2023 is right around the corner!

My plan for this week between Christmas and the New Year has been to do the things I WANT to do rather than HAVE to do. (The last couple of months planning Workshop Week 6 and handling some other things – like LIFE – were exhausting.) Things I wanted to do include the usual end of the year review and, more importantly, making plans for the coming 2023.

Gotta say I’ve been a little lazy on all accounts. Also, the final holiday rush took its toll physically. I’ve been mostly lying low the past few days: started a novel, doing Sudokus, and working on a new hooking project. Going through my piles and drawers and closets to organize and dispossess hasn’t happened. Yet. I still have a couple of days, especially given that it’s a long weekend. Watch for that ANGEL OF 2023! She’s a little late this year, but she’ll make an appearance by January 1.

I didn’t feel up to a detailed post mortem on 2022. Sadly, the end of the year brought with it a flurry of deaths in my little part of the universe. Nonetheless, like everyone, my 2022 brought some downers and some nice pluses. Teaching in Tennessee at the Shakerag Workshops was right up there. If you have a chance to participate – as a teacher or a student – I highly recommend the experience. A couple of articles I wrote were published in Rug Hooking Magazine. There were art shows and festivals here in Albuquerque and in Other Places, New Mexico. In the fall I made it out to Seattle to visit the kid. With a little luck, Tom and Bowyn, and I will make a road trip there in 2023.

What about the coming year? In 2023, I’d really like more time to myself, time to explore my making. Certainly, I look forward to teaching and sharing how others can get in on this calling of rug hooking and other fiber arts, but I need to carve out time for myself to sit in one place and ponder and experiment without distraction. I find it really easy to administer, to volunteer, to vacuum (ew!), to do anything but make the things I’ve seen in my imagination. Busy-ness, a need to feel needed, and the concomitant exhaustion – they can kill an art practice. I see it in others, and all it leads to is regret.

So, my big goal in 2023 is: SOLITUDE. Not that I plan on blowing anyone off. I’m a très social being who has a hard time saying NO. But it’s time for a little me-time. (Being Catholic and Irish, I know I’ll apologize for that all year.)

My New Year’s wish is that you too carve out some solitude for yourself and your art, your gaming, your reading, whatever it is that you can lose yourself in. Happy 2023!