So, I’ve been working on this reflection workbook called “What’s Next” with a good friend of mine. We’ve only gotten through the first ten pages or so, and I think there are about 35 pages in total. It’s been eye-opening, and I guess pretty helpful in finding out what the hell I want for my future.

Someone posted about these PDF books on the Netvvrk feed. I’ve talked about Netvvrk before, and it’s incredibly helpful to one’s art career. There’s so much shit to learn there. I highly recommend it to working artists.

The person who posted the link to these books proposed an interesting idea: doing a self-funded artist’s residency to work on this workbook and reflect on the past quarter. Then, from that reflection, plan future goals for the next few months. I thought this was a great idea—to go somewhere beautiful and rent a cabin or something, spending focused alone-time on this for a couple of days. Interesting idea, no?

I kinda did this back in 2014. It was all part of my plan for the Exodus Project. I spent 10 days on a huge property in Joshua Tree, right on the border of the national park. It was stunning. The house we rented had a separate art studio, and I spent hours every day drawing and planning the exhibit, along with the beginnings of the movie I made with Jonathan Nesmith and Susan Holloway (Up to Now).

To do that again, I wouldn’t need 10 days. Plus, I live here now, so I’d have to pick a different location. I think it would be healing and put my mind into a different space. It’s a thought for future me. “Future me” sounds a little bit like a superhero or something. Maybe it is?

One of the many cool things about this workbook was listing out the things I’m proud of myself for. The focus is on the last three months. I almost skipped this question, or rather, I didn’t even notice it. It’s probably because I don’t spend any time thinking about such things. I think about my failures way more often. It took me a bit to come up with stuff, but there were a lot of little things, which made me feel kinda positive. A rarity, really.

You also ask yourself about what worked for you and what didn’t, things you may have changed your mind about, and what you want to focus on for the next few months. It might sound a little odd, but I’ve been realizing (through doing this workbook and even before) that I don’t care too much about gaining accolades anymore. It hit me that I need to spend more time doing real self-care, like relaxing, sleeping, reading, spending more time training my dog, maybe even baking. I have not lived any real life in a long time. All I do is work. That’s not healthy!

I also know that I want to start creating abstract work again. That’s not to say I won’t continue with the Discarded Snapshots paintings—I’m always adding to each of my series, just not consecutively (usually). It’s why I can’t crank out a whole body of work within a year like a lot of other artists do. The pieces trickle into each grouping over a long period of time.

But it was almost three years ago, I made plans for some abstract pieces that I can’t get out of my head. They would require power tools and probably some help from Hannah since they’re on wooden shapes that would float off the wall a couple of inches. I made a quick digital mock-up of one of the pieces I’m considering making.

Not all the color is there yet, so this is just the gist.

In other news, I worked a bit on the wallpaper in this painting:

Now I have to wait again for it to dry before I can continue. I’m about to start the very last painting for the show. It’s a 20 x 24-inch piece on gessoboard. I really, really want to be loose and sloppy with this last one, something I always plan for and never quite allow myself to do. I need to maybe care less about the work or something. That’s really hard to do on purpose! Maybe this time, I’ll get high before I start putting paint on it. Maybe that will do the trick. We’ll see.