The event was PiecexPeace Live ‘08. The place was Central Park NYC and the occasion was Earth Day.

Thousands came and went painted and watched. Paul Kostabi and friends organized an event with music, speeches and artwork all entwined together to send the word out about Earth Day. We donated  large canvases that were cut up into tiny 6×6 pieces and given out to be painted on with eco-friendly paints. Each piece was sewn together to make a larger  500 foot painting to be unveiled at Central Parks Summer stage the following ay. The mural will be the largest and longest green mural all hand painted by total strangers. Soon the mural will have its home at one of our fine museums here in NYC. Details on that coming soon.

That’s me armed with bags. Friend of
Utrecht Michelle Sweatt helps me prepare for the long day Paul Kostabi and I after his set with his band Supernumblivemachine

I’ve been working for Utrecht since 1979 and recently had the wonderful opportunity to have lunch with Norman.

He was one of the original founding brothers of Utrecht Artist Supply and Manufacturing Inc. First, in 1949, they started importing unprimed artist linen from Belgium. In 1957 they developed and manufactured artists acrylics and gesso. In the early 60’s they started producing oil paints and from this ambitious endeavor they were able to expand the company into a very large mail order business and finally into a retail store.

Barely in their 20’s, Norman and his brother Harold, started the company out of Brooklyn, New York. Norman opened the first Utrecht Art Supply store in New York City way back in 1966 and moved it to its current location on 4th avenue in the early 70’s.

We talked about the ‘old days’ and caught up on whats going on now. A very inspiring man, Norman said he is still painting every single day! It was an amazing time and we had a lot of fun reminiscing. Now our Company has grown to over 30 stores across the country! - Robert Saaf

Long time friend and Utrecht customer Josh Smith puts a link for our online store on his website. Check out his brilliant art here.

Josh, now 30, works out of New York but was born in Tennessee. Attended college in both Tennessee and Miami in the 90’s. His work his largely based on abstractions of his own name. His work has been shown all over the world from The Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Standard in Oslo all the way to the Hiromi Yoshii Gallery in Tokyo.

Thanks for the support Josh!!!
  More Links To His Site!

On Monday night 4 students from Parsons came in to our store to put the up their unique window display.

They were designing it for a few weeks and came in after hours while our staff was hard at work putting away the truck delivery. Catherine Karnoff was the organizer and she was working with Sandeep Bhuller,
Dylan Fisher, and Raven Lewis. We think it looks awesome!