Setting Up Day

So set up day arrived and it was time to get down to work.  How nice it was to be re-united with my palette which I had sent off five weeks before. Hello old friend.

Everything was intact and ready for action.

Jill and David came to help me which was wonderful. 

I wasn't staple gunning David's head despite how this may look.

Everything went so smoothly

and it wasn't long before we were all illuminated.

I was all ready to come back in the morning and introduce my work to a new world.

Foliage Paradise on 28th Street

After a brilliant first few days in New York I'd almost forgotten that I had come to do the ICFF trade show! I had a few jobs to do before the show and one of them was to find some twigs or branches to adorn my stand. I asked Jill if she knew a good florist but she did better than that - she took me to a WHOLE STREET of them!

This is 28th street between 6th and 7th Avenue and I had a lot of fun here. There is a flower market in the street early in the morning and the rest of the day it's plant shopping heaven.

I loved the humid house plant shops with jungle like tunnels of green.

This is Jill my jungle exploring companion.

I loved the Palms and Yucca's lining the pavements.

I loved the trays of succulents spilling out into the street.

The flower shops were full of prettiness.

The shop fronts were interesting.

It was a hive of activity.

with people doing their thing.

It's not every day you see a guy wheeling a cacti down the street.

Amongst all this beauty and lusciousness was the tackiest shop ever selling twigs sprayed with glitter and everything artificial and this is where I found the perfect bunch of dried pussy willows for my stand. 

Job done!

  I wish I had a 28th Street within walking distance of my house. I would have a jungle of my own!

Orla's meadow

One of my lovely customers Debs, sent me this gorgeous photo of her beautiful new baby who has Paper Meadow wallpaper in her nursery. Debs says that she keeps smiling at it. What good taste she has. Just like her Mum!

Central Park

I was as excited as a school kid about going to Central Park.

It was just as I imagined.

People biking, skateboarding, jogging,

sitting on benches,

sunbathing,

boating,

 chilling.

The flowers were blooming.

The birds were singing.

This little robin (yeah not like the British kind of robin) was happy to have his picture taken.

Again, it was so familiar after seeing it in so many films.

We found the John Lennon memorial. I thought it was lovely that a guy was singing 'Imagine' and adding was to the atmosphere.

This busker told us there is someone here singing just about all day and night. Wowww.

I loved the park. I think I could have happily found a pretty spot to sit in and stayed there all week....but there was just soooo much to do. Next time Jill? 

Dreaming in buildings

I've been dreaming in buildings since I got back from New York. 

When I wake from sleep there is a sense that my brain has been trying to assimilate everything that it has seen, that it's trying to fit it all together, like a big game of Tetris.

So many windows and fire escapes. 

 Some are beautifully ornate

and beautiful

and artists just have to draw them.

Some are full of history and musicians have to sing about them.

Some are just super tall.

So tall that when it's cloudy they disappear altogether.

We went up this one.

Wooooosh up the lift to the sixty-ninth floor.

and out on top of the world.

You could certainly see a lot of buildings from up there.

   

and teeny tiny yellow cabs.

I can still feel the intensity, the buzz and the beauty of all the buildings. I'm sure they will be in my dreams for a while yet (just like my basket bike was after we came back from Japan). It's nice to be back in peaceful Hebden Bridge letting the lusciousness of our green valley seep back in.