2020 Art Year In Review

I don’t need to wax poetic about how 2020 was a difficult, traumatic, bummer-of-a-time year. We lived it, we know it intimately. However, I do want to honor the fact that I did live an entire year of life, 365 days of an interesting and mundane life where art was an integral part to my every day. This post isn’t about justifying how productive I was or wasn’t or defining my self worth by how much I did. I just want to show you some of the cool things I made and talk about how art got me through this year. I was talking to my friend Nick and he said something that has really stuck with me. He said creatives have such a better toolkit for dealing with times like this. I have to agree. I used my creativity to cope with anxiety, express myself, have fun, and adorn things all year long. I also used my creativity to show up for others, as I had my first art fundraisers this year which were both successful. 2020 was definitely a year of ups and mostly downs and I’m not holding out for 2021 to be miraculously better come January 1st, but it was a year that we all lived and got through the ways we could. This is how I got creative during The Great Pandemic.

This is my Vision Board for 2020, one of the first things I did with my friend Heather. Honestly looking at it now, some of these visions came to life. I mean I definitely did eat a lot and I can say I have evolved from who I was before the pandemic. It’s interesting to look at the vibrancy of this scene now but it reminds me that there were still vibrant times this year.

In January 2020 I was still teaching at Sage Creek High School. We were in the thick of trimester 2 and we were making a lot of great art. We were working on contour line drawings, printmaking, and some fun color theory letter paintings around this time.

One of the things I’m most proud of during this teaching time was the recycled bottle installation that my students and I executed on one of the chainlink fences at the school. It was a big project and I learned a lot about managing high schoolers and their and my expectations, but we made something beautiful out of trash! As far as I know it’s still there and you can see it from College Ave. in Carlsbad.

Remember when we could go out and do things and hang out with other people? Well I was doing a lot of that prior to March 13th. I was still going to my Artist’s Way group IRL (now we’re called Creative Quarantine, more on that later). I was going to some art shows and going on artists dates all the time. I saw some art shows at Visual and saw Christine Oatman’s Stories of Innocence and Experience at the Athaneum in La Jolla. Artist’s dates are little dates you take your artist self on for inspiration, for fun, or to get yourself a treat. You do them by yourself for about an hour, ideally once a week. In the Artist’s Way group, we talk about our artist dates and keep each other accountable. We also get a little weird. The last art show I went to was Illumination: 21st Century Interactions with Art and Science at the Art Institute. I really miss going to art shows and getting up close and personal with art, its the first thing I’m looking forward to after this is over.

There was an art show at La Bodega’s new space that I painted something for that never ended up happening because of the shutdown, although it did have an online exhibition. I had also started on a collaborative art installation for an all-female art show at You Belong Here, with my friends Elizabeth and Semoria, but that too was postponed (eventually indefinitely). I’m not sure if our installation on Katherine Johnson will ever come to fruition (though we did have a pretty badass plan in mind), but I like to think our energy and passion had a little butterfly effect in NASA renaming one of its facilities in her home state of West Virginia after her.

The weekend before the shutdown we saw our friend Joe’s final play for his masters thesis at UCSD. I snuck a picture of the set because it was perfect. We really miss hanging out with Kat and Joe and their chihuahua Moliere. They’re over in Ireland now doing more creative things, but we sure had a lot of fun with them while they were here.

Around this time we had to pivot to online teaching and with that came a whole mew set of challenges. We were teaching in our living rooms, trying to find things the kids could do at home, and trying to connect with our students. I had just started a new trimester when the lockdown went into effect so I didn’t have a lot of community building under my belt with the new students. One thing that I introduced to my students was my passion for art journaling and it was something I brought back into my life this year. I’ve art journaled since high school and not only was it fun getting back into it myself, it was fun seeing the students get into it. It’s still one of my favorite parts of 2020.

Also around this time I really started bullet journaling as a way to kind of keep a diary of my day to day. It ended up being something fun to look forward to throughout the year. I got too busy to keep up with it towards the end of the year but I just started my new notebook for 2021 and I’m looking forward to keeping up with a streamlined version of my bullet journal next year.

