Now that we are well on our way into 2025, it is time to look back at my 2024 yearly art review. I try to do an art review every year to see what I did or did not accomplish. Overall, I have to say it was not a good year. In January, my sister passed away. Although creating art is usually a place of refuge for me, my grief turned creativity into apathy. I just did not want to do anything. As time when on, I did eventually make art. 

Highlights

At first, I had to drag myself into the studio to make a few more pieces for my featured artist exhibition in February at Capitol Contemporary Gallery in downtown Boise. One highlight was selling a few artworks during the show.

Another highlight was having my artwork, Leaf Stack #44, accepted to the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) special exhibition that would be at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Contemporary Craft Show. This was a new venue for SAQA and for my art.

I don’t often get to show a lot of my artworks together. So, it was exciting to be able to hang a number of artworks from my Leaf Stack series at the local offices of Boise Group Real Estate. I think the artworks look lovely in their clean, simple space and brightens up the halls during the gray winter. I installed them in November and they will come down on Jan. 15th.

Lowlights

There were more lowlights than highlights for the year. I had a high number of rejections for art opportunities for which I applied. My acceptance percentage was about 18%, the worst in awhile. I’m still waiting to hear a decision for two opportunities which means the percentage could still go down.

Due to, or in spite of my apathy (depending on how you look at it), I still averaged around 14 hours a week working on my art business. That includes studio time and taking care of the business side.

Artworks

I managed to make 35 pieces during the year: 7 large artworks (over 24″ on each side), 3 medium sized, 24 small sized and one small 3D piece. Here are some of my favorites from 2024. One of the first of the year and made for my featured artist exhibition at Capitol Contemporary Gallery is Leaf Stack #46. It is 14×14″ and mounted on cradled board. I made four of these on the cradled boards, Leaf Stack #46 – #49.

Throughout the year, I continued to work on my Leaf Stack series. Another of my favorites is Leaf Stack #53. It is one of the few large pieces I made at 46×60″. As you can see in both Leaf Stack #46 and Leaf Stack #53, I was playing with the lines in the artworks, which I had only touched on in the past. Also in Leaf Stack #53, I was exploring using different colors within a continuous line.

Toward the end of the year, I wanted to start making art with more found fabrics. This has been on my mind for awhile because I care about the environment a great deal. There is so much excess fabric from “fast fashion” that it seems like I should be trying to up-cycle some fabrics that eventually end up in the landfill even when they are still in good shape.  The last piece I made in 2024 is quite different in style but uses found materials.

Garden Blues is 40×30″ and contains hand-dyed and painted fabrics, commercial fabrics, found fabrics (skirt, shirt, shibori fabric, linen napkin, velvet, sheet), buttons and thread. This piece represents flora and fish that have some blue hue in them and/or they are threatened or on the endangered list. So the blue is not only a representation of color but also of the emotions of losing our beautiful natural resources.

Represented in this artwork (but not realistic in scale, location or proportion) is: the Fender’s Blue butterfly, found in Oregon and listed as endangered in 2000, Kearney’s Bluster flower, found in Arizona and listed as endangered in 1989, Pale Blue-Eyed Grass, found in Washington and Oregon, was petitioned to be listed as endangered in 2007 by Wild Earth Guardians, Aleutian Shield Fern, found only on Adam Island in Alaska, listed as endangered in 1988 and Devil’s Hole Pupfish, found only in Devil’s Hole in Nevada, endangered since 1967 and critically endangered in 2014.

That’s my 2024 yearly art review in a nutshell. I am hoping that I will be more focused and productive in 2025.