New Year's Resolutions 2018








About the best that could be said for 2017 would be that I survived it. I want to say really awful things about the year; so much was lost. I lost one of my oldest friends. I lost innocence that I hadn't even realized I'd had left to lose. I lost things I can't even talk about. It was a year in which the world felt devoid of all grace. But when I think about it and look back at the pictures I took, the friends I embraced, the places I visited, I see there is still grace in the world. There is still beauty and magic and love in my life. My world may have done a darned good impression of falling apart, but the wider world kept spinning.

And so, I go into 2018 with simple resolutions: Make. Do. Be.

Make more, buy less. Make the things I need and want, rather than buying them whenever possible. Make room in my life and home by letting things go that no longer fit or have a purpose. Do more. Be more present, more alive, more active. Be strong. Be healthy.

I'm going to take a page from the book of my friend over at Acorn Cottage and develop SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) throughout the year, as well as keeping track of the things I make and do. My goals for January are:

  • Buy nothing that isn't necessary (unless there's a truly ridiculous sale on something I've wanted for a long time, and even then, there will be soul-searching). No shopping for entertainment.
  • Undertake a 31 day decluttering challenge in which I discard more items every day throughout the month. Yesterday, I put a book in the trade-in bag. Today, I'll find two things to donate or discard or recycle. Tomorrow will be three, and so on, through the end of the month where it'll be 29, 30, 31 things per day.
  • Make two new items of clothing - pants, and a shirt or dress to wear to work.
  • Practice my old "five things per room per day" tidying plan.
  • Mindfully go about small rituals to help me connect with the deeper world. 

And if I make it through 2018, in 2019 I want to remember this: rebuild, renew, recover.

New Year's Resolutions - 2017





I distilled my intentions for 2017 down to this: Survive. Progress*. Enjoy.

There are some concrete goals under each of those headings, and I'll be setting weekly, monthly, and seasonal goals throughout the year, but after 2016, I figured out that I have a pretty good idea of my desired direction and don't need to make resolutions to figure that out (at least not this year).

I still like the idea of using the new calendar year to clarify my intentions and explore new tools to keep me moving forward.

 This quote is something I'll be thinking of as I set my goals:

There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person. 
 ~Rumer Godden

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 *In the sense of "moving forward".

Digital Collaged Web Graphics for Waveform LLC




I was really happy to have the opportunity to design a new logo and some web graphics for one of my favorite design clients, Waveform LLC. The graphics needed to express the idea of waves, growth, precision, measurement, and the human touch. Waveform does comprehensive online brand creation and management. I really enjoy working for them.

Going With The Wind

Reading Love Letters Written On The Wind
Remember my collage a day project, back in August? It really took on a life of its own, in a way that I'd never even dreamed it could. Digital collage has become my primary creative work, and I want to chase it all the way down the rabbit hole to wonderland.

Crowgirls
A couple of months ago, I was looking at my collage above, Crowgirls. This phrase floated through my head: "Even crowgirls get the blues." And like a cosmic smack upside the head, I knew that this was what I'd been looking for: a new identity for my creative work. A second wind to lift my sails and take me off on a new journey. You can read more about that day here.

Crowgirl Studio is my new baby. The response has been amazing. My digitally collaged illustrations are available as prints and cards, and I even put together a calendar for 2015. I hope you'll join me over at the new blog or Tumblr or Pinterest.

I may pop in here, once in a while, to share some thoughts or photos or art/craftwork, but my energies are going into Crowgirl, and I would really love it if you came along for the ride. See you there!






Feeding The Shadow

Feeding the Shadow Within
I am really pleased with my recent work. Collage is a visual language I've always wanted to learn - to do something similar to favorite artists like Nick Bantock or Anahata Katkin. It's complex, beautiful, and hard to do harmoniously. I'm feeling my way into it one piece at a time, learning to use my own creative voice as I remix images from the past and present to make something new.

One of the really lovely things about all the work I've been doing lately is that I now have enough of a body of work that I can get something of a wild hair and go off on a whim and apply to a juried website like InPrint.

InPrint is a juried membership print-on-demand website, and I applied and got in. It's really cool in a lot of ways, because they do more to promote their artists than similar sites and artists get to keep a significantly larger percentage of their sales. While I'm going to be keeping my Society6 shop going (they do greetings cards and phone cases), I'm just a bit overjoyed to be able to share my InPrint store for fine art prints of my work.

Feeding the Shadow Within is available as a print.