It’s that time of year to look back at where I’ve been and ahead to where I’d like to go!
To say 2019 was busy is definitely an understatement! Eleven shows turned out to be an insane pace for even this over-productive artist. AND we bought and furnished a house this year.
I always find this review process such a helpful exercise, so I hope you’ll indulge me (and maybe even enjoy it a little?)
Somewhere around 75-80 acrylic paintings seems to be my norm, judging by 2018-2019. I think I might like for that number to go down a tiny bit, but as long as I have galleries requesting (and selling!) small works, it looks like that quantity will continue.
Each year I explore a new series, even if briefly, and this year it was ENTANGLEMENTS. This series felt right and even exciting at the time, but my interest waned, as it seems to do sometimes. It may be something I revisit eventually, but for now, I don’t have a desire to go any further.
I continued to revisit VENTERS seascapes, my tiny SCINTILLA series, and my series of water abstractions, ECHOES. In the ECHOES series especially, I explored ways of expressing more texture and movement within the context of water. I loved experimenting, but find myself longing to go back to the more calm, peaceful expression of water reflections.
Sometimes we have to diverge from the path only to find our way back to where we are headed..
My LEMOLO series continued to evolve and I was very pleased with where these took me this year. Things brightened and softened for my two person show at Art & Light and then, after signing on with a new Seattle gallery, I allowed myself to explore more mountainous terrain in these memory journeys. I’m looking forward to seeing this series and my landscape work continue to evolve in 2020.
I’ve been painting these abstracted tree watercolors for 2 years now and took on a couple of new challenges this year– the first being a big commission/licensing deal with a major outdoor brand (stay tuned for that announcement in 2020!) that took a lot of time in phone calls, emails, and negotiations and then an incredibly fast turn around. This wasn’t my first foray into licensing but it was the first time I’ve created paintings specifically to be used as a textile pattern design and definitely the quickest turn around EVER for a commission.
The second watercolor challenge was to create these little watercolors on a larger scale for the New Additions show at J Rinehart Gallery in Seattle.
In my biggest personal news of the year, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE. After 8 years of traveling, we were both ready to settle down and in 2018 we decided Western Washington was our spot, especially after hubby was offered a job in Everett. We started casually looking at houses around March and found a little house that felt warm and welcoming, that seemed perfect to grow old in (ugh, we have to plan for that now), and in an area we love and neighborhood where affordable houses go FAST. So we pulled the trigger much sooner than we’d planned and hubby actually closed and started moving in while I was on the East Coast for the Breath | Air show and my niece’s graduation. Insanity!
So any creative juices and energy not expended in creating over 100 paintings has gone into planning, painting, furnishing, organizing, cleaning and all the work that goes into a new home. It is coming along, I’m hoping by this time next year I will no longer be laying awake at night designing rooms in my head.
Compared to years past, we didn’t get much hiking or adventuring in this year (see paragraph above about new house, ha!). But we did finally get to see Mount Hood, Lopez Island, and British Columbia!
With such a busy year, I didn’t quite get to all of my goals that I laid out at the end of last year, and priorities shifted so that some of these weren’t even on my radar..
Expand my gallery representation in the West/Northwest and beyond.. CHECK but this is still a goal for 2020, specifically representation in the West (Colorado, Santa Fe, Jackson Hole, etc).
Expand representation for corporate and healthcare artwork placement in the Pacific Northwest.. applied to a few opportunities but other priorities came first. This is an ongoing quest.
Build a new website (ugh! this needs to be done but I am SO not looking forward to it).. This is at the top of my list for 2020. Stay tuned!
Merge this blog into the new website.. Artsy Forager has been around for almost 9 years but having this blog separate from my artist website just doesn’t make sense anymore. I will probably continue to have both domains functioning for a while, but clicks to AF will redirect to lesleyfrenz.com. I will still blog it just won’t be under the Artsy Forager domain. This goal has been a long time coming, so fingers crossed I can get it done this year!
Explore more IMMERSIONS work in acrylic.. nope. This didn’t happen. I still think about it occasionally but don’t feel a strong pull. So this is dropping off my Goals list.
New goals for 2020:
Streamline my accounting, inventory systems
Streamline, do better organizing and planning for social media
Create and foster community with other artists in the Northern Puget sound area
Attend at least one workshop to either learn a new skill or improve existing skills, explore new ideas
Apply to at least half a dozen artist residencies
2020 is already shaping up to be commission heavy (looking at somewhere around 10 commissioned paintings already in the planning stages) and I’m looking forward to seeing where the new year takes me!
Thank you, dear friends, for continuing to follow along on this journey, especially between the radio silences here on the blog. I won’t promise more blog posts next year, but I do to come and check in more often.
Hope to see you more in the new year!
