Resolutions Revisited

As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

• I intended to be faithful and blog at least once a month, maybe more!
• I intended to be a whirlwind of creativity, madly clipping and doing collage, painting up a storm and sketching everything I saw.
• I intended to make time for more art...to find the slivers of the day and fill them with color.
• I intended... I intended... I intended.

And I guess I did some of it. Well, not the blogging part, which apparently I'm pretty miserable at!

I participated in a tag exchange. Mine is the fish.

I spent an art-filled, snowy weekend in Mineral Point, Wisconsin staying in a historic home with my sisters and Pam. Here's an example of the exquisite corpse books we all worked on.

I made a lot of postcards to mail off to people I've only met virtually through the IUOMA (International Union of Mail Artists).

I redecorated my bedroom, painting the walls with exactly the color of periwinkle I'd been longing for, and finally adding the vintage chandelier. Well, I didn't do the painting, Pam did between cooking meals for her blog!

I went to Taos for a luxurious week of art - making a sketchbook then doing my best to fill it with paintings and sketches. All thanks to one of my fav people, Jill K. Berry.

I've even sketched a bit as part of the Sketchbook Challenge. I haven't kept up with every monthly challenge, but there's still time, right?

I suppose I haven't been the slacker I sometimes imagine myself to be. And I have the good fortune to work in a creative job with creative people surrounding me. I did help to launch a new magazine these past months - I guess that counts especially since I get paid to do it!

And it's only April, right?

A Jump on a Resolution

I don't take enough time to create - just for me. I work too many hours then come home tired and hungry and the night slips away before I can make it upstairs to my studio space.

Mornings aren't much better. I get up and start working or checking email or fall into various other technological distractions.

Journal page from last summer.

I also don't take enough time to read. Except on a recent vacation where I read 2 entire books and got halfway through a third. That book, along with another I haven't finished, are waiting patiently for me to finish them.

I learned an important time management lesson from Pam - to understand that it isn't that we don't have enough time, we just don't prioritize the things that are important to us... then we say 'I don't have enough time for ______', which simply isn't true. We spent the time on other things.

Art challenge box from last summer.

I'm going to choose to take more time for art this year. In that spirit, I've already scheduled a week of art in March in lovely Taos, New Mexico and will be following along with The Sketchbook Challenge. I've also become a member of the International Union of Mail-Artists.

Sketch in progress from fall drawing class.

In other words, like seeing my personal trainer, I've made a commitment to other people and invested some money in something I think is important - so I just get off my preoccupied butt and do it!

2011 is the year of living creatively for me. Wherever that leads. And from what I understand, I may have to polish my interpretive dance techniques. What have I gotten myself into?!