NAEA in New York City

I was very fortunate to win a scholarship from the Utah Art Education Association to attend this years national conference in New York City. This organization also elected me president a few weeks ago at our state conference.

I flew out of Salt Lake on the 29th of February right as a major snow storm blew in. We were delayed on the tarmac for about 90 minutes while the plane was de-iced. I arrived in New York at 12:30, 45 minutes after my shuttle was reserved to pick me up. After checking in with the shuttle agency and deciding not to wait another 45 minutes for the shuttle another gentleman and I decided to split a cab.

This gentleman was a Utah native, living and working in New York as a Broadway actor. He was returning from a dentist appointment and was also catching a cab to Midtown.

After checking in to the hotel, New York Hilton. I quietly went into my dark room, since I had a roommate and didn't want to wake her up. After putting on my pajamas I laid my head down around 2 am. I was awoke at 4 am and managed to sleep off an on for another hour. At 5 I decided to just get up, so I didn't disturb Anna.

The hotel was awesome. The conference was also held at the Hilton and the Sheraton just around the corner. We were on the 43rd floor, the executive suites. On the 44th floor we were served breakfast and a cocktail hour.



This is our view from breakfast every morning.

On Thursday, we hosted the Utah Meetup for all of the conference attendees from the state of Utah in our suite. We had to shuttle attendees up the elevator since you needed a room key to get off on our floor. We served the famous Carnegie Deli cheesecake with some other snacks.

On Friday, Anna, Michelle, Kris and I saw Wicked at the Gershwin theater.



Here is Times Square on our way to the Gershwin

On Saturday, Michelle, Kris and I went to the Museum of Modern Art, MOMA. We had a quick tour of the two most popular floors. We got our picture taken with Van Gogh's Starry Night. I took my picture with Dali's Persistence of Memory to show how small it was.



I had a fabulous time in New York and would love to go again to see more of the sights and the rest of MOMA.

My friends were able to spend an additional day and got to see the MET, Brooklyn, the Guggenheim, the World Trade Center memorial, etc.

The conference was also fabulous and I have hundreds of ideas to incorporate into my curriculum and am looking forward to Fort Worth next year.