I'm Working on a Project: 2022 Wrap-Up

Friday, January 13, 2023

2022 Wrap-Up

It's time for a look back a 2022. These are mostly for myself- creatively 2022 feels like a really off year. Blogging wise it's about the same as 2021 and 2019 (2020 was an uptick), and the majority of posts were I like posts, thanks to LeeAnna's wonderful community. Where it really feels off is in the amount of time I was able to dedicate to art-making. That also feels like a continuation from 2021, again down from a pretty productive (artistically) year in 2020.

I lost Bentley this year, and my mom lost both her dog Jordy and her dog Shooter who'd lived with me for several years before going to my mom, so it was a tough year on the dog front. It was a good year for flowers, lots of dahlias on these pages, and a hard year for work. I'm here though and doing just fine. Really really grateful for my family and friends. Another good thing this year were travels with my family, and on the art side, I sold a few older art quilts. It always makes me feel better about making when old pieces find new homes!

This came from my 2021 wrap-up post:

"My goal for 2022 is not necessarily to make more, but to hopefully just spend more time working on things (like my art quilts) that are positives in my life, rather than running around constantly feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and negative. My goal for 2022, articulated by LeeAnna, but resonating so much with me I decided to adopt it, is to promote goodness. I feel in need of an attitude adjustment, of reframing to not necessarily always see the bright side, but to work toward something good. I'll try!"

I don't feel like I really succeeded on any of that, but I still like the goal, so I'm going to hold to it for 2023. I'm starting the year optimistic which is a step in the right direction. We'll see if I can translate it into action.

A few other goals for 2023, not all craft focused but I'm writing them here so that they can be written somewhere:

1. Use up some of the miscellaneous crafty bits. I don't tend to accumulate UFOs in the traditional sense, but I do accumulate little crafty and artsy bits here and there. They pile up in my studio just waiting for the day I will use them in something. They all tend to be put away, and some might be suitable for art quilts while others maybe should just be pieced into baby or charity quilts. In any case I want to use some of them! I think I'm going to write a post cataloging some of them just to bring them to my own attention.

2. Visit 12 National Park Service Sites in 2023. I want to challenge myself to visit 12 new NPS sites this year. I got off to a great start with Alibates NM, but it will be challenging to hit 11 more (there aren't that many around here) but I figure maybe I can get to an average of one per month if I make a point of visiting ones near where I'm traveling.

Since part of the reason I like to do these wrap-ups is to remind myself I really did make things, here's a quick list of art and other makes for 2022.

For the first year in a long time I didn't complete any large (by my definition, which is less about piece size and more about the overall magnitude of the project) work. I did make several medium sized art quilts, many of which I really liked.

Finally, this is a 3D sculptural piece I made this year, I hated it so much (all the color washed out in an unhappy way) that I never even blogged about it, but I'm determined to make it into something I like better in 2023. I like the shape and form, but the colors make me want to curl up into a ball.