2010

"Draw colored circles around the black dots", a page from a coloring book that I filled in Christmas Eve, took a iPhone picture with, and posted to Flickr.

Happy New Year! This is a time of year that is always so infused with retrospection and anticipation. I feel like I’m doing pretty well: looking back over the past year, it’s been mostly great. But I’ve got this little inkling that there’s something missing, and when I compare the past year to the past decade, it’s pretty clear that up until recently I’ve always been a very creative person: photography, dancing, sewing, crafts at Camp Polly, needlework, poetry, and more. It used to be such an integral part of my life that I lost hours in the darkroom or studio, that I thought I was going to have a career in a creative field, that I minored in studio art in college. But these days, for whatever reason (and I’ve come up with many) I’m not making things like I used to, and I miss it.

Actually, I’ve been noticing more and more often how much I miss it. I’ve been lamenting to my supervisor that I’m not as creative as I could be with my clients. I’ve been reading more poetry. I’ve been buying empty journals without daring to fill them. I even bought this cool book, and only just began to destroy it before it got buried under the pile of novels I plan to read. I’ve been lurking around Flickr, feeling jealous of all the beauty without posting any of my own. I’ve carried my camera around, without taking any photos, and when I do I let them sit on my hard drive (I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve received and ignored several email from loved ones asking if they can see my images from their wedding or party). I’ve stood surrounded by delicious art-making tools at Polly’s, and had no idea where to begin. I’m in love, and even that makes me want to make things.

I keep coming back to the concept that it’s important to “do something creative every day” I’d been toying with the idea of doing the 365 where you post a photo every day for a year, but it seems like an overwhelming commitment. But creative doesn’t have to mean a photo, it can mean a delicious meal, or a page from a coloring book, or a doodle in a margin, or something written, or a snow angel. So this is it! I’m going to make something, every day, for all of 2010. I’ll post whatever it is here (disclaimer, I can’t promise that I’ll post it on the very day it was created, but I’ll try).

Get excited! 1/1/10 will be posted soon.