New Year Goals as an Artist
I’m loving this space to write and not take myself too seriously. It’s really like a journal, and a landing place for folks who are interested in my art/me and want to learn more or go back in time for deep dives into certain milestones in my career. I created this new website in mid-2023, and so it seems fun to share my thoughts during all the planning and goal setting for 2024.
I am a member of the Thrive Together Network (formerly Artist/Mother- I joined when I was pregnant), and they have such a useful planning guide in their “Thriving Artist Map.” The prompts helped me think about about what I hope to accomplish this year. As a self-employed person AND an artist, there is a lot of thought-gathering that needs to happen to decide what I want to make, when throughout the year, what its potential income is, what commitments/shows are already on the calendar, and the nuts and bolts of what I should be spending time in the studio doing each week and what aspects of that I should be showing online and when. It’s a lot! Not to mention ordering supplies for the year (or quarter) and cleaning the absolute mess of digital files from last year (just me?!!). I typically create still life collections and coastal landscape collections each year, and also do a lot of pet portraits. I like to have one collection that is more play/trying something new, and if it is popular with my audience it may become part of the more permanent studio rhythm in the future. Not ready to announce what I have in mind for my painting experiments this year, but here’s hoping it will be good enough to share!
On with it! So in the map, there is space for 4 big goals, 4 medium, and 4 small, and then another page about home/personal life goals (won’t bore you with that). It feels like oversharing to type all 12 goals here, so I will share and explain one from each section.
Big Goal: Paint a portrait of my son. Counterintuitively, this has nothing to do with my business (maybe not nothing, but close). But it’s so important to me because he is 20 months old and I have never painted him! I’m actually going to try to do this first thing, as in next week. As a full-time mom, my studio time is during nap, after bedtime, on weekends, and occasionally when family visits and I sneak to the easel. I can’t overstate how quickly any “fun/for creativity’s sake/just for me” projects dissipate from my calendar. Enough! Painting my baby asap. Also… hopefully hiring a babysitter a few hours a week ha!
Medium Goal: Get my magnolia painting for The Carolina Inn featured in a publication. I’ve already contacted one local publication, so we will see! I am so proud of the painting and still in shock that it lives at The Carolina Inn permanently. I shared all about it on my own email list/socials/blog post, but would be thrilled to share the story with a wider audience and maybe establish some relationships with local or regional interior designers who are familiar with The Carolina Inn!
Small Goal: Take myself on artist dates! This is an idea from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and it is so necessary. I love painting and never feel like I am cranking out the same work over and over, but I do acknowledge that simply as a result of time constraints I am running on empty in the new inspiration department. My husband has a few more days at home and so tomorrow during my son’s nap I am going to see the Outwin exhibit at The Ackland. So excited! Now that my son is a little older, I also hope to venture out during bedtime (since he won’t so desperately miss me) for some local openings each month.
This next part is likely only interesting to other artists.
Since becoming a mom, I don’t use a planner. I mean my days are quite fluid and jam-packed with toddler care and household chores- no need to write that down, ha. A more overarching approach has worked for me lately, and so I just print blank google calendar pages and tape them to the wall beside my computer a quarter at a time. I fill in appointments/meetings, what I will be working on, collection launch dates, and high priority tasks. I also have a running to-do list on my phone and/or paper pad that just gets updated constantly with little things like ship xyz, answer x email, upload images to x exhibit folder, etc. I’m pretty good about sifting through that list to get urgent things done punctually. This week I’ve really enjoyed looking at a one pager with a box for each month of the year, with each box divided into three sections: what I’m planning to be marketing (showing on IG, writing emails about), what I’m going to be making (usually 1-3 months before I would be marketing it, so there is a delay there), and what is launching that month with the date. Since I paint in oils and they need time to dry, my deadlines are a hard two weeks before any launch date. And from that wild web of info, I fill in the printed google calendar with what in the world I need to be making!
Am I making any sense? Hope so. Will let you know in January 2025 how it went.