2015 End of the Year

December 30, 2015 in Ramblings

This year was a great one overall. I tried new things, spent a lot of time outdoors and felt a tremendous amount of growth. As this year comes to an end, I am super happy as I have spent a lot of time catching up with friends and family. Normally, I don't have New Year's resolutions, but this year, I want to make more time for reading books and less time for awesome TV shows like Fargo Season 2.

As I look back on the year and write this, I do feel like not every year goes quite like this one. There are always good and bad years. I know I like to travel, spend time outdoors and make art, so I try to spend as much time and energy doing those things as I can. This means I don't have a normal job, I don't have my own car (though I share one) and I don't have lots of new clothes or fancy things. My savings account is small. And 401k? What's that?? Maybe I haven't really "grown up", but oh well, I like my life.

Here are some highlights from the year...

100 Day Project

Day 2 Make a blank valuable by putting it in a frame

Day 6 Take away the elements in order of apparent non importance

Day 7 Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list

Day 14 Slow preparation...Fast execution

Day 21 Don't be afraid of things because they are easy to do

Day 24 Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them

Day 26 Who should be doing this job? How would they do it?

Day 27 Define an area as 'safe' and use it as an anchor

Day 26 Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)

Day 31 Do nothing for as long as possible

Day 40 Destroy - nothing - the most important thing

Day 44 Once the search is in progress, something will be found

Day 48 Which frame would make this right?

Day 49 Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate

Day 51 Are there sections? Consider transitions

Day 55 Not building a wall but making a brick

Day 56 Look at the order in which you do things

Day 60 Don't be frightened to display your talents

Day 61 You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas

Day 63 Think: Inside the work. Outside the work.

Day 66 Make something implied more definite (reinforce, duplicate)

Day 70 What to increase? What to reduce?

Day 76 State the problem in words as clearly as possible.

Day 77 What are you really thinking about just now? Incorporate

Day 81 The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten

Day 82 Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them

Day 83 Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency

Day 86 Honour thy error as a hidden intention

Day 87 What mistakes did you make the last time?

Day 90 Don't stress one thing more than the other

Day 92 What would your closest friend do?

Day 96 Ask people to work against their better judgement

Day 98 Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place

Day 99 In total darkness or in a very large room, very quietly

Ah, the 100 Day Project. If you aren't tired of this phrase yet, I'd be surprised:) This project was awesome in so many ways. It pushed me to think differently and work when I didn't want to. Although I didn't stick to doing it daily, I feel accomplished. The support I had through likes, comments, purchase of original artwork, to calendar orders, really blew my mind. There will be a separate post about it next week.

Assisting

I assisted Jen Stark with her mural at Facebook headquarters. It was quite an experience being at the not-quite-open new building. Jen was amazing to work with, as was the crew of artists above. Facebook also treated us so well offering us anything we needed.

Camping

Sunrise visit to a hot spring near Mammoth Lakes

Sunset at Maggie's Half Acre in the Ohlone Wilderness. We were so tired here.

You can probably tell from my art that I am really inspired by nature. I just need to get out and see trees and open land without other humans, probably because I live in the crowded Bay Area. I camped with my good friend Kelli at Armstrong Redwoods, with another group of friends near Mammoth Lakes and with another few good friends in the Ohlone Wilderness. So many gorgeous sunsets, some grueling footsteps and quality time with good friends. Sometimes I think I should be a park ranger rather than an artist.

You can find the original posts on these trips:

Cruising

I went on my first cruise, which was an interesting experience. We went with good friends and saw so many incredible sites in Mexico, Honduras, Belize and Grand Cayman Island. It was a dream to be out at sea, though I guess my original dream involved a sailboat. Still, the cruise ship was a great way to see so many places in a week. I swam with dolphins, cruised through a river with dolphins and sharks, watched a lightning storm at sea, worked out at sea and on and on. It was surreal.

Dream Painting

Embed from Getty Images

Probably one of my favorite art jobs, I painted people's dreams for the New York mattress company Casper. They gave me a station to paint guests' dreams on cocktail napkins. You can read more in the original post here.

Jiu Jitsu

I started training jiu jitsu in May of this year, right after I got back from the cruise. I have been working really hard at it, going 4-5 days a week when I can. I have made amazing new friends that inspire me with their skill. I competed at a small competition and surprisingly won gold. I prepared and trained hard for it, but I have never won anything athletic in my life. In fact, I was a pretty clumsy kid and always one of the last running around the track in P.E. I never played on team sports and although I like being active, I don't know that I push myself as much as I should. With jiu jitsu, you have to push yourself. You want to get better because you don't want to be smashed or submitted by someone else. Plus it's fun and you just want to be good at it. I'm excited to see where this goes this year.

Live Painting

I think I have a little fear of painting live in front of people. They can see your awkward starts, your rough drafts and I learned they like to make a ton of suggestions. Although I have done public art on the street before, this was different. I had a lot of fun painting at the Cinequest Film Festival earlier this year. Being in a window where an audience watches you and votes? Needless to say, it was a great experience. It also prompted me to be more comfortable sketching out in public at coffee shops and other art events. I believe doing this also lead to the above painting project for Casper. You can read more about this even in the original post.

