Everyday Picnic

So Maria and I overcame our natural inclination to hide in our houses and share our artwork with no one (at least face to face) and managed to arrange for babysitters for the kids, made sure the husbands were happily occupied, and drove into Manhattan to meet the New Yorkers on the Everyday Matters list. To fortify ourselves for the event at Pier 45 ( and because we never get to go into the city together and do something like eat lunch), we ate first, at Rafaela's on Ninth Av, a charming cafe where I had great Eggs Benedict and Maria had a crepe with chicken and artichokes. Then we found Billy's Bakery, , and bought scrumptious cupcakes to bring to the party, because you know, it's all about the food, and then traipsed over to La Cafetiere, a tres chic French home accessories and kitchen store where we drooled over pricey but gorgeous French linen kitchen towels in drop-dead colors. Finally, we braced ourselves for meeting a group of artists and made our way to piers.

Within seconds of getting there, Patti, Danny's wife, had introduced us to the group and insisted on seeing my vacation journal, which was coyly peeking out of my bag. Patti was the unofficial hostess of the group and a more charming, bubbly, wise-cracking, and warm woman could not be found. Danny's son, Jack, is exactly as you picture him from his photos on the website: a regular ten-year old with a great journal filled with robots, aliens, and dinosaurs, and a chin full of chocolate ice cream. Danny himself is very low key, talking one on one with everyone in the group at one time or another, staying in the background and taking photos of the event, and leaving his journals lying on the grass for us to pick up and peruse.

And his journals, oh my, what journals. I couldn't figure out what was so different about them, besides his extraordinary artwork, and then I read Melanie's post at the website, and nodded right, they are "pristine and almost austere". His pages look like they are laid out by an art director, and right, he is an art director! His drawing line is so black and vivid, yet delicate at the same time. The colors are phenomenal, watery, rich, and completely evocative of the imagery. He appears to spend as much time on his lettering as on his drawings, a real weak point with me. And if I wasn't envious enough already, his is off this week to visit Roz, Dan Price and Andrea, all people I'd love to meet. Go to Danny's website to see photos of the event.

After meeting such great people, and eating ripe tomatoes from a Connecticut garden, bowls of hummus with chunks of rustic breads, finger sandwiches, and, of course, our cupcakes, which had the most amazing icing that tasted like roasted marshmallows, we were reluctant to leave, but knew that as two suburban mothers on the lam, we had miles to go before we slept, so we took off for The Ink Pad, the NYC stamp store we've been meaning to get to for a few years. After driving up and down Hudson and 8th Av a few hundred times, we finally gave up and lucked into a parking space on the street, figuring we'd try to find it on foot, when we looked up, and there was the store. It was a tiny shop crammed with stamps, and we bought some collage packs that Magenta puts out. Across the street was a tiny shop reminiscent of The Cabinet of Curiosities, and we browsed the crammed, narrow shelves full of Chinese handcuffs, Mexican marionettes, and art postcards. Finally, it was time to find a bathroom, a final cup of coffee, and then head home.

A big thanks to Danny and Melly for organizing the event, and to all the new friends we made and hope to meet again. We were excited to be in the city without any kids demanding to go to Canal Street and buy laser pointers, and everything else was icing on the cake. A great time was had by all.