NYC Mini-Wrap

I had a whirlwind trip to NYC over the past two days. The main reason for going was to hear the amazing Mitchell Owens speak about the early 20th century decorator, Ruby Ross Wood. When House Beautiful printed a “family tree” of American decorators, Ruby Ross Wood was right at the base of the tree, and all others sprang from her. I know this is pretty small, but you can download a PDF of it here. 

Although Mitch and I have been e-mailing and Facebooking for years, we’d never met in person. So it was a huge privilege to finally have the opportunity to meet him in person, and then to hear him give a lecture, and then to have dinner with him!

I was lucky enough to be included at a small dinner for Mitch after the lecture, with some amazing women, including sometime blogger and noted author, Emily Eerdmans, who is hard at work finishing her latest book; Robyn Pocker, third generation owner of framers, J. Pocker, about which I will tell you later and several more. It was one of those sparkling dinners filled with laughter and much affection.

I also attended the Architectural Digest’s Home Show, held on Pier 94. It all started out with a “Marys and Mimosas” tweet-up, and hand-caramelized doughnuts. 

I also had a chance to speak with The Cocktail Whisperer. Hey, I am the Junk Whisperer! Maybe we’re related. He carries an early 20th century gnome with him where-ever he goes. I don’t.

And to make the morning even better, I was able to catch a talk by AD Editor, Margaret Russell and decorator Nate Berkus.

Both were relaxed, charming and fun. Nate’s starting a new show in the spring called Renovation Nation, and it’s going to focus on quality, not quickness. They hope to feature some of the trades that are being lost. It’s on network television, not cable!

After the AD show, I headed to the Upper East Side to meet with the staff at J. Pocker Framing. I will tell you about this in a later post, but suffice to say, it was a great experience!

I have dozens of photographs, which I need to edit, so look for some posts about NYC next week.