Saying No

If you know me well, you know my frustration with tabling events. Don't get me wrong, it's fine to do if you have products, but if you are selling art, it's not always the greatest experience in my book. Or maybe I'm not great at selling at these things? Whatever the case, I decided to stop doing these this holiday and I have to say I loved it. I will likely still do occasional popup shops, but I am over the 2-day events.

The other way I have had to say no is to friends and sometimes family. I hate to do it, but in order to get my work done sometimes I have to skip out on the fun or seeing friends or even going to events that I feel I should be going to. It often feels bad on my end, but it has to happen if I have a tight deadline on a portrait or proposal. On the bright side, saying no has helped me get things done.

Working Very Small and Very Big

The smallest art I made was this one-inch square galaxy, seen above. The largest art was the 4x6 foot painting for the Cinequest Film Festival. I like working both ways and hope to continue to do so in 2016.

2016

Who knows what will happen in 2016? Every year I do this and it's interesting to see how many things get checked off the list. I suggest you try it! So far, this is what I can think of.

Dig into the more mysterious, subconscious and dreamy side of my work
Submit book proposal(s)
Do another art residency
Make ceramics again
Submit portfolio for editorial work (I'd love to illustrate for Lenny Letter)
Continue SoFA Sketch
Complete the second half of my sailing classes for certification
Attempt to hike Half Dome again (hopefully not closed due to fire this time)
Backpack at Wildcat Camp in Point Reyes
Train hard in jiu jitsu

Happy New Year! Free desktop wallpaper to help ring in the new year

December 31, 2014 in Resources

I want to wish you an awesome new year! Here's to new adventures, expanding and growing.

A Joshua Tree at the mountaintop of a hike.

The New Year and the Unknown

January 04, 2014 in Ramblings, Adventure & Hiking

I am so excited for a new year. Something about the roller coaster of 2013, climaxing with an insanely busy December and a desert road trip, made me feel the annual transition more than ever before.

I'll start with a quick recap of highlights of 2013. Early in 2013, I quit my day job. It wasn't that I was making a full-time living from my art, but I thought I had a part-time job in tandem with it, so I hastily put my two weeks in. However, I didn't get the part-time job. I sometimes pride myself on risk-taking, but this time, it became stressful after a few months. Still, soon after I quit, I was offered a solo art show at Delta Workshop in Sacramento, CA, decided to write a children's book and things just seemed like they were off to a good start.

My Etsy shop grew this year. I painted portraits of a couple of actors, a musician and his family and other wonderful people. I sold art prints to people prominent in their fields at KQED and HGTV Magazine. I also vended at a few events in great locations including the Bank of the West tennis tournament at Stanford and the Berkeley City Club.

Still, I was floating around in a sea of unknown. With each of the above events, I had periods of floundering between. Should I focus on portraits? Should I focus on handmade bags? Hand painted scarves? Design work? What should I paint? There was so much unknown and uncertainty.

Toward the end of the year, I returned to teaching part-time. The kids teach me so much about risk-taking, intuition and just having fun while making art. I painted many portraits for clients for holiday gifts. I also created a super fun hand illustrated band logo. And the highlight? I ended the year with a solo show at Seeing Things Gallery. It was well-attended and the feedback exceeded my expectations. This show taught me so much. I worked for long periods in isolation. In doing so, I utilized tons of determination, focus and discipline. I made work that was purely me. I dug deep into what bothers me, confuses me, amazes me, pleases me.

And now I have a better understanding of what is most important to me, what feels best to make and do. I need to return to being outside more for inspiration and I need to use my intuition. When things are unsure, we get scared and make strange decisions. This year, I understood being in touch with my intuition more than ever. This is how we can embrace the unknown, when we let things reveal themselves and listen to our gut.

In this time, I realized I will continue to create textiles, in limited-release, small batches. However, I will be primarily focusing on original artwork and a variety of creative projects. Rather, than New Year's resolutions, I will list out some things I will be doing this year:

A dual group exhibition at the Citadel and Works Gallery in April entitled Shelter
Taking sailing lessons in early spring
Moving my children's book from sketches to completed
Opening my own online shop (in addition to Etsy), where I will have original artwork available
Finishing two new paintings that did not quite get finished for the Seeing Things show and revealing those within the month
Painting a huge handful of ideas that came to me at the end of 2013
Continuing hand illustrated design work
Continue to teach children 10 hours a week
Sitting and reading in my hammock
Traveling, hopefully getting to a few more National Parks and possibly an overseas trip

Although I have this list, the direction can change at any time and I don't mind that.

What are you working on? What do you want to start or finish in this new year? Please leave a comment below.

From the peak of Ryan Mountain in Joshua Tree National Park.

Note: I will be writing about my desert trip in a post next week!