Sphere: SGCI 2015 (Last Part)

Erin & I at the Printmaker's Ball

Our last day at SGCI 2015 started as we got our SGCI 2015 Member Portfolio Exchange back. I was happy since got some cool prints in my portfolio.


We quickly joined the crowd and started browsing through the Open Portfolio Session. It was crowded as crazy as always. I saw so so much good work from other students (BFA, MFA), printmaking faculties, and professional artists. It was really inspiring to see the work being presented here. I got some ideas for my future projects as well.  Here are some shots from the three sessions of Open Portfolio:

Luke and Jon from UNT

My former instructor Andy DeCaen and his work

Melody and her table

Erin and I also participated in the Open Portfolio Session. We got a table to show our work during session 3. I got a lot of good feedback from the people visited my table (I actually ran out of business cards at the end of my session!) It was such a great experience!

At the last session of the Open Portfolio, I found another Vietnamese printmaker from Boston at SGCI (AND he was an international student as well) I was almost screaming while staring at his name tag! I thought I was the only Vietnamese at SGCI (I hadn't seen any Vietnamese up until that moment), but now I found another one as well! We actually were friends on Behance.net but we just never met each other before. I was extremely happy knowing that I wasn't alone as a Vietnamese at SGCI. We started talking in Vietnamese and the people passing by were really confused! I felt really proud and really really hope to meet more Vietnamese printmakers at SGCI in the year to come.

Kenny Nguyen and his table

Proud Vietnamese printmakers!

SGCI 2015 concluded with the Printmaker's Ball at the Knoxville Convention Center. We had a good time customizing our own hats using balloons, and eating some good food while sharing some stories with my friend Ava.

With Erika Adams

With Ava

With John Hancock 

I ran into John Hancock, one of the Amazing Hancock Bros, right before I was about to leave the party. John was in my bookbinding class at Frogman's Workshop back in 2013 (I actually first met him at SGCI 2013 at Milwaukee, WI). It was nice talking with him before I said goodbye to SGCI.

Erin and I went home early that night to pack up and had some rest for our flight back to Reno the following morning. We had had so much fun and I was super excited to go back home and tell everyone about our trip. We never thought we would take a detour and had another mini trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. But, that's for another story. My experience at SGCI 2015 concluded here. I had a blast, and I hope to see everyone next year at Portland for SGCI 2016 - Flux.