It's amazing how quickly a year can slip by, isn't it? On New Year's day I found myself trying to remember what has even happened over the past twelve months. The more I thought, the more I realized that 2011 was actually a great year. I don't usually talk too much about my personal life here on the blog, choosing to keep it more about what I'm working on, but I think I'll make an exception to do a little "2011 year in review"- hope you don't mind! I've condensed my entire year into one memorable event from each month. JANUARY
While I spend my nights, weekends, days off and lunch hours working on illustrations and making things, during the day I work for Providence Media, a publishing company here in RI. January marked my transition from assistant art director (which I started as in July '09) to art director. That month we were working on a cover story for February's issue of Providence Monthly, which was definitely the highlight of the month. We made paper cutout props and had a fun nautical-themed photo shoot. You can see the rest of the issue here.
FEBRUARY
In February, my family adopted Bonnie. This photo is from one of our first walks together. Look at that face!
MARCH
March was a quiet month; I was doing a lot of brainstorming and prep work. These are some of the images that were inspiring me, gathered on my digital inspiration board. (1. Michael Kenna, 2. Dermot Flynn, 3. Ed Ruscha, 4. modified version of this 1927 photo)
APRIL
The biggest project I worked on this year was Easter Encounter, basically a giant walk-through art installation created by 70 artists and volunteers from Renaissance Church that sought to communicate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Being involved in the dreaming, construction and sharing of this was a humbling, exciting experience and was definitely a highlight of my year.
MAY May meant packing up and saying goodbye to a beautiful apartment. In the process I ended up going through a ton old paintings, as far back as when I was 5 years old, photographing each one before unceremoniously shoving it into a garbage bag. (Ouch!) It's okay, I saved my favorites.
JUNE Now you see why I had to get rid of so much! I'm learning to love living with less things. My new workstation holds the whittled-down essential tools that I need to make my art. (Even with less stuff, I still manage to make a huge mess.)
JULY
Every year I look forward to the Newport Folk Festival with much anticipation. It's a great mix of bands I already love and bands I fall in love with that weekend. Here's me, in my giant sun hat, with Rhode Island's famous Del's frozen lemonade. Mmmmm.
AUGUST
This year I turned 25, and the cake was delicious. I also got hurricane Irene the week of my birthday, which reminded me that, yes, I can survive without the internet.
SEPTEMBER Shortly after the hurricane, my family and I took a quick getaway to New Hampshire. My favorite memory from the trip was exploring a hiking trail that followed a cascading waterfall down the mountain. It was way more beautiful than my camera could capture, but this photo at least reminds me of it.
OCTOBER
The biggest milestone of the month was finishing the illustrations for my first children's book! Unfortunately, you can't see that yet. But the other exciting event of October was going to see The Civil Wars, my favorites. This was, hands down, my favorite concert ever.
NOVEMBER My mom makes a great Thanksgiving dinner, and this years' was no exception. But the highlight of the month, honestly, was getting to hang out with my family. Now that my siblings and I are all out on our own, I really treasure our time together.
DECEMBER
I had ten days off in December. Ten days.(I still can't believe it.) I spent a couple of those days working on getting a new series of paintings started, and it was bliss. Resting and making art? A perfect way to end 2011, if you ask me.
What was the highlight of your year?