So as I discussed in my 2017 year-in-review post, I thought last year was pretty successful. It marked a solid turn-around from the slump that occurred in my life after the death of my wife in the summer of 2014. She was my cheer leader and did a whole lot for me, both in terms of spreading my art with shameless promotion and also with encouragement. She knew and understood what I was working towards, style-wise. She followed the work of artists I admired to understand what made me like them. Even though, she herself never pursued art in any way, she learned a lot about it in order to better understand what drove me and help me to better myself. That is a rare thing to have.
So while I have not fully recovered, I have had some help in dealing and learning how to keep moving forward. And I hope to continue this trend into 2018.
One huge goal I managed to accomplish in 2017 was getting my work into a third gallery. It is a beautiful space in a quaint downtown in a small town in southern Arkansas. The owner seems to be a wonderful person and I look forward to working with him to provide work of interest to this area. However, I remain realistic about the prospects here. Art is not a priority in the town in which this gallery is located. Because of this, I will set my primary "not-goal" of 2018 to pursue a fourth gallery. I will put some focus into a gallery in a larger city outside of Arkansas. However, I will also be willing to find another gallery in-state if it is in a decent sized town or a town with a good art community, Hot Springs would be ideal.
1. Get into a 4th gallery! As discussed above, I will be looking for some very specific criteria here. Either in a city modest sized or larger city out of state or an Arkansas city that should experience some relatively high traffic volume. There are not many cities in Arkansas which fit this criteria so I should be able eliminate possibilities rather quickly.
2. Start making my own frames! My online frame supplier of choice has discontinued more and more of my favorite styles of frames. I really cannot afford to have a local company make my frames. I bought a very nice used miter saw about 10 years ago and have yet to put it to use. All I need is a corner pinner and I'm ready to start trying this. I will target having this going before April.
3. Make 60 blog posts...yes, I'm going to try for this again. It's totally achievable, especially if I blog more about works in progress or process related things. No problem, lol.
4. Complete 50 paintings...yes, I'm going to try to do this again too!
5. Hang in 3 national shows. I bested my goal of 2 last year so let's go for an improvement. I would like for 2 of these to be outside of Arkansas.
6. Line up a solo show for either end of 2018 or 2019. Most likely this will be in 2019 because most galleries and arts centers will have already booked 2018.
I think you can see a theme beginning to develop here. I am aiming for 2018 to be a year to establish footholds as a more regional artist with goals tied to out of state venues.
