My 12 Months of 2012

I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking about what I’d like to focus on creatively this year. To be honest, I had a really hard time deciding! All I knew for sure was that – at the end of each month last year, I would just be gaining momentum and getting excited about one type of project and then I would have to switch gears totally and drop it. So I think this year, I’m ready for longer projects and timelines…

Quarterly Projects
I’ve decided to focus on 4 different types of projects quarterly throughout the year. This might mean that I do one large project for the quarter, or many small ones… depending on how things unfold and you know, how badly I procrastinate. ;)

The 4 projects I’m thinking for now are:

– Welding/Metal Sculpture
– Illustration/Drawing
– Needle Felting
– Nature/Land Art

Welding is something I’ve never done and always wanted to do. I’m signed up for a class at a local community college to start January 22nd, so this is where we begin! The others were things from this past year that I fell in love with and wanted more time with. The list could possibly change if I find anything else exciting along the way – but for now this is a good start!

12 Month Barn Series
Alongside that, I’ve decided I also want to focus on photography for a monthly project. I have a barn series that I began a year or so ago that I was really fired up about but never really got off the ground. So the goal here is to trespass onto as many abandoned old properties with barns as I can find!… or hopefully more of the time enter with permission so no one comes after me with a shot gun (this is Texas, after all).

By the end of the year I want to have photographed a full series of a dozen barns, each with a ceiling shot similar to the one below, as well as other supporting angles and details. I’d really like to get a wide range from old abandoned barns to fully functioning newer ones… but we’ll see where the journey takes me.

I will be doing some research on how to create good black and white images too – as there are good and bad ways to achieve it and I’m pretty sure I’m not using the best methods right now. I may also throw in some techniques to focus on (landscape, macro, HDR, etc) from time to time to help me practice in areas I haven’t taken the time to really read up on or practice a ton yet. Pretty excited to revive this project! I have been in love with it since the first ceiling shot I took and look forward to having my first full series of photos done by the end of 2012!

 
Yes, We Will Create!
And that’s still not everything! On top of my personal creative projects, I’m spending this year trying to get a creative community called We Will Create off the ground. It’s a place to share any and all sorts of creative projects – big or small, long or short. I’m hoping together we can create a real place of open support for each other in all our creative endeavors… a place for anyone who is looking to add a bit more creativity in their lives and wants some friends to do it with! In the much bigger picture, I dream of this becoming a community that reaches millions… where you can explore or join various groups and have specific communities related to your interests (photography, cooking, living green, painting, charity work, etc) as well as joining other groups for 365 projects, 12 month projects, 30 day projects, etc. It’s definitely far from anything that big (yet), but I believe in it a heck of a lot, so I’m doing all I can to get it going. I figure worst case is that a few more people in the world are inspired by each other, and I learn a lot about how to NOT make a community site.

If you actually made it this far into my novel of a post… please take a moment to check us out at wewillcreate.ning.com and if you like what you see, join us or share with your family and friends!

Sooo… what have I been up to this month?

I realize I have posted virtually NOTHING this month so far – yipes! Its true, the end of the month (and year!) are sneaking up fast! Have I finished a poster yet? Nnnnope… have I even started? Not at all! But I HAVE been thinking about it! (I definitely count that as productive). Even though I manage to do a lot of creative stuff I do procrastinate quite well still.

So what HAVE I been up to all month?
Well aside from the usual holiday chaos of hanging lights, putting out decorations and gift-wrapping… I’ve been working on a new project that is likely to become another year-long project on TOP of my 12 months project next year. (Sometimes I ask myself “what on earth have you gotten into now?!”). Yes, it came to me quite randomly a few weeks ago… I’d been trying to figure out how to open up my 12 Months of Creativity to other people. I wrestled with some different ideas, one of them being to have membership to a 12 Months blog where I would post about your project once a month. That felt off to me though… it still felt too much like me controlling/running a thing (taking precious creative time away from me) and plus, i didn’t much like the idea of making people pay for it. So I kept thinking and visiting various websites and online communities… until ONE day…

Something just hit me!
You know those moments people describe where something just hits them over the head? They’re going about their business or doing nothing particularly significant and then out of nowhere BAM!!! something just slams right into your head, decides to curl up inside your brain there and purr magnificence to you. Yes, we have all heard people talk of those moments.. they make us nauseous. Well, I’m here to say… sorry for the nausea! Indeed it did – just hit me like a ton of bricks (brightly colored ones!). Of course, it happened after spending many many hours and days and weeks and months thinking and talking to people about various ideas for how to expand my project to others. So I guess really, it wasn’t so much an “Aha!” moment as it just was finally the solution that seems to fill all the needs I was looking for.

So what IS this big idea?
I know… I’m rambling and really making quite a build-up to this idea of mine. (My boyfriend can tell you this is one of my many annoying talents). So the idea is to make an online creative community where people from all over the world can share their projects together… all kinds of projects! Art projects, cooking projects, craft projects, projects with kids, community service projects, science projects, anything creative! I knew it was perfect right away… because I love WAY to many things in life to ever just focus on one – and I know many other people are the same way too. I figure if I use the mantra I did during this entire 12 months project (Does it excite me? Then I’m DOIN IT!) then I could have a shot to really create this thing!

Soooo there you have it. BIG idea. Lots of possibility. We don’t know where it will go. It could crash halfway through the year, it could never really get off the ground to begin with, OR it could fly around the freakin’ world and touch million’s of people’s lives and get creative juices flowing all over the place! Haha, who is this person? I swear I NEVER used to dream this big… what is going ooon!

We Will Create
With that I will leave you with the link to the community page… wewillcreate.ning.com
I’ve got it up and running on a cheap and not-so-fancy community platform just to get things started. A) Because I’m cheap and B) Because I’m impatient and don’t want to wait to have some massive custom site built out. It’s all one big learning process right now, there’s still plenty of quirks and kinks to work out, but would love for you to stop by and join in the creativity! Starting first of the year there should already be several people beginning projects on there! Woohoo!! Thanks for reading!