faithful collaborating producer, radio announcer and journalist, sound designer and musician pulled together.
Rock band Phish gave me the chance to work with some of the best silk screen printers in New York on my very first gig posters, and they immediately sold out! My first foray into letterpress printing came from some of the best, with new cards produced in New York and a limited edition comic poster for charity back home in Sydney. I introduced myself and my work for the first time at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival; joined the likes of Josh Cochran, Sam Weber & Anders Nielsen in a group art show with my first exhibited drawing with a new love, oil pastels; returned to electric guitar for a Hurricane Sandy benefit; and worked on a series of covers, including a collection of Noam Chomsky's essays in Italy. It's been a thrill to have my work in MoMA's permanent collection and currently on display for six months at the museum's exhibition of politics in architecture and urban design.
Best of all, I've met and made and kept a supportive community of sinfully talented new friends and family, some of whom I consider, and still do consider, to be great inspirations and mentors. Not least of which came from an intense week with James Victore at his home and studio with his family, friends, hungry talent from around the world, New York Time Magazine's Arem Duplessis, Esquire's David Curcurito, Sterling Brand's Debbie Millman, book designer Paul Sahre and father of modern advertising George Lois.
Goodbye 2012, I gave a damn about you!
