And...

Happy New Year!

Once again, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I have chosen a word for the coming year. This started at least 10 years ago, when it was suggested on an online art group I belong to. Some of my chosen words have been quickly forgotten. Some have continued to resonate with me. Some were hard to choose. Some came easily.  Last year’s word, unbound, never quite said what I was feeling, but it did express a hope for a kind of freedom I was hoping for to stretch myself a little. I took classes, I traveled, I lucked into some wonderful opportunities and learned some freeing and encouraging lessons. 

A year ago I was wondering what restrictions advancing age would place put on my desire to keep working as I have been. Perhaps, I thought, I would want to scale back, downsize my art practice, accept a decreased energy level as inevitable, but when I took my first class of the year I found it was so inspiring and energizing that I was ramping up, not scaling back. I was asked to present my work at the International Quilt Festival as a “Rising Star”—crazy! I was asked to join a gallery. I took another class. I bought new equipment. I sold more work than any other year of my life. I learned that life changes with age, but there is still always more. Different, unexpected, but more. So my word for 2020 is “and”.  

   ~Things will be what they have been, and...  

  ~ I will do things I’ve done before, go back to favorite places, and... 

  ~ I will be older, and...  

  ~ I will still be what I am—a woman, a partner, a mother, a grandmother, a friend and... 

 “And” is the promise of more. 

My words from previous years hang on my studio wall, now joined by AND, personified as &.

 

AND so it goes...