My values journaling session at the end of 2024 led me to really think about what I want and need from life. I realized through that session that I wanted to put a focus on my own art making and art career.

As a result of this I started to look for artist residencies and grants and opportunities to be more involved in my local art scene.

I missed out on most of the residencies for this year, but I will be applying for residencies next year. I was able to apply for and get into a printmaking workshop as professional development for my DayJob. More on that in another post. I am treating it like a mini residency.

I also missed out on most of the grant opportunities for 2025. I will be looking at grants for next year and the year after that.

I joined a local art association. It has not raised it’s membership cost in many years. It is very affordable. The association is also offering studio spaces inside of the association building. I can also run classes and workshops there WITH association approval. I’m exploring my options.

Joining the art association has been interesting. I joined in on the spring show and won 3rd place for mini art works. I can now say I’m an award winning artist!

Following up on all of this, I have not used my studio space at home in many years. Probably grad school. Due to lighting it has always been more of a storage space. But through grad school and covid it has become a dumping ground for all art supplies and it’s an abysmal mess. The whole basement is a mess.

​With my next few days off I’m starting the process of cleaning and organizing the studio space. This means I need to also organize the whole basement. There are bike parts in the studio and art supplies in the non-studio part of the basement. There’s a long reach pruner and kayak stuff in the art studio.

I need to set up a charging station for all my outdoor supplies and get it out of the art studio. (The saw and pruner are in the art studio due to an easily accessible outlet.) I’ve got a table that I used for potting up plants that is now covered in tools that I never put away plus parts and pieces of various stuff that needs to get organized and put away.

Last night after work I brought the speaker out, turned up the music*, and cleared a path through the studio space. I need to really get into the stuff and get some bins to really organize the space though. Getting the path through the space was the most important first step. From that path I made some piles- garbage, recycling, good but donation, and move to a new location.

I also realized this spring that I have seasons with the materials I like to use. But overall I’m a huge fan of watercolors, gelli plates, and bougie oil pastels. So you’ll see more of all that. I also happened to get a whole bunch of en plein air supplies that will work with a lot of my favorite materials so I’m working on some set ups that will work with my bike set up. I will attempt to remember to take pictures.

Honestly I’d like to know when I got so bad at taking pictures of my progress.