NYCOMG | Danny
Street names jog the memory. While walking New York during Hugh Brownstone’s workshop, we crossed Varick. Varick. Who the heck was that illustrator with the robots who I visited on Varick so many years ago? He curated a robot illustration website, and he published one of my drawings. Daniel something. I’ll look up New York robot illustrators on Google. But then I remember: Daniel Pelavin. Besides the robots, he’s got a knack for lettering, merging letters and illustration and logos. In the late 90s, on a visit to NYC to shop my illustration portfolio, Danny invited me to his studio, and we hung out for an afternoon, walking down to the Society of Illustrators and talking about what it’s like to illustrate full time. He had a wife and two young daughters. His wife, Lorraine, passed away a couple of years later, way too soon. Anna and Molly are now 33 and 31. One’s a farmer, the other a filmmaker. Danny hasn’t remarried, but he hasn’t closed off the possibility, either.
He answered my email and wished Penny and I a pleasant visit. I reached out again and asked if I could come by his studio and maybe shoot some photos of him. Afternoons are best, he said. How about now? Now it is! A twenty minute walk, and I’m there. Danny buzzes me in, and I go up to the third floor, where Danny cautions me about the freshly painted door. And that he hates all photos of him. But he’s okay with my photographing him. I take off my shoes, and he leads me into the studio, dimly yet wonderfully lit. There’s a current iMac on his drafting table/desk. Scissors, pads, shelves with mugs, an electric pencil sharpener, a manual pencil sharpener, robots, and various geegaws. There are watches pinned to a corkboard and metal garage signs. An electric Epiphone guitar and blonde amp. He doesn’t play the electric much. Towards the end of our visit, he brings out an acoustic Epiphone and starts to play “Here Comes the Sun.” Then he stops, saying he hasn’t played much in a long time. We talk about family and places, how Varick used to be out in the wilderness. Now, it’s hip and trendy. Danny loves New York, the people and the buildings, how you can come here and be all sorts of crazy creative. “It’s an amusement park.” I share my experience of how so many people say “yes” to being photographed. “People come here to be noticed,” Danny says. He hasn’t driven a car in forty years, and he doesn’t like to ride in them. He used to spin till the gym closed, now he walks. He loves to walk. I nod in agreement. Back in LA, I walk around the block with the dogs once a day. Here, I walk and walk and walk. Danny gives me a pamphlet in which he adapted well known logos to include the word “vote.” And he hands me a small booklet he sent out instead of Christmas cards one year. “For Penny.” In the juggling of bags and shoes back on, I forget these precious gifts. But Danny promises to send them, and that they’ll likely arrive back in LA before I do.
As I hoof it uptown to grab Penny from the cold, I meet others along the way. Charles, a photographer selling gorgeous prints on the corner of Spring and 6th. His friend Robert out walking little Lola and Phoebe. Robert is lucky to be alive, according to Charles. Throat cancer, which is why he talks the way he does. Further up the road, Sergio, security/doorman, who shows me a photo of him and Sly Stallone. NYC, indeed, is an amusement park.
