Zay's Art

Why Yes! I had a great time at Icon9 being a Volunteer. That’s where I’ve been. Thanks for asking. I can’t write any volume of texts without thinking of a “Singular Strand of Thought” so the thesis is “this is a year in the future and an enthusiastic undergrad has googled icon9 to see what volunteering was like back in the old days”

Prior to heading to Austin, I had the mindset of settling for “small fish looks longingly at big fish”, but the board members running the show let us feel immediately at ease and a part of the team. I was assigned to the bookstore, and it was a great gig because well, loitering around books is awesome, I got to chat with the other volunteers during off-peaks, and also our I/Cs were the coolest. Asking for permission to take breaks or attend talks was always met with an approval. If you managed your responsibilities and shifts well you could go to most of the conference events you wanted.

Other volunteers got assigned to very different tasks with different hours, which entail a completely different experience. But either way it was easy to be mobile during the conference while performing your duties to attend the talks, workshops, parties, and make friends and connect with people. Being stationed at the bookstore was also fun in general because books are great, and I got to have 30 second encounters with most of the conference including art crushes who came by to get a book. 

Another cool thing was helping out with the book signings, where it was really nice to chat with the signers when they were done, when hanging around in the bookstore most of the time was part of me job. Everyone was really really nice and no one at all was on a high horse– which in hindsight was a silly thought to imagine, but I definitely had a constant sense of awe in the conference because there were certainly people who I think *should* have large majestical horses to ride around on. I got to make sentences with illustrators who have been pivotal points in my artmaking experience, and also industry leaders who I got to newly know and admire through interactions or talks, that ended with the occasional friendship or an actual hug. Crazy.

It was fun to run around and help at other things too, helping out when it was needed, occasionally with a workshop, or setting up the roadshow, headcounts, looking for illustration legends for their signings, etc etc. This post was mostly made for posterity so that if any future volunteer wanted an account of what Icon was like – because I signed up for it from a recommendation as well. This is a 10/10 to look out for the next one and write a killer letter to the future volunteer coordinator (s/o to Katherine for being the best mama bird) and get a’helping :-)