Laume's Studio

I wanted to put up a post over at Beach Treasure with my New Year's reso...I don't like the word "resolutions"... let's use the word "goals". Resolutions have a bad reputation for being forgotten, abandoned, and embarrassing. Goals on the other hand seem more a useful and helpful selection of purposeful direction. Not only is it a new year, but in a week's time it will be my birthday, I'll be 51. I've always liked how my birthday falls neatly in the start of each year, no troublesome need to keep track of calendar years and biological years separately. I decided a year is long enough to figure out the territory in the second half of a century, it's time to start working towards some new accomplishments over here.

The problem is I've had a house full of family and activities for weeks and weeks on end and I haven't really had any down time to speak of, in which to reflect and choose some new goals and directions. Sometimes I feel like Pooh Bear, who finds thinking requires great effort, and who is easily distracted by pots of honey and visitations of friends and fearful thoughts of heffalumps and woozels. I am very much in need of some uninterupted peace and quiet at my very own thinking spot.
Until I find that time, I thought I could at least make a list of creative goals I'd like to throw into the arena for consideration. How much I'll acomplish this year will depend greatly on which directions I choose to go. I'm still undecided how much time I want to spend hanging out with WORDS and how much time I want to buddy up with IMAGES. It's like having two very dear friends battling to be given the title of BFF (Best Friend Forever). I don't want to choose. But I don't know how to split my time between them and they tend to bicker and wrestle between the two of them. About midway through last year I'd had just about as much as I could take and I made a pronouncement that I wasn't going to allow myself to be pressured to make a decision just yet. I would spend my time as I pleased with both, or either, or neither, with no expectations. I'm still in that floating undecided place.


But let's pretend, just for this one night, that I have unlimited time. A time turner perhaps, like Hermione, so I can take all the classes at Hogwarts and I don't have to choose. With a time turner I could make all sorts of grand goals.

A Wish List of Visual Art Goals for 2008

I want to spend less time buying supplies and more time using them.

I want to get my supplies organized enough so I can actually FIND them when I need them.

I want to finish UFO's.

I want to join a few online swaps or challenges that will help me stretch and reach out beyond my comfort level. Just enough swaps to be fun, not so many that I'm stressed for time or lose sight of personal projects.

I'm not at a point in my life where I feel the need for an organized artist's group but I would love to have a half dozen or so scheduled days or evenings in the year to get together with a friend or two and create together. My daughter-in-law is usually up for this sort of fun. My friends Shelly and Shirley would be fun to create with too, if only we could fit our schedules together somewhere!

Still going with the fantasy "anything is possible" goal, I'd love to create a body of work large enough to show at our local county arts council. On a more realistic level, I'd like to create enough work to at least participate in a group showing by the end of the year.

I'd like to select, enlarge, and frame some of my favorite photography.

I'm not much of a class taking type, but I'd love to go on an artist's retreat.

I'd like to feel free to create simple crafts without guilt that I should be making something "fancier" or more "sophisticated". Just plain ol' FUN time - bring out the pom poms, Elmer's Glue, poster paints, charm squares, and popsicle sticks.

I'd like to finish (finish being a relative term as a home is always an evolving space) the decorating changes and upgrades I started in 2007. (This fits as both a creative goal and a more general, practical life goal.)

I'd like to learn some new techniques.

I'd like to make time to visit more art museums and galleries. Since I'm fantasizing, I'd love to visit artist's studios as well.

Of course the time turner would make it possible for me to visit all the inspiring blogs I wanted and still have time to shower, clean house, and cook delicious and nutritious meals every night for my family. (snort! now we're really talking fantasy!)

I'd like to get back into sketching and painting.

I'd like to paint some murals in my home.

I'd like to knit, quilt, make textile art, photography, collage and assemblage art, altered books, garden art, and art dolls. Oh yeah, I don't want much. And of course, write a novel or two and travel extensively and remodel my home and gardens and read all the books I want and.....so on, ad infinitum.

I'd like to (ideally, magically with no effort whatsoever) learn how to use Photoshop. If that doesn't work, I'd like to take a class at our local community college that helps me learn to use it.

I want to make at least two fantastic costumes for myself for the Faerieworld Festival.

I want to spend more time reading my art books and magazines instead of just stacking and restacking them after cat attacks.

I want to have more work to show and share here and I want to create an ever more inspiring and welcoming blog that will keep me in touch with all the wonderful artists in the Blogging world. Yes, each and every single one of you. So, like, now I'm like Santa, with magical powers to visit the entire globe in a single night. Only unlike Santa, who only attempts it one night out of the year, I'd like to do it at least once a week or so.

Okay, now I'm just being silly. Time to call it quits for the night. It's getting late and my brain is becoming even more Pooh-like.

So. What are your creative goals for this bright and shiny new year?