9 months late and more than a few dollars short, we've finally arrived in NYC. We intended to move here immediately following last year's World Fantasy Convention, which turned into a big debacle I haven't quite forgotten...though I'm trying. Instead, life threw us 9 months of difficult detours but, thank God, we're back on track.
Sometime when I was much younger, probably in High School, I remember thinking and telling some people that one day I'd probably live in New York. I was going to be an illustrator, you see, and in those innocent years before the interwebs, it seemed to me that to really make it as an illustrator you needed to be in NYC. Now, that wasn't entirely untrue. Though technology--from fax machines to broadband--has allowed me the freedom to move all over the place and remain in touch with clients as if I had never left (almost), there is still something about NYC that makes it a magnet for creatives of all stripes. The seat of much publishing is still here, there are tons of galleries, great art schools, and so a lot of artists have found their way here, and then have stayed. So while my assumptions from when I was 15 were based on very little knowledge, they were nevertheless sound: there's reason for an illustrator to be in NYC, and as it turns out I do in fact live here now.
Strangely enough, the thought of living in NYC only occured to us basically a year ago. I knew I was going to be attending WFC in upstate NY and we were on the East Coast already living in very pleasant Asheville, NC. It occurred to us that, hey, why not just use WFC as an excuse to move to NYC? Really, we've made all our other living-moves the past few years on just about that level of whim. We nearly ended up in a small French village instead of Tuscany, had no clue we'd be specifically in the Cotswolds 2 weeks before finding ourselves there, considered Ronda before landing in Andalucia (again, very last-minute), and had nearly put our deposit on an apartment in Charleston SC before switching to Asheville. We've practically been carried on the wind.
The last two months we spent across the water in Jersey--somewhere else we never imagined ourselves. We were close enough to get into the city to scope out apartments, see some museums, attend Donato Giancola's wonderful Open Studio a few weeks back, meet some friends visiting from our time in Spain...quite a lot considering we weren't even in NYC yet.
And that's the benefit of being in NYC, if you're an illustrator. There is simply so much stimulus. We'll see how I settle into life here. At the very least, it's nice to know that I'll be sleeping in the same bed for more than 8 months.
1 day ago