Dream Boat

In 2002, Miami-born artists Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III began FriendsWithYou with the aim to promote a different kind of creative practice; one that is fundamentally inspiring, developing larger-than-life artistic environments to immerse patrons into their FriendsWithYou universe, one that seeks common ground to give people the chance to believe in themselves, and connect with one another. The imaginative world of FriendsWithYou has taken shape in the form of designer toys, large-scale installations, experimental gallery exhibitions, digital video, graphic design and other media—running the gamut of fine arts, public events, advertising and entertainment. From the “Skywalkers Parade” with 60-foot tall characters for Art Basel Miami, to an inflatable fun house for 30,000 people at Scope Art Fair, to creating a permanent playground “Rainbow Valley” inside Miami’s largest shopping mall, one can see why Borkson and Sandoval would describe their large-scale art projects as an “explosion”. Creating modern-day sanctums, they curate wonderful performances that are part confessional and part mystical ceremony—furthering the artists’ mandate to foster good wishes for luck, friendship and fortune. As a message that is invariably accessible and positive, FriendsWithYou believe in promoting a sense of exuberance against today’s general attitude of detachment. As Borkson feels, “In the Founded in 2002 by Steve Cober and Kristin Weckworth, Magic Pony began as a modest venture located in Toronto's Kensington Market that focused on importing rare designer toys from Asia for a small circle of devoted collectors. A year later operations moved to a small second-floor retail space in the Queen West Art District. Magic Pony expanded in 2004 with the addition of curated gallery programming, and expanded even further in 2005, when the shop and gallery relocated to a neighboring street-front property. In December 2008, Magic Pony opened Narwhal Art Projects, an expanded gallery space dedicated exclusively to exhibitions. Today, Magic Pony and Narwhal boast an internationally-geared, ambitious schedule of art exhibitions, product launches, artist appearances and public event programming. For more information, visit Narwhal's website at www.narwhalartprojects.com. Magic Pony was at the forefront of the urban vinyl phenomenon and was initially celebrated for its carefully selected collection of designer toys. A term used to describe collectibles produced in limited edition, in a variety of materials (vinyl, plastic, plush, wood), designer toys have become the contemporary version of the artist multiple, produced by multidisciplinary artists, illustrators and designers. The collision of street art, graffiti, fashion, hip hop and youth culture, urban Giclée (pronounced "zhee-clay") is a neologism for the process of making fine art prints from a digital source using ink-jet printing. The word "giclée" is derived from the French language word "le gicleur" meaning "nozzle", or more specifically "gicler" meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray". It was coined in 1991 by Jack Duganne, a printmaker working in the field, to represent any inkjet-based digital print used as fine art. The intent of that name was to distinguish commonly known industrial "Iris proofs" from the type of fine art prints artists were producing on those same types of printers. The name was originally applied to fine art prints created on Iris printers in a process invented in the early 1990s but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print and is often used in galleries and print shops to denote such prints.