My birthday and my husbands birthday were in April and we were in full lockdown mode. We had a zoom celebration with some friends. I also released my free Anxiety Catcher in my art shop. I love making these little cootie catchers and might make some more designs next year.

In June, when things started opening back up, I went to work as a Creative Mentor at Revision, a creative workspace for people with disabilities. It’s funny how I fell into this job with a chance meeting with the director Joy, at San Diego Zine Fest. Revision has become one of my favorite things about my life and brings me so much happiness. What Joy has created in the community is amazing and coming into the workspace puts a smile on my face every day. We made so many things, drawings, paintings, crafts, weavings, videos, puzzles, you name it, we did it. One of my favorite projects we did was the collaborative Black Lives Matter banner that we all worked on during the summer and fall. I’ve gotten to work with some amazingly talented artists during my time there and I can’t wait to see the ways we expand in 2021. Come support us in our gift shop which is open on Saturdays from 10-2.

Personal projects abounded this year. Here are a few of my favorites. I finished up a few projects that had been in progress for a while, tried out some new techniques, and really let what interested me be my guide.

We still got out to see some art IRL this year. Christian and I took a jaunt out to Anza Borrego to see the Ricardo Bracero sculptures. I even participated in two art shows curated by Visual Gallery and HeyGrrrl Collective. Even though it’s been tough to keep gallery spaces open this year, the art community is still doing so much to make sure the scene stays alive.

I continued going to Creative Quarantine as my Artists Way group was now dubbed. Every Monday night we met on Zoom from 5:30-7:30 and we talked about our creativity and were really just good friends and supports to each other. I’ve never had such a supportive group of female creatives and mentors in my life and I am so thankful for the group. With their help, I realized a lot of my creative goals for the year. Because of their encouragement, I released two zines, Non-Sequitur Gore Issues 1 and 2. This has been a project I’ve wanted to execute for a long time and I couldn’t have done it without their support! Non-Sequitur Gore is all about our relationship to pop culture and what’s going on in our lives. I’m proud of all the contributors I got, especially for issue 2! I had contributors from around the world submit stuff and it actually ended up better than I could have imagined.

I did do my fair share of just for fun personal projects this year. I took up sewing and made myself a few things including a top, purse, and pillow covers. I also got super into holiday decorating and crafting. We have tubs full of holiday decorations now, which is something I never saw coming. Christian and I also got super into cooking. I experimented with decorated cookies and we took on a huge project of making all of our Christmas gifts this year. It was fun and kept us busy through the last couple of months. With help from my dad, I built my first piece of furniture this year, a custom coffee table with a cantilever top. I’m already planning some furniture projects for next year, so stay tuned! Like everyone else on planet earth this year, we made sourdough bread.

I had a lot more time for fun photoshoots with friends this year, which is something I haven’t done in a long time. I think it’s important to take photos of yourself and document life and this year I got to do a lot of that.

In August I started taking a Museum Studies class at Mesa College with an awesome instructor, Alessandra Moctezuma. We met every Friday on Zoom and together we curated a drive-in exhibition at the college. My collage art was chosen for the branding of the show and it was so cool to see it all over social media and on banners at the exhibition. I had a great time in that class and it was a great group. I felt really connected to the content and to my instructor and classmates. I’m proud of the show we put together and am hoping to continue with the coursework to get my Museum Studies certificate.

This year I also tried out releasing my own desk calendar with my collages and hand painted stands. It was a super fun project and pretty successful! I’m excited to experiment with sharing my art in different ways and creating products. I learned a lot on this one and I can’t wait to make more things!

This year was a year of a lot of different things. Don’t let all of these photos fool you, there were a lot of days of sadness, doing nothing, wallowing and just kind of existing in a weird, halted way. I feel happy for what I was able to do this year and definitely don’t feel guilty for not accomplishing everything I had set out to on January 1, 2020. We should all give ourself a little grace this year.

One of my favorite things this year was going on long walks, where I took a lot of photos of plants. Like A LOT.

We made it through 2020. I made a lot of stuff. I laughed and I cried. Okay enough! One thing I learned this year is make time for yourself and what you love. Show up for yourself. We may never again have the idle time that we had in 2020 to just do nothing and be with ourselves. I want to keep the positive parts of all that time going. What did you make this year? How did you get through? See you in 2021!