Getting ready for 2016

Ahh, I am back here on my blog.

I have been busy this January, both in the real world with the holiday programme job and in the visual world. I have travelled to Instagram Land, FaceBook World and Pinterest Place. I want to tell you of my adventures, but it will wait for the next post.

But now I am home again. And the blogging world does seem like home. I feel that I am sitting on my comfy red chair, surrounded by friends and catching up on all the news. There may even be a glass of wine in there!

I am not someone who makes New Year’s Resolutions, but I do feel that 2016 will be different. After I returned from my Artist in Residency fortnight on Flinders Island I found myself becoming more serious about my art, wanting to move it onto ‘the next level’. I have been pondering what that actually means. Thoughts have swirled around, I have written ideas down, I have investigated some things, and I could feel things starting to come together.

What emerged in December was the word Professional. I had a direction so it was time to create some of the sign posts.

I love using graphic organisers. They help me to make sense of my thoughts. They also demand that I use coloured pens, another thing I love! So my first graphic organiser was an acrostic poem. The key words came really easily, which indicated that all of this was coming together at just the right moment. Then I did a brainstorm to expand out the ideas. [Yep, they are colour coded!]

My acrostic poem

The results of my brainstorming

So Professional for me is making my name as an artist. There are many things involved in that ~ practical and intellectual tasks, changing some habits, like not procrastinating 🙂 and exploring new avenues. However, the key has to be to produce a body of work to show others.

It is reassuring to recognise that I am not starting from scratch with this. I already have a lot of experience with online selling through the Etsy shop and therefore I have a range of work to showcase. I had my first wholesale order too; that required me coming to grips with quite a few things.  Over the last year I set up a system to allocate time to my various projects, and it still works well. [And again, yep, they are colour coded!]

Pages from last year’s organisational diary

Also, as a result of the time on Flinders Island I have quite a few things on the go that are not stock for the shop. It is this body of work that I need to build up too, as I hope this will become the exhibition.

So I am both consolidating and learning, becoming more focussed while letting my mind run free! It will be a good year, because wherever I am in twelve months time I will have created and learnt. And used a few coloured pens along the way!