Looking back, with the perspective of the bright, shining new year, there is one thing I can definitely sum up about 2020. It was a year of facing myself. Every damn morning as a matter of fact. Just me. No distractions. No one to deflect my mood of the hour. 

This past week in the studio has been about my yearly attempt to make holiday cards. I have been making cards almost every year around the holidays since I was a kid. Literally. I’m not religious and I don’t really get caught up in the Christmas consumer craziness, especially since my kids have been gone. I do, however, get a giddy delight when I hear certain holiday jingles and a special awe when I see tasteful decorations with twinkly lights. Perhaps it’s the remembering of getting swept away in the magic. I always used to tell my kids that. Christmas is about magic. When I think of it that way, I can let go of the stress a little because who doesn’t want some magic in their lives. It comes without expectations. It is whatever you want it to be. 

The year of 2020 is finally coming to a close. The days are short, cold and dark. Today is the solstice, the day with the least daylight. The tipping point. From here on we are waxing, not waning anymore. Another cycle begins. 

I find sunshine distracting. A beautiful warm sunny day brings out this intense love/hate relationship. I find myself spending my whole day searching for ways to sit still. The sunshine, the warmth, the sounds of the neighbourhood mixed with pounding surf. It’s all transportive and I crave that. Then I get angry for letting the stillness of the day distract me from my original intent. Especially if this all-consuming rumination lands on a day that I had designated to be in the studio. 

It’s difficult to make any post right now and not mention the obvious. I don’t care who you are. The anxiety is palpable. Everywhere. The world is suffering and this country, at times, feels beyond repair. I know we are all trying to sit with this awareness, uncomfortable as it is and continue on with our daily existence. But I just want to acknowledge the elephant in the room. So, there it is. 

It has been another week of outright uncertainty. We can’t even say we elected a new president because half the country has decided they don’t agree. There are some that have the resources to pretend that everything is normal around them but it is not. We all know it. I realise life in the best of times is full of ambiguity and shape-shifting, but 2020 has been its own beast. Everyone is craving some sort of normalcy to their lives

We have only this one beautiful life. What do you choose to do with it? The one and only thing I have found to do is make art. Sure, I have had lots of jobs. I used to be able to take menu orders for a table of six without a note pad. I wrote a motion to the Dept of Labor that won a workers’ comp case for a lovely, injured Jamaican man. I have woven so many yards of cloth that in turn made hundreds of beautiful chenille jackets and coats. But how do I identify? I’m a painter. I’m a printmaker. At the end of the day, my thoughts about colour, shape, light, pattern, etc are what I ruminate on. Every day. Since I can remember.

I had made a promise to myself to make a blog post every week. I am struggling with this week though. The prominent thing on my mind as with everyone in this country is Tuesday. Tuesday November 3rd 2020. Everyone in this terribly divided country is in anxiety over this. What will be the direction we choose to go in? Will it be a choice? Do we have a choice? Are we heard? Sitting here waiting out this pandemic. Am I heard? Will my vote be counted? Does it matter? 

There have been times in my life where I thought that strength equated with resilience. All things can be solved if you put your head down and work hard. Power through it. I think I got that idea from my dad. He would always say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” I took that mean there was some sort of goal to be had and there was certainly a way to get there if you had the character.

I have been agonising over my first ever blog post. Just like any new medium I try, I get tripped up on perfection or validity, but what I have realised is that I want to do this blog to open communication and I can’t do that until I just allow myself to be vulnerable and put down the raw thought. I have to begin somewhere.