Reflect and Plan: Year End Review
Signposts for the season
Have I mentioned that I grow orchids?
Fifteen to twenty orchids crowd my windowsills at any given time. Many of the orchids in my collection are in spike at this time of year, promising a display of colourful, exotic flowers in the depths of winter.
But only one is in bloom at the moment. It’s my green slipper orchid. It’s what plant people call a reliable bloomer.
It's weird and wonderful, the second oldest orchid in my collection: I've had it for 15 years.
One of the reasons I like growing orchids, is that they each have their own blooming schedule so my care is rewarded with different blooming orchids over the course of a year. Some flowers last for only a few weeks, others for a few months. Yet each individual orchid opens its blooms, with little variation, the same week, every year.
My green slipper orchid pays me a visit in December, like an old friend, just in time for the holiday season. It’s a signpost for this season.
December is also the time of year to turn my focus inwards, look back on the art year that was and begin to think about the year to come.
Reflect
Strong Work
The single most important accomplishment of my art practice this year was completing strong work. The work made over the past 12 months feels to me as if it’s getting ever closer to the kind of art that I want to be making: Work that is open and textural, poetic and nuanced.
Helping to guide my practice was my word of the year: “Assemblage”. It was posted, in big black letters, in my studio as a reminder to incorporate collage elements more often as part of a mixed media practice. Sometimes the collage elements used are visible and sometimes they are hidden and that’s the way that I want it to be. Collaging found paper ephemera and painted papers excites my process in a way that painting alone doesn’t.
Having said that, I know that there is still room to push this way of working further. In fact I've only begun to tentatively explore the possibilities of mixed media collage in my work.
(Hmm...an idea for next year perhaps?)
Professional photos
In the spring, I hired a professional photographer to take photos of me in the studio. It was an investment in me and my art business that I was, at last, ready to make this year.
Artists, if hiring a professional to take pictures of you in your studio is on your to do list, I have two suggestions:
Even though it might feel really uncomfortable or even phoney, smile your biggest laughing smile, a big belly laugh kind of smile. It might feel weird, but this trick makes for good photos!
If you want to have pictures taken of you painting, plan and prepare your paint colours ahead of time. I made the mistake of grabbing a colour at the last moment that was close to hand. It was a light colour that I smeared on a light palette and then painted on a light background. This choice did not make for very interesting photos.
Declutter
Lastly, in the spirit of simplifying, I embarked on a decluttering journey, beginning with my studio space.
In the process I came across past versions of myself in the shape of the various and sundry things that were stored (and not used) for years: The enthusiastic knitter of sweaters and maker of clothes, the collector of magazines and of “good boxes”, the keeper of “things that might be useful one day”.
It was time that these unused items found a new home.
And for me it means that I've now made room both physically and metaphorically for better things to come into my space.
Plan
This quiet, end of year time is also the time for me to plan for my art year ahead.
I begin with the easy part. That’s setting up my annual and weekly planners in blank notebooks.
This involves drawing out the weeks and months, the charts and the lists that help me to track my studio time and progress. I feel very organised and strangely productive while doing this simple exercise.
The sense of excited anticipation this task generates is much like the feeling I had as a school girl when setting up my subject notebooks at the start of each school year!
The not so easy part, and the part that takes a bit more time is thinking about how I want my art year to unfold.
A few creative ideas for the new year have just started to tug at the corners of my attention. I’ll daydream and rest and give myself a bit more quiet time for ideas to crystallise into a plan for my art year ahead.
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