I'm holed up in my living room with my laptop, writing this issue of DART, and trying not to be distracted by the beautiful autumn light that inevitably arrives with the return of Standard Time. That makes it countdown time to the launch of American Illustration 26 and American Photography 23. And Mark Heflin is putting the finishing touches on the displays that everybody who's made the cut looks forward to seeing at the publication party each year: press proofs from the books, trimmed and spray mounted onto illustration boards, which are hung along the side walls of the magnificent Angel Orensanz Foundation Center.

That's why I'm working at home - just keeping away from the fumes until the show is ready to be packed. This year it adds up to almost 400 boards -- or 800 pages in all. I've always been somewhat awed by the magnetic field these exhibits exert, especially for artists and photographers celebrating the first time their work has been selected. Even for people who get in year after year, the exhibit walls are where they like to hang out, schmoozing with friends and colleagues. There's generally a lot of flash in those areas, which make a perfect backdrop for the celebratory shots of artists and their art being snapped for posterity.

Another thing we look forward to is receiving jpegs of the books, hot off the press, sent by the printer just before they are shipped from China. Left, AP-23; right, AI-26.

This year there's even more to celebrate. On Thursday November 8^th, as the doors at the temple swing open to welcome our guests, the 154th issue of DART: Design Arts Daily will go out. For me, this has been an exciting year - much time spent finding interesting stories and telling them; running around to openings, auctions, and events of all kinds; meeting so many new people. And finding exceptional contributors with stories of their own to tell, including Peter Kuper, whose "Oaxaca Journal," V.8 went out last week; Fernanda Cohen, who has done several stories from the world of illustration; and our newest contributor, photographer Nick Cobbing, who filed a story from a seafaring science and art expedition to Greenland last month.

I hope to meet as many of you as possible this Thursday night and hear what you'd like to see more of in future issues of DART.

Cheers,

Peggy