I don't do New Year's resolutions anymore.
Sure, I still feel that tug in my chest as the calendar month flips, and that promise of newness and change. For more decades than I care to admit, the resolutions focused on dieting - but quite frankly at 41 I'm tired of focusing on weight and the myriad of other products marketed towards women.
It's So. Fucking. BORING.
I've never heard anyone remembered for being slender and poreless. I hope to shock everyone in the end, keep everyone guessing, and have at least one person mutter 'damn, grandma!'
I'm looking at 2024 in terms of following the seasons, and sitting with the ebb and flow of creativity. Six years into the art world has answered a few 'what am I vs what I am not' understandings - primarily, I don't desire to have a lane (blessed be the neurospicy) and I don't create well based on seasonal demands (stick a fork in my eye if I ever make another Valentine's card). That's ok with me.
I expect that to change many times over the years, and that's ok too. I don't mean to sound disparaging to artists who find their success this way - I think it's a Herculean effort. I deeply admire it. I love to shop and support my artist friends' work at these events. Support local, support small artists, all of it.
I just know that if I'm being completely honest with myself and my trickle of energy, they're just not for me. It's me at my most Japanese - it is what it is. Shikata ga nai. I don't mind MS steering me towards the bench on this one.
(Note to self, by publishing this statement out into the ether, this decision is FINAL LINDSEY. If you see me at a market, I'm obligated to get a middle finger tattoo that says "markets aren't for you, stupid.")
Not cute. Anyhow -
The days here in the suburbs here have icy and cold, true Pyrenees weather. My big fluffy guy is delighted and spending a good part of his day sunny-side up in the powder, and I have been on hungry crow watch. It took me a few years, but I have a small murder of four crows that regularly follow me around my street and bring me shiny bits and bobs, and this Will Go Down as one of my great accomplishments (and makes it impossible or amusing to answer "how do you see yourself in five years"-type questions).
I endeavor to sound like a Bjork lyric at all times.
("I'm a fountain of bloooooooood, in the shape of a girrrrrrrrrl.") (CAW!)
So naturally a crow needed to make it into one of this year's first portraits. She was first sketched in charcoal in a single continuous line, digitized and then embellished and colored.
Creating digitally opens so many doors on days where it is simply too hard to create in-studio (ie my breakfast nook). With this latest snap of winter weather the barometric pressure took a wild swing upwards, and my fellow EDS'rs know how much this impacts joint pain and fatigue. And when these symptoms amplify, my MS peeks in with a 'hey girlll' and wants to join the party. Boom, there goes my eyesight. When the eyesight goes, on comes a headache and epilepsy shows up.
I'm SO fun at parties. Anyhow, here she is in all her glory:
I feel energized by this style, so expect to see more explorations in this direction this year.
And speaking of crows, because honestly when am I not - crows showed up in the year's first free-paint as well in wild splashes of sumi, copper and watercolor:
caw loves,
l