2016 Year in Review

I like this photo taken by the staff of the Leighton Art Centre while I was demoing printmaking and letterpress for Alberta Culture Days

Another year, another year in review blog post... so much has changed, and yet so little. I find it funny, every year I dig up a few posts from previous years so I can see what it was I was excited about at the end of the year and it is always the same and yet totally different. Cycles of time I guess.

I’ve found that 2016 has been a good year for me, personally.  It has also been a year of different creative output – not as many paintings as usual. The paintings I have done have mostly been big, which is such a treat. Instead I’ve been dabbling in other media and producing different types of work. Some of it is ready for the eye of the public, some of it is still in it’s infancy so, best kept under wraps until my skill develops.

My top ten list this year – things that I’ve learned in 2016:

1. I find it very, very interesting to collaborate with non artists on paintings. This year’s painting body of work is predominantly from the Intersection Art Project. Each piece was born from meeting a group of people from their non-profit organization and discussing their work, their mandate and visual ideas that came to mind to represent them. Translating all of this information into a painting was quite challenging and exhilarating!

 

1.  Instructing puts the wind in my sails. I lead a pretty solitary existence most of my week. My husband and kids leave for the day and I hang out with my dog in my studio. Interspersed in here is my weekly trip to help at the museum and the occasional coffee date with friends. This year, I added in a lot more instructing and it was like a light was turned on – that chance to spend a day pouring out all the words I have locked up about a topic I love to people who are there because they want to learn. I meet the best people in my classes; I also tend to learn a bunch of related stuff too.

 

1. You can totally have too many art supplies. We moved this year from Airdrie to Cochrane after 11 wonderful years. Our house was quite small and my studio interests were quickly outgrowing the tiny space we had carved out. August/September this year was a crazy, crazy blur of packing, driving, moving, unpacking, teaching, and making. Once I had boxed up all my gear and realized that containers marked “studio” were in the obscene majority, I came to accept that I probably have a problem that needs to be addressed. Sometime. Not now.

 

1. I need a target to aim for. I already knew this before, but 2016 reminded me of that. Unless I have an upcoming show or market or project to create for, I find it hard to narrow my focus. This gives me a reason to get up and make stuff. It puts me into a driven frame of mind and lots of things get born that probably wouldn’t otherwise if I was just free to tinker in my studio aimlessly. I’ve found that the best approach for me is to start of my year with a couple unrelated targets and press the “start” button – the year pretty much fills itself up from there.

 

1. I cannot have two closely related projects going at the same time. I don’t like the idea of multitasking, in fact, when people boast about their ability to jump from one thing to the next I usually assume they have an overly inflated opinion about their skill set. I realized this on the Wycliffe project and confirmed it during the Intersection Art Project – I can’t paint two different bodies of work at the same time. Splitting my focus = two less focussed projects. All is not lost though, if I have a painting project and a printmaking/letterpress project running concurrently I’m totally fine. So I did lots of that this year.

 

1. Letterpress keeps calling to me. Confession: a few years ago, I lugged around a little rusty press with no idea where to start or how to use it. I thought it was interesting and I could not be parted from it. It went from basement storage area to basement storage area till I was ready. Then I took steps to learn about it and fix it. Then Letterpress said “you’re ready” and more equipment came into my life. More friends came to help me get to the next step. I still hardly know what I’m doing but I’m advancing slowly. I think 2017 will be good for me in that area.

 

1. You should not take apart crazy huge cast iron machines unsupervised. Which is why I have direction at the museum in taking apart my full sized platen press – this thing is a complicated hot mess of interlocking parts and they all have to fit back together in a particular order. I am continually blessed and thankful to be able to learn in this environment. This large press would never have been feasible to restore if I didn’t have my museum connections.

 

1. There are more ways I can obsess over patterns. Plate and teacup paintings are not the only areas where I get to play with repetition. This year I made a jump from printmaking framed art to block printing on fabric. There is something about laying down a cloth and composing a pattern using patterned elements that is intensely satisfying to me. The play of form and colour and the humble nature of the support all speak to me creatively.

 

1. I will totally buy a household appliance based on how I can incorporate it in my art practice. We needed a new washer and dryer for our new house and because the space was big enough, I insisted on a top loading washer so I could get back into dying fabric. The first batch of flour sack tea towels that came out of the machine may have been met with a high pitched squeal. I could care less about all the other laundry though.

 

1. My focus continues to be about learning over legacy. In late 2015 I made a decision that I would lead a life worth living – tasting new moments rather than living in a rut. My goals are primarily experience driven over profit driven – I think it reflects in my body work this year especially. Lots of new mediums and experiments that incorporate many elements/subjects that I’ve been playing with for years. Variations on a theme I guess. As I plan out my steps for 2017, this continues to be my focus. Experiencing and learning – this helps me to avoid getting stuck or too self focused.

 
This has been a good year. Lots of change that I have yet to process and lots of art supplies still waiting to be unpacked and organized. I am really looking forward to the New Year as well. I’m always a sucker for a fresh day timer and new adventure.