Weekly Celebrations – looking back at 2023

100 Accomplishments

For many years I wrote a 100 accomplishments list at the end of the year.

(You can read them here: Lisa Call’s 100 Accomplishments on the MakeBigArt blog.)

It was such an empowering activity. It helped me see that I was doing quite a bit, even though I felt like I was always behind and should be doing more.

The practice came to an end during the pandemic. Not intentionally – I just stopped feeling like doing the lists

It required a tremendous effort to track down all of those statistics and I simply no long wanted to make the time to do the work to compile into a blog post. It would usually take me a few days to write those posts.

AlsoJanuary is summertime – which is vacation time. My head is just not in the right space to do that work.

So the last few years my annual reviews have been lacking. And I’ve been missing them.

More importantly – I’ve been missing what doing this sort of review brings. It is an incredibly valuable process to reflect back to celebrate and acknowledge the progress I am making towards my goals.

So it was time to come up with another way to review my year here on the blog.

I’ve decided to share a compilation of the weekly celebrations I share with the MakeBigArt Community.

Anyway.. Every week in the community we share one thing we have accomplished to remind ourselves of the progress we are making.

Below is the list of the things I wanted to share and celebrate with the community. And now with all of you – my wonderful blog readers.

It’s not a complete list of everything I’ve accomplished over the year but it gives a really great snapshot of some of the highlights of the year.

After the list I’ll share a few reflections.

50 Weeks of Celebration

1. We painted 1 side of our house. (photo at the top of post)
2. I wrote a blog post (I noted I wish I wrote more)
3. I completed my “must do” list of thing before vacation (you probably know that list and make similar ones – why do we always try to do too much before we leave town?)

4. Had an amazing 5 days on the river doing the Wanganui River Great Walk (it’s a canoe trip but designated as one of the Great Walks)

5. Sold 1 work of art during a weekend art show
6. I made it to my sewing machine 1 day (during a busy 2 week period between summer vacations.) 

7. On vacation (Abel Tasman kayaking + time in Kaiteriteri)

8. On vacation – hiking the Paproa Great Walk – 55.1 km long (during cyclone Gabrielle)
9. 90% caught up with life post vacation + visited galleries in Wellington
10. More house painting completed. 
11. 12 hours in the studio – the first solid week of studio time of the year after summer holiday season
12. Wrote a blog post (second week in a row!)

13. Artist retreat away from home – 23 of the 48 hours spent cutting, pressing and sewing.
14. Attended two art openings – Rebecca Crowell’s work in a group show in Lower Hutt and Elisabeth Vullings lighthouses at Pātaka
15. Celebrated the final zoom call of an amazing session of Working in a Series
16. Did a major reorganization and restructuring of the MakeBigArt Network and Community
17. Wrote a blog post and did a tech thing (fixed my spf record so my email to gmail accounts didn’t bounce back)
18. Celebrated a major milestone birthday
19. Hurt my hand – trip to A&E – celebrated the prednisone that finally took the pain away.  Sometime modern medicine is a miracle
20. Held a studio successful online studio sale
21. Trip to the USA to spend time with family and friends.   So so perfect to see my kiddos.

22. Week two of my trip to the USA – more time with family and visited the Keith Harring exhibition in LA with one of the MakeBigArt community members
23. Celebrating being able to make art again as my hand had healed after resting it for 3 weeks.
24. Amazing 4 day holiday in Auckland.  Art galleries, amazing free upgaded hotel room and seeing Hamilton.
25. Big change in the structure of the MakeBigArt Network.  The Community is no longer included in any courses other than my year long programs.  
26. Wrote a blog post – Are you a Chicken or an Eagle.
27. Celebrated having 3 really focused and excellent days (included write another blog post)
28. Filed my New Zealand taxes
29. Celebrated Matariki (Māori new year – kinda)
30. Explored social media:  created a tiktok account – deleted it 2 days later.  Gave up on threads (I still have the account but don’t want to invest my time in it).  Result – I am more confident making vertical short format video
31. Wrote a blog post sharing the artwork from some previous Working in a Series classes.  
32. Submitted work to Quilts=Art=Quilts.  First time I’ve entered a big US art quilt show in about a decade. (Was accepted)

33. Painted 100 small watercolor paintings in a wool shed in the Coromandel (in the very very cold)
34. Made the decision to stop teaching Create a Body of Work.  The 2023 session will be the final session
35. Sold four artworks during the week.
36. I set up and launched my long running programs – the Greenhouse and the final session of Create a Body of Work and had a lovely studio visit with Patricia Belyea, who wrote a lovely blog post about her visit. 
37. I celebrated the checklists I use to set up and maintain my courses – I couldn’t do what I do with out systems.
38. Three things:  Shipped my artwork to Quilts=Art=Quilts / Judged the Kapiti Quilter Quilt show / attended the AGM (annual general meeting) of Aoteroa quilters
39. Two things:  39 1/4 hours of studio time (25 of those hours were at a weekend retreat) / I became a New Zealand citizen
40. I was invited to teach in Spain in 2024
41. Gave a talk at the Kapiti Quilt Guild that was well received. 

42. Packaged up the 100 watercolor paintings – to be used as gifts for an upcoming online show in 2024. Information coming soon on how you can get one of these.

43. Rebuilt the framing for the deck outside of my studio.
44. Attended The Chicks concert in Christchurch (and did much walking around the city)
45. First weekend of open studios during the Kapiti Arts Trail event (with a newly rebuilt deck)
46. Second weekend open studios and attended my first zoom call for the level one Te Reo Māori course I am taking.
47. Launched the 2023 Sketchbook Challenge and sold out spaces in the program.
48. Spent a full day researching watercolor options and purchased a few more as my annual artful gift to myself.  Also bought a new palette to move from 15 colors to 48 colors.  
49. Started 12 new pieces for my newest body of work – to be worked on simultaneously

50. Finished a sketchbook! I don’t sketch daily, but do manage 3-4 times a week fairly consistently thanks to the sketchbook challenge I hold every year.

Reflection on 2023

My initial thought when reading my list of checkins was “Was I ever actually home?”

2023 was a year I purposely participated in no exhibitions. I forgot my resolution to do nothing and signed up to do the open studios for the Kapiti Arts trail. But it was absolutely fantastic to have the year with no deadlines.

As a result I put in a sold start on a new body of work. One way I did that was by taking my own Working in a Series course.

While my number of studio hours this year is probably the lowest it has been in all the years I’ve tracked them (there are still 2 weeks left so I’ll know soon) – I’m feeling rested. I had definitely fallen into a bit of overwhelm and really needed a slower year.

My other thought was that I did accomplish a lot even though the year has been one of my least “productive” ever.

It is good to be less productive sometimes.