Fresh Start

Hello and Happy New Year.

I figure that the beginning of a bright, brand-new shiny year is as good of an incentive as any to resurrect my blog. You know, more pressure to maintain consistency…more guilt if I don’t.

I spent a good portion of this afternoon cleaning my studio and reflecting on the past twelve months – sort of a Molly-Maid-Year-In-Review.

So much happened in my life last year.

Strangely, I’m mildly surprised by this.

Life seems to move so slowly when you’re in it. It’s not until you summarize sections that you realize you’ve actually made progress.

2009 was my year of being open; my year of saying “yes” to all opportunities offered to me. As it turned out, there were opportunities a-plenty. Without actively pursuing them contracts and short-term job op’s trickled in – a steady stream from April through December. In the last year I’ve worn the hats of a dog walker, a community artistic producer, a university student, a public programmer, an artist-in-residence, and an arts educator. Challenging work with some pretty steep learning curves. Don’t misunderstand me, it was all intensely valuable. And intensely time consuming. Consequently, it was a year of not getting into the studio (truthfully I cannot blame my many occupational distractions for the entirety of my absence, both in my studio and on my blog, but I’ll share more about that at a later date).

Feeling a bit derailed I have decided that 2010 is going to be my year of acute selfishness; my year of saying “no”; my year of only taking on outside work that weighs in equal to the importance of my studio work.

I had a chance to practice my new philosophy at the end of December…I declined a teaching opportunity for 2010. Saying “no” felt obscenely good, though End-Of-March-2010-Jody may be angry at End-Of-December-2009-Jody for turning down a perfectly good money-making gig 😉