what a year!

This year has been busy. My full-time gig is kicking my butt, so all I have wanted to do on weekends is curl up on the sofa to rest up for the next week. No such luxury; most of my weekends this past year have been spent either painting or finding ways to reach new people who might enjoy my watercolors.

This past summer, I started having my watercolors professionally scanned and cataloged. A few pieces, along with an accompanying essay, were submitted to a Quaker print/digital publication - Friends Journal*. I joined the Quaker artist collective - Quaker Fellowship of the Arts. I sold my first commissioned piece. I started the process of having a couple of my originals printed as numbered glyceés. I still have a long way to go - breaking out of the circle of friends and family to find new audiences, but I hope to get on with that adventure next year!

The business of having a serious hobby is exhausting. I only want to spend my free time painting, but if I do that, no one will see my work. And if I did that, I wouldn’t have been inspired by other Black artists.

Over this past year, I have been inspired by seeing exhibits by Black artists and works of art by Blacks in New York City, London and Paris. To name a few: Basquiat's exhibit in Manhattan, Virgil Abloh and Nellie Mae Rowe's exhibits in Brooklyn, Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist's portrait of a slave in Paris and Lubaina Himid's exhibit in London. Another eye-opening experience was watching and re-watching (I think I have seen this film about five times in the past two years) HBO's documentary - "In the Absence of Light," a film about the late artist and curator David Driskell.

The year 2022 was an amazing year and I hope the next will be just as inspired and busy!

*If you haven’t done so, please check out my essay and the watercolors in Friends Journal - I Paint to Reclaim My Light. And you must watch HBO's documentary In the Absence of Light.