Welcome 2024!

I dunno if you get anything out of these posts as a reader but I get a lot out of organizing this material for myself. It lets me close out the old year with some prospective and look with excited eyes toward the new year. To prep for this post this year I did a personal inventory during Thanksgiving which I talked about in my post Setting goals for 2024. I expanded on that by doing the “Release and Return 2024” workbook from Get Messy.

I’ve spent what has felt like many days this year being frustrated by not “doing enough” or feeling rudderless. As I took stock of the whole year, it’s easy to see while I might have felt a certain way in the day-to-day, I still made a whole lotta stuff this year and some of it I love!

Some favorite things from 2023

After my ALWCA show in February and March, I didn’t focus on making art for a show. Instead I went back to smaller and slower. I worked in books a lot. Or I wrote for the blog. And I filmed flip throughs of my finished journals.

Crochet in 2023

I think Frog and Toad are some of the favorite things I’ve ever made. And Van Gogh. I adore making softies. They are what got me started in crochet and what always reels me back in.

2023 goal recap

Here’s my list from What’s bangin’ in 2023:

• I’ll be showing some works at Lowe Mill running from February 8-April 1, 2023 on the ALWCA wall on the second floor south by the Huntsville Theater League Theater. So I’ll be working feverishly to finish a few things between now and then!

I did that! It was a great show and I had a lovely time at the reception! Met some neat folks who came through and chatted!

• I think I’m going to do the 100 day project this year. I’ve had a couple of really successful years (2018 and 2019) and a couple of duds. But even the dud years where still interesting and I learned a lot from them. I think I might try something a bit smaller this year. In previous years I’ve done 5×7″ finished pieces but I might keep it smaller than that so I have a better chance of completing it.

I didn’t do that. Like I didn’t even try to start it. I wasn’t into the prospect AT ALL when the start date rolled around so I skipped it.

• Look into MFA graduate programs. I’m guessing what will happen when I do this is decide yet again that I don’t really need an MFA but that I’m enamored with the cachet of having an MFA. I would need to do an online program and those are limited. Also, I’m not sure if there’s an distance MFA that really fits what I am doing currently and the direction I am headed in. I decide to look into this every few years so I can remind myself of why I’m not doing this.

What I predicted would happen is exactly what happened. I think the thing that is under this thing is that I want community. I’m taking some different steps in 2024 to try and build that.

• I’m thinking about some dedicated studio hours. I can’t decide if I want to make it a daily goal or a weekly goal. A daily goal would ensure many more hours. A weekly goal might be more achievable because it’s a bit more flexible. I’m curious to see what making a daily/weekly time commitment would do for my practice and my finished work. I’m still fleshing this out so I’m quite sure you’ll be hearing about it in the days and weeks ahead.

I’m still thinking about this one and it cropped up again for me this year as I was thinking about goals for 2024. I think that what I’m looking for here is predictability in my work schedule and I am just never gonna have that as a stay at home parent and house manager and artist combo. The beauty here is flexibility. The curse here is flexibility. I gotta learn to roll with it.

• Continue my end of studio day journaling. I want to be able to examine what a whole year looks like through the lens of this practice.

Pretty consistent with this practice. I didn’t do it every single day but there are enough days in my bullet journal to make it interesting. I want to continue this practice but I’m probably going to break it out into its own notebook so I don’t have to dig through my daily bullet journal ramblings for just this material. It means another notebook so I’m not completely sold on whether or not that it will work for me but I’m willing to give it a go in the new year.

What else did I accomplish in 2023?

• I bound 50 copies of Issue Zero for the Small Wonders Magazine Kickstarter. This was a labor of love for my partner who is one of the editors of the magazine. I also get to do slush reading for the poetry section. It’s so much fun to get to be involved in this work. If you are a science fiction reader and want a weekly dose of fiction in your inbox, this is an outstanding choice.
• I made more than 45 posts for this blog including a new interview series that I’m really proud of! I have more interviews coming in 2024!! I’m also always open to hearing from readers about topics that interest you!
• I made 20 journals. I sold lots and gave away a few. And worked in some. I’m a bit shocked that I made this many because I didn’t set out for that to happen.
• I was interviewed on Art Talk with April.
• I filmed 11 flip throughs of journals. You can catch those on my YouTube channel. Some are books I finished this year and some are older works that I never filmed videos for.
• I created my first ever Art Retreat Week. It was glorious and I’ll be doing it again in 2024 for sure!
• I got more consistent with my newsletter. I am trying to build a following that is outside of social media because as we’ve seen this year, it’s extremely unpredictable. I want people to come here to my site to see what I’m up to. The newsletter is an avenue to building this.

My word for 2024: Slow

My word for 2023 was Wu Wei which is a Chinese concept meaning “effortless action”. I don’t know how well I achieved it but I tried to keep it front and center as I moved through the year. It was a lovely touch stone.

My word for 2024 is a reminder that fast isn’t always better. I feel like I’ve spent most of my life trying to hurry up and just…why? Why is hurrying the correct way? I want to pause and focus and really lean into my work this year so I am going to practice slow.

What am I looking for in 2024?

• To create community for myself. To that end, I’ll be offering a zoom call once a month starting in January for people to come, hang out, work on their projects, and have some conversation. I’ll be limiting attendance so we can actually talk and get to know each other and one another’s art. I’m looking to create a space where people can work, ask for ideas getting unstuck on their current WIP, gather inspiration, and enjoy the camaraderie of some art friends.
  
  This will be a work in progress! While I have facilitated art zooms before, it has always been for other venues with other creative’s goals in mind. I’m still trying to figure out what mine will be exactly! (See also it doesn’t have a catchy name yet!)
  
  If you are interested in coming along for this journey, please sign up for my newsletter. Newsletter readers will get first crack at the signup sheet. I’ll be offering it as a pay as you are able situation. You can hit my Ko-fi donation box with $5 (or more!) as you are led. This is primarily to defray the cost of zoom, I still believe in what I said in this post.
• Pressing myself on my abstract painting skills. I’ll be signing up for a workshop after the first of the year that’s 100 paintings in 10 weeks. It’s a big goal but I’m excited to try it. As I tell my kids, “hard is where you learn” and seriously nothing sounds harder to me than producing 10 paintings in a week.
• I will continue my end of day studio journaling. I’m giving myself the gift of a seperate journal for this practice as I talked about above. I know, I know, I’m just buck wild sometimes.
• Art Retreat Week 2024 is on, Baybee! I loved this so much this past year, I am defo doing it again. It’ll probably be in the summer like last year so I’ll figure out which week closer to time.
• I’m going to apply to 4 group shows this next year. I have 2 already picked out and will be figuring out the other 2 over the course of the year.
• Work on the 6000 circle project. I’m coordinating/collaborating with fellow ALWCA member Amanda Banks to spend the year collecting circles made in our community for this project. Anyone is welcome to join! And if you want to get the project packet so you can participate too, click the “project pdf” button at the bottom of this page to get it! If you are local, follow the ALWCA IG account to find out when and where we will be hosting circle making groups in Alabama in 2024.
• I’ll be hosting an hour during the 24-hour Artsy meetup Marathon on New Year’s Day! Kiala Givehand hosts this 24-hour event and I’ll be seeing you bright and early on New Year’s Day to ring in 2024 with some making!! I can’t wait for this very fun all day & night workshop. Sign up here!

Hey, what are you dreaming about and hoping to chase in 2024? What are you building for 2024? I wanna know your thoughts! Catch up with me on socials, email me, or go old school and leave a comment on this post to be immortalized for all of time.

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