I used to do these annual bucket lists where I'd make a list of, for example, 27 things to do before I turn 28… 28 things to do before 29… 29 before 30. You get the idea. I think I probably stopped doing this around 29 because, well, the list does tend to get longer each year. I was reading back through old blog posts and saw a mention of my 27 before 28 list, and how on that list I'd put “create new art and submit it to a gallery for exhibition.” I definitely didn't accomplish that one, and now here I am realizing that ten years later, at 37, I've got the same thing on my *unofficial* 37 before 38 list. Sometimes having a blog for a decade and a half is cool, and sometime it reminds you of all the goals you never actually accomplished. But in a way, it feels nice to know that this dream is still percolating inside me. I'm still wanting to be a “real” artist, even though I've put it off for a decade.
In the past six months I've screen-shotted dozens of calls for submissions from galleries, magazines, and journals. Of course, most of them have just sat in the graveyard of my screen shots album on my phone, but I've dubbed 2024 the year of submitting, so I'm dragging that album out and actually submitting my work-- whether its poems to a local literary journal, a mural proposal for the city, an article for a magazine, an application for an artist residency… I'm actually doing the thing instead of just thinking “oh, I want to do that!" then screen shotting it and forgetting it forever. You miss 100% of the shots you never take, right? And at least I don't have to compete against all the other people out there who just screen shotted the call for submissions and then left those photos to die in their phone, right?
So whatever the thing is that you've been screen shotting and thinking about doing, but never taking the leap… hey, maybe now's the time! Maybe 2024 is the year you resurrect your screen shot album and start taking action on those little dreams sitting in there.
One of the things that I took action on from my opportunity screenshots… Tacoma Wayzgoose! Wayzgoose is an annual printmaking event here in Tacoma, and besides having tons of printmakers hosting booths as vendors, they also do giant linoleum block prints that are printed using a steamroller. So cool right? I’ve always wanted to do Wayzgoose, so this year when the application opened, I threw my hat in the ring. And guess what? I was picked as one of the steamroller print artists! So for the next month I’ll be feverishly carving away at this absolutely gigantic sheet of linoleum. I’m so so excited. Jack took this photo of me after picking up my sheet of linoleum and I’m not intimidated in the slightest by the fact that it is nearly as big as I am. Nope. Not at all…
All that to say, if you never ask, the answer is always no. So don’t give yourself an automatic rejection by never putting yourself out there in the first place. Now excuse me while I get back to carving…
