2015 Art Goals from Elaine Luther

I just finished my look back at 2014 post and now I’m ready to talk about my goals for this year and beyond.

Last year was largely about going into new areas: moving away from teaching art and into arts administration; doing more public speaking; moving away from juried group shows and toward solo shows.  Those are all good things and I plan to keep doing them!

You know how you have to cut things away, and quit, in order to make room for whatever is new to come in?  In 2014 I worked very hard on quitting.  I’m not a quitter, so this was really a challenge.  I cut back drastically in volunteering and have it down to the bare minimum of the things I do either for my kids or for my career.

I cut way back on teaching art and now am only teaching short library programs or workshops that involve paid travel.  This isn’t easy, when you’re in demand and people are asking you to teach for them!  I’ve been teaching since 1992 and am ready for new challenges.

This morning, in my studio, while working out ideas in my sketchbook, I came up with the cleverest, most brilliant idea ever, and I’m confident that all the quitting and cutting back made this possible.  The idea requires some equipment, so as soon as I finish this blog post I’ll be starting a grant application.

This year I’ll continue to focus on solo shows over juried group shows.  I hope to publish a catalog of the Our Ladies, as a document of the solo show last year at the Englewood Library.  The hold up is the funding to pay the writer.  I applied for a grant for this last year but wasn’t funded.  Once published, a copy of the catalog will go in my file at the Chicago Art Archive.

One of the things I adore most of all is learning new things, I always want to learn something new and be challenged.  My current challenge is learning to work larger.  This year I’ll be creating a portfolio of public art projects – both virtual and physical.  I’ll make at least one digital model and one one physical maquette each month.

And I’ll be working on medium scale sculptures.  My series Medals That You Wouldn’t Want to Earn has possibly as many as six more in it that I want to make, and I’ll go back to making them in metal.

I’ve almost finished one more Our Lady (photos soon), with ideas for more.

After much reflection, I’ve decided to focus primarily on sculpture, but I’m not completely giving up on either jewelry making or 2D collage work, the first because I’m so good at it and am really proud of my latest collection, and the latter because I’m not so good at it and I have room to grow.

My jewelry is currently available in two stores and I plan to add 3-5 more within the next six months.

Sorry for the wordy post with no pictures!  I’m committing to these goals by putting them out there, publicly!

How about you, dear reader?  I’d love to hear about your goals for the year, artistic or otherwise!  The comments are always open.