35 Things that marked 2020

This year my 100 things that marked the year post has shrunk to 35. While I did a lot this year, there was not as much variety as usual so I’m editing it down for you.

 

Artmaking and studio practice

1. This was not much of a painting year for me. I was just flat too busy with other things and I didn’t get into the studio much.
2. The Las Cruces Bulletin published an article about my work.  You can read it here.
3. I planned to spend my spring break in Taos, NM in a self-made artist residency for ten days. I reserved a sweet little Airbnb owned by a printmaker. It was canceled when I had to spend spring break transitioning my community college classes to online for the lockdown.
4. This fall I took a workshop with Zoey Frank, who I’ve admired for many years. It was online of course but it was still great.
5. Atefex sponsored some “paint along” workshops that I did. One was with Elizabeth Zanzinger painting a portrait from the model. The second was drawing a model with David Kassan.

 

Gallery, Exhibition, and sales

6. At the gallery, there were only three Art Rambles (art walks) before Covid-19 locked us down. In February we had about 300 or people come through. It was really great to see some NMSU professor friends and the University Museum art director Marissa Sage.
7. The pandemic required the gallery to be temporarily closed in March and I was hoping to re-open in the summer. It soon became clear the traffic would not be enough to keep it going and I closed the doors for good on July 29th. It was a great year and a half, and I met a lot of wonderful folks. Who knows, maybe there’ll be a reincarnation at some point.
8. Of course, life abhors a vacuum, and my home studio filled up after I rented the gallery and teaching space downtown. So, I created a Facebook group for the exchange and sale of art materials and got rid of lots of magazines, a mannequin, etc. Then I had to re-organize the studio to accommodate everything I moved home from the gallery.

 

 

Art Teaching

9. Just before teaching a workshop in January, I moved everything out of my downtown teaching space to have the floor replaced, then moved it all back two days later. So fun. But really nice floor which I got to enjoy for three months.
10. As the lockdown was announced, I transitioned my painting class to an online format. It was a bit of a scramble learning about delivery methods. I spent many days researching equipment, software, and platforms and trying things out. I wanted to keep classes real-time and interactive, so I used Zoom and it was quite successful.
11. I watched videos on how to record video (so meta!) and learned to edit videos with Adobe Premiere Rush.
12. My spring Art Orientation and Drawing class at the community college was delivered online for the second half of the spring semester. It was a bit of a scramble getting it up and going and challenging for everyone.
13. The community college required that we take a Strategies for Teaching online class, so in August I was once again a student.
14. I re-designed my two drawing classes at the community college to accommodate an online asynchronous format for the fall.

 

 

Professional development –

15. Our Border Artist meetings went online, and our exhibitions were postponed.
16. I participated in a monthly Video mastermind group all year
17. Accountability helps keep you on track with your goals. I have a great accountability partner and we met monthly.
18. I listened to Artist Dialogue which is a new monthly interactive art discussion with well-known artists like Vince Desiderio. Very cool! It’s on the first day of each month and requires registration but is free.
19. We had a Zoom reunion call with member artists of Praxis, an artist group.
20. I read quite a few books but fewer than the year before. Here are a few art-related ones.
    1. I re-read Sigal Tsabari’s Hymn of Weeds catalog. She’s one of my favorite artists.
    2. I was really excited to get Peter VanDyck’s catalog from his recent show. I’m a big fan of his work and of his wife, Carol Pyfrom’s work as well. I have a printed copy but you read/see the digital version here.
    3. Creative authenticity is a book about elements of the creative process by Ian Roberts. I had it for a year and just couldn’t get started on it, but when I did I read it twice and I’m thinking I’ll read it again.

 

Just different stuff

21. In the kitchen, I learned to make Kombucha and gluten-free sourdough starter which I named Permelia after my Great, great, great grandmother. I made gluten-free sourdough bread but Marios is definitely better.
22. Read through the genealogy materials from my Dad’s family going back to the late 1700s. I learned a lot. Then I sent it all to my cousin.
23. Started using the Paprika app for meal planning and recipe storage. I love it. If you cook, you should check it out. It has changed my life for the better.
24. The baby barn swallows on our front porch fledged on June 10th. So sweet watching them and how the parents teach them. Later in the summer, the swallows died suddenly along with thousands of birds in our state. Some scientists thought it might be from particulates in the air from the California wildfires. They died in place and looked frozen in space. Very macabre.
25. We didn’t go to the movies much this year. But I re-watched a couple of faves on youtube which included these:
    1. Mindwalk – This is an old docudrama style movie about how we are all interconnected at the sub-atomic particle level. It was filmed as a conversation. No car chases. Slow but interesting.
    2. Watched El Sol del Membrillo which you can read about here.

 

Personal/health

26. Watched a bunch of videos to learn how to cut my own hair which I did. I decided it was quicker to go back to cutting it with a Flowbee. It’s a whacky invention sold on late-night tv that hooks on to your vacuum cleaner.
27. I just passed my fourth year since I decided not to eat meat. My whole food plant-based diet deteriorated this year to a not very healthy, but mostly vegan diet. Hmmm. Sounds like there is a goal for 2021 in there somewhere.

 

 

Family/Friends/Fun

28. We welcomed a new member to our family. He’s charcoal-colored so we named him Smudge. He’s a Miniature Schnauzer that someone abandoned in the local park. He was matted and malnourished, and I only realized later that he had severe health issues and was actually not far from death. At first, he was not responsive (think almost catatonic). He had such a bad ear infection that he couldn’t hear us. He still has a long way to go, but he’s improving daily and acting more like a normal dog.

Watching Smudge slowly wake up from his sorry state of poor health was heartening. He’s an old dog, but witnessing the first time he stretched, or bounded up to see his new dog friend, or turned on his back to sleep, or barked (OK, you can stop now, Smudge) was very gratifying. He’s a happy little fellow and he really lights us up.

29. My mom kept daily logs of the things that happened for more than 60 years of her life. I have some from the last 40 and have started reading through them. It’s interesting to me to see how she remembered things that I was there to experience.
30. Surprisingly, I made several new friends in the midst of the pandemic. I met people in our neighborhood park while walking our dogs – at a safe distance of course.

 

Baha’i Service & Activities

31. Our monthly prayer breakfast ended in May after trying to transition to Zoom. It’s not the same if you can’t have breakfast together. I’ll resume when we can do so safely.
32. Instead, I’ve been hosting a weekly online interfaith prayer gathering on Wednesdays at 4 pm MT. If you’d like to join us please let me know and I’ll send you a Zoom link.
33. I facilitated four book studies and attended several others.
34. A friend hosts a monthly Race Amity group I participate in. It was formed in response to the racial violence that erupted in Charlotte a few years ago. Its purpose is to help us identify and understand aspects of racism within ourselves and our communities and how to overcome it. It held a lot of relevance for us all this year especially with the new outbreaks of racial violence.

 

Things I learned

35. In 2019 I wrote, “In the greater world, the year was both alarming and depressing on some fronts”. 2020 amplified that and was alarming and depressing many many fronts. The pandemic, the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the fires, the racial injustices and political strife, the dislocation of populations, the economic uncertainty all brought us a year that was difficult for most of humankind.

The anguish we experienced from issues of social justice, the tyranny of racial inequity, and the suffering of a global pandemic each had lessons for us and reinforced the fundamental reality that we are really all members of one single human family.

I hope and pray everyone will have a safer and happier 2021.

 

If you are looking for something new to do this year, check out my oil painting classes which start on February 3rd.