My goals have been a guiding force for the year and I've held to them even though I didn't achieve everything I set out to do. I move slow but steady. I know at least one thing I need to let go of for next year....being a office holder in the artists' group at Mellwood. Artists are hustling trying to make art and hold jobs and attend to family and health and studio turn over is too frequent to keep momentum going on projects.
This was a year I immersed myself in reading marketing books geared at artists. I kept thinking I was missing something in the Access2Market program with its emphasis on wholesaling. Two or three of the books I've read take a tone of slight arrogance and too expert-y which comes across to me as a 'hustling books mentality instead of living what is written about'.
The exception, the one that reads like real talk, is The Artist's Guide by Jackie Battenfield. I don't regret reading the other books which I'll not name. I seem to constantly need the affirmation that I do not want to be a "business" in the strictest sense of the term, yet I'm serious (as defined by absorbed) with creating with cloth and I'm joy-filled when someone even inquires about my art and when someone purchases a piece I really can't feel my feet on the ground!
Kore Art Gallery
Most of what I do for the co-op is online and my winter hours will reduce my gallery sitting to 4-5 hours each week and about 8-10 hours in the studio...maybe 15 in a good week. My body started to rebel a few weeks ago.My major focus for next year will be the Novel quilts...at least starting the first one and possibly continuing with a smaller series like the Poetry quilts or paper quilts. I'd like to take on 2 or 3 workbooks...but I always fall off the wagon about 1/4 of the way into the year. My real challenge is not to fall into the rabbit hole of surface design.
I returned to the book Spirit Taking Form tonight. Need to slow the train in my mind and find artistic clarity.
Peace,
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