A New Year, and there's still Covid

It has been 8 months since my last post which was right at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Aptly, I just had finished a piece titled "Alice in Nowhereland," and wrote a blog post about how topical it was considering everything was shut-down and places were empty. And then my blog shut-down...

Thinking back there were many blog posts that I wished to write throughout 2020. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to do it. There was always something more important to do with my time. Additionally, for me at least, writing takes a lot of time and energy, and it takes away from my limited precious time of doing art. However, this year I have decided that art is more than just the activity of "doing artwork" but it requires other activities in order to turn it into a business. One of these activities is writing a blog.

I believe that a blog is important, because it provides a glimpse into how the artist thinks. This is not to say that my thoughts are important, but more so that art appreciation can go deeper when there is an understanding of the artist. Therefore, my blog posts maybe one day down the road for posterity will allow some collector to be able to read and appreciate their piece of artwork a bit more.

So here I am still in the middle of this pandemic at the start of a New Year wondering, "will this be the year that my art career can begin to look more like a career versus a glorified hobby?" An art career cannot be sparked from sitting in the basement, creating new pieces of art, and posting online (well maybe it could ... ) An art career is about engaging the larger art community both in person as well as online. The in person is the hardest part during Covid. This is further complicated by the fact that I am a stay-at-home father who's number one priority is his family. I guess that until Covid is over, I will have to continue doing artwork in my basement, posting online, and participating in shows that have no human presence in galleries. It's a very weird time, but as Jerry Saltz says, "Quit crying you baby and make some art!"

As this is my first blog post for the new year, I will summarize what happened last year and share the brief outlook on the coming months.

Last year, I completed 8 large pen and ink drawings. 3 of which were ballerina themed. Another 3 were abstract portraits of goddesses overtop Jack Kirby comic backgrounds. The last 2 were World War 1 themed abstract portraits overtop Jack Kirby comic backgrounds (Image in Blog Post). Additionally, I was able to do 5 commissions of a variety of themes. One of them was an oil painting portraiture (my only oil piece from 2020). I also did 3 small ballerina drawings with poetry to decorate our bathroom. Lastly, I did an epic Inktober wherein everyday I drew for 2-5 hours for the daily theme with the overarching topic being "Star Wars." This was what I was most proud of, but it nearly drained me of energy requiring November to be a lighter month of artwork. Nevertheless, from those ink drawings came the pressure to do prints and sell them.

This month the goal is to participate in one group show for Drawings and apply to a second show for Drawings. It is also the time to develop good habits aligned to my New Years goals which revolve around pushing myself to more art business. Lastly, it is to finish up the last remaining piece started in 2020 so that I can begin a new series of artwork which I would really like to be Oil Paintings as I have some extremely interesting ideas.

And let's leave it at that...