New Year, New Me?

In which I ponder New Year's Resolutions, while considering new metrics for success.

Did you make a list of New Year’s Resolutions? Perhaps cutting back on drinking, no sugar, working out more? That’s not really my style. I typically aim for moderation in most things, except cookies. (Never aim for moderation in cookies, it only leads to disappointment.) Some years though, I do write down a few goals - ideas really about what I’d like to accomplish for the year, mostly related to art. Perhaps I have a project I’ve been thinking about, or to learn a new skill, books read, and maybe I set a goal for number of paintings, or sales, or something.

I’m a numbers and goal-oriented person, so if I made a goal, say 100 paintings for the year, I’m going to achieve that, even at the cost to my sanity and health. If there is a list of things to check off, I will do it. I will gamify it, finish early, or beat the goal - it’s how my brain works. It’s a good skill to have when you’re an achiever, but not so great when you’re trying to be healthy or sane.

See I burned out again this fall, even with a ton of good desert time. I tried not to, but it happened anyway. My solo show, the ink project (which I made into a much larger project than it should have been), and another side commercial project, all while trying to be active, get outside and travel, be social, and get out there. It didn’t help that all my projects culminated around the same time, and while I got them all done, by then end I was depleted and empty. As an artist, you get your highs from making, creating, and even thinking about creating, but when you burn out or don’t have a project, none of that is possible and it leaves one feeling quite terrible.

So I landed in another existential crisis, questioning myself, my purpose, and what it’s all for. (Global events this fall certainly didn’t help). You’d think I’d be used to them by now as I usually land myself in existential crisis at the end of every major project. But they are always different, and with the onset of winter and fears of a repeat big snow year looming, I found myself in a downward spiral. It isn’t pretty - ugly crying, not helping figure out dinner, a lot of cleaning and getting rid of shit, and general moping about. Usually, the recipe to combat my existential spiral is this:

1. Sleep

2. Read, romance novels and other lighthearted are best

3. Be outside

4. Bake

5. Follow any curiosity

I knew it would end eventually, but I got a little impatient, because it seemed to last longer than normal. And looking back on it now, I really wasn’t giving myself the break that I needed. I was still trying to push through and make art, trying to push to achieve made up goals, despite it being very clear that I needed a real break. I didn’t celebrate my wins, and I was not cutting myself any slack thinking I should be able to continue the pace I had just sustained for the last 4 months.

During therapy last month, I was pondering all this when we discussed what my metrics for success were. Those metrics are often based on my goals from the new year or improvement from the previous year - numbers-based goals grounded in some vision for what I should be able to achieve. “Should” being the operative word here, which in my opinion is actually worse than all the other dirty, four-letter words. You could after all just as easily spell it “shud”, and anytime that bad word enters your vocabulary, you’ve just “shud on yourself”. Don’t do that. It’s a word full of judgement, that implies you aren’t good enough and aren’t doing enough. “Should” is my kryptonite and if I “shud all over myself” trying to set impossible goals, I’ll end up in a downward spiral of existential doom.

What I need now are new metrics for success, ones that I can’t gamify, but ones that help me be more stable, more loving, more free, more me. It has taken some creative thinking to get away from my normal, numbers-centric goals, which haven’t been making me very happy. How can I feel “successful” without driving myself crazy? Even a metric for reading books isn’t helpful because I’ll try and beat it (it was 60 for this last year, ps. I counted yesterday… I can’t help it). And I can’t keep track of good nights of sleep, because then I’ll stress and get terrible sleep. Nor can I control powder days, or sales, or the weather. So, I’ve spent the last few weeks pondering this dilemma and brainstorming ideas (how about cloud-watching sessions? or coffee dates? or sunrises or sunsets seen?), but most everything still had a number attached to it. I literally had to rewire my brain to eliminate the concept of numbers-based goals, and eventually I came up with two things:

Quality Over Quantity

Baby Steps

With regards to Quality Over Quantity - it’s hard to measure quality. Being a subjective thing, quality is in the eye of the beholder and along the way, hopefully, I’ll know whether a thing is good or not, for me (with the caveat being that perfection is not the goal). I’m hoping then, that this idea eliminates my numbers-based goals metrics. No final number to achieve at the end of the year. No number of hours slept. No metric by which to measure performance. Perhaps instead I should ask myself - did you enjoy yourself? Were you satisfied with the end result? Are you proud of this thing you made? Beyond work, it applies to life (was today fulfilling?); to sleep (did I wake up rested?); to consumerism (hello, do I really need to buy this thing?); to anything (does this feel good?).

Quality Over Quantity feels like a good one to aim for, but it’s a new concept for me to not have specific goals. This will absolutely be a work in progress as I feel it out and learn how to make it work for myself. But speaking of progress, I still want to do that, still want to achieve, come up with projects and finish them, still have big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs) that I want to complete. But rather than a big push, or setting big goals to keep myself on track, I’m looking to the idea of Baby Steps - little by little, progress even if at a snail’s pace, to get things done. On one hand, life is short, but I have the rest of it and there’s no rush.

Because looking back on my life and my career as an artist, all the work I have done was this slow progression. I’ve been an artist now for over 14 years, and it was slow and steady getting to this point. I didn’t quit my day job until 5 years in, all the while, I kept trying and experimenting, slowly making progress. Some days I made no progress, while others I made leaps. But in the end, every day the experience adds up.

I looked through my current watercolor sketchbook the other day and realized that I did 52 little paintings this year. The crazy thing is I give myself such a hard time, thinking I’m not painting enough, that I should be painting every single day, and I get frustrated with myself if I don’t. But still the work adds up, and soon I’ll add this sketchbook to the growing pile of sketchbooks, which now totals hundreds of paintings, maybe even thousands, and all these small steps add up to a larger, more important body of work. I’m reminding myself constantly, it’s not the work done in a day, but the work done across the span of my life that matters. And even just a small step every day matters.

This is the energy I am trying to take into 2024 - that no matter what, I can contribute some thought or action to a project or goal I have. I’m not trying to create New Year’s Resolutions or become the newer, better version, but I do have a lot BHAGs right now - ideas about painting, art projects I hope to complete, books I hope to write. They are all a little nebulous, and I can’t quite envision the end result, so I have been very slow to start, with small experimental forays that haven’t amounted to much. And for the last few years I have felt stuck because I didn’t know how to start, but now I do - baby steps. Every day (most days, some days - trying not to quantify this), working towards that goal, even if that just means 20 minutes doing research, or a little sketch, or trying out a new paint color. The question is “What can I do today, to get closer to reaching my goal?”

Happy New Year’s Ya’ll.

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In Other News…

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Starting this Thursday, January 4th, I’ll be participating in a few volunteer mending shifts at the Kimball Art Center. This is part of the Lee Mingwei: The Gifts of Connection exhibition running until the end of February. Part of the exhibition, The Mending Project, is an interactive installation in which the act of mending a damaged textile (brought in by a museum visitor) becomes the point of departure for reflection on connection. If you have a piece of clothing that is in need of a little mending (think visible mending and sashiko, not what a tailor can do) I encourage you to bring your item in and spend some time in the exhibit. Expect to be there the whole time while a volunteer mends your item.

Someone will be volunteering every day during museum hours (except Monday). And if you’d like to see me, I will be volunteering at the Kimball on the following dates:

Thursday, January 4th from 2-5pm

Wednesday, January 10th from 2-pm

Thursday, February 8th from 2-5 pm

Tuesday, February 20th from 2-5 pm

For more information on the exhibit, visit The Kimball Art Center. For more on how to mend your own clothes, may I suggest The Mending Life by the Montenegro sisters.