It’s time for my yearly review of all things 2012.
I would have to say that 2012, while not a bad year, was not my best. I did some good work in 2012, so I would have to wrap it up as a sort of “solid” year, but I do think things could be better. I’m going to work on changing around some things in 2013, in order to better move things along for the coming year. More on that tomorrow, for now, let’s look at 2012 in review.
In January of 2012, I had a show out in Johnson City. It was a big show for me, because it was one of the first times I was juried into a show by a tough juror. Phew! Felt like I slayed a dragon with that one (even though, really, in hindsight, I didn’t. There are no dragons here.)
I celebrated 10 years of blogging in 2012. Cheers to that, right? I wrote about 127 blog posts (well, OK, maybe make that one or two more, not counting this one and all just yet.) I completed National Blog Posting Month and participated in the annual Austin City Hall art exhibition again this year.
Got a little bit of travel in. I finally went down to the Texas Coast, to Port Aransas in the summertime and I went back to one of my favorite cities, New Orleans, just about the time of carnival. Fun stuff, and I’ve already started booking travel and thinking about booking travel for the coming year. This time around, I hope to get to a few places I’ve not been before, so here’s hoping 2013 brings on some new inspiration in terms of locations. I’m really looking into some exotic locations for 2013 so maybe it’s safe to say 2012 gave me the courage to finally look beyond my comfort zone in terms of travel locations.
I started teaching more in 2012, having workshops and speaking engagements. I spoke to three groups in 2012 and helped lead an iPhone photography workshop over at Flatbed Press with the wonderful Tina Weitz. I also lead a bunch of portfolio discussions and helped a few artists out in terms of getting portfolio presentations together. I’d have to say 2012 was a banner year for that and, though I expect to continue with some of this in the new year, I also have to stay focused on getting my personal work out more, as I have not been doing that enough.
I did a few commercial-type shoots in 2012, including one for a costume designer/seamstress friend and some of these holiday type boxes. I participated in the East Austin Studio Tour (EAST) and did some painting as well.
I refinanced my house which, though not really art-related, took up a lot of my time in the late summer months. It has really been great to get that behind me, as it was a real blocker and now I am more financially free to work on other things. That newly found financial freedom (of sorts) allowed me to order a new computer and finally a solution to my hard drive issues, which have been dogging me for the majority of 2012. Hopefully, this will all be put behind me in 2013 and I look forward to doing a lot more shooting in the coming year, with a new computer to process it all and lots of storage space to save everything.
I also started looking at lighting kits and got myself setup to do a few new things in 2013, most notably lining up a few new projects and also thinking about new ways to present my work to you. Look for some big news in the early part of 2013 regarding that.
I was approached and sold a few shots for print publications, so look for my work to appear soon in printed format. I always love that kind of work and expect to pursue it even more come 2013.
All in all, 2012 wasn’t a bad year. It was solid. I did enough to keep busy, did things like re-finance the house, and got the hard drive issue worked out, getting myself setup for a big round of shooting come early 2013. I have lots of plans for the early part of the year, even though I took a bit of a break at the end of 2012 to rest up and relax some over the holiday season.
I hope your 2012 was all that you wanted it to be and more. Artists are busy people and, though it can feel like we never get anything done, sometimes, when you look at a list such as this one, you can see how much work we actually really do over the course of a year. It’s a lot when you look at it this way, even if it didn’t seem like we were always busy or even always moving forward with a lot of things. Eh, it’s just like that sometimes, right?
Here’s hoping you have a great 2013 and please stop back in for more news about what I have in store for the early part of the year.
Until next time…
