Well, the Year of Puppets went by so quickly. Luckily it is still ongoing, as I have 3 puppets still to complete before I officially finish the course.
That being said, I am looking forward to the Year of De-Cluttering, which I promised myself all last year. After 14 years of living in the same house, we find ourselves in the fortunate, but tricky, situation of having stuff. As a matter of fact, we have so much stuff that it is no longer safe to go and root around in closets looking for other stuff without risking things falling on your head (which actually happened two weeks ago and I had a goose-egg to prove it). There is so much stuff we sometimes don't remember what we have and end up with duplicates, which we really don't need.
How does that happen? Saving things for a rainy day is one way. And "oh, I might get back into doing that, so let's not get rid of it" (said 5-10 years ago and guess what? I never did get back to doing it).
Not only will house items be de-cluttered, but I hope to de-clutter my studio and purge what is no longer needed for the things I want to do. I began that a few years ago when I divested myself of painting canvases and high school sketchbooks and I'm sure there are more things that I've been holding onto "just in case". Time to let someone else find joy in them.
In fact, I also hope to de-clutter my activities, my time, my commitments (real or imagined), and find some balance/space in the process.
The first thing to go out in all of this de-cluttering was my website. Did I update it regularly? No. Did people seek me out because of it? No. Was it free? No. Time for it to go. As a bonus, it no longer weighs on my mind. Yippee!
I was so enamoured of this idea of de-cluttering that it even showed up in the Art Heals project I did alongside my clients this past week. In the first week of the year, I invite people to say goodbye to the good, the bad and the ugly of the old year and hello to the new year, with a two-sided artwork. Rather than writing goals for the year, people are encouraged to draw or collage things they are looking forward to. Here is what I created for 2022:
As you can tell, de-cluttering is front and foremost, much to the dismay of my husband. It will feel so good to have some breathing space, though, both literally and figuratively.
Can you tell what else I'm looking forward to this year?
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