Out with the Old - 2013 Reflections

January 1st, 2014 by Blaine Garrett

In 2013, I got married, made some cool new artwork, and lots of other stuff. In this post I look back on the year and what 2014 is shaping up to look like.

Getting Married

I got married to Katie In 2014, I want to love by baby even more.

Dim Media

Dim had a great year. I've collected our year in review on a separate blog post. This year we managed to bang out a new Birthmarks series and killed it at the summer festivals. All the other members of Dim were also in my wedding party, so this was a pretty neat thing too. With a couple wins under our belt, I'm hoping next year includes a successful release of Blue Flame: Extinguish, more awesome art festival appearances, some big sales, a couple group shows, and a lot more experimentation. I also hope we can get together a bit more regularly for meetings and to do our collaborative work full steam. 2014 is a good year for Dim to experiment and push ourselves as professional artists.

Doing Stuff and Planning Better

Yesterday, I started the 2nd annual ritual of finishing the last to-do on my Ryan McGinness, packing it up, and opening the new one. On January 1st, 2012, after picking up my car from the party I left it at the night before, I stopped at a book store in Uptown and browsed around for something. I found the McGinness to-do calendar and have put it to work every day. I think it has helped quite a bit. It gives me a temporary spot to jot things to do for the day. Previously, I had been having little scraps of paper laying about with lists on them. They were disorganized and had different scales of "doability". With the calendar, I can add my to-dos, cross them off, and start fresh the next day. With the combo of Wunderlist as a master list, I can copy down a couple items on to the calendar daily and slowly tackle my tasks. It is great. The first item on the list for 2014: "Check bank account". Done. In 2014, keep staying organized so you can do more and enjoy more free time.

The Sketch Journal

Along with starting my new todo calendar, I started my new molskine sketch journal. In 2007, I bought my younger brother a 365 day Molskine personal calendar. He wrote his name in it, but that was apparently it. In 2009, I found it in a box of things he brought home to my parents' place and snagged it. I started doodling in it here and there. In 2011, I had a resolution to try to draw every day. The notebook being easily portable, seemed like a handy way to doodle while killing time. During 2013, I made an extensive dent in the book. I also took to posting images on my personal Facebook page. A lot of people "liked" the pictures and a handful of people expressed in person how much they enjoyed the posts. With a brand new book, I have a clean slate. It is going to be weird at first not being able to page through the book and see all the previous drawings. Each one has some moment in time attached to it. My wedding vows were scrawled out in the book. A lot of scenes at the bar with Katie were drawn out. I'll just have to start having a bunch of new events to draw in the new book. Draw daily dammit.

Making Art

Starting in Sept 2013, I put a lot of energy into working on finishing up my sketch book by the end of the year. My resolution to draw every day turned into "draw in my sketchbook everyday" and resulted in less new artwork to be made. Last year, I did create a lot of new stencil pieces, did a commission, and a whole new series of Birthmarks paintings. I also want to put more energy into some of my comic stories - Drips and Surplus Bio-Freaks. I did a few one-off Drips comics for MPLS Zine last year and that gave me some motivation to do the series. Also, it really is time to make a character bible and an initial couple stories for the Surplus Bio-Freak comic.

I want to make an assload of art in 2014.

Other Thoughts

Between trying to quit smoking and wedding planning, I had a lot of excuses and reasons to be a homebody this year. I'm probably getting old, but if there are more than 3 things I am invited to in an evening, I just err on the side of staying home. Usually, I try to make art, but I typically just end up working on the computer. So this year, I should attend more things and spend more time with friends. Similarly, I tried last year to go to a few more art events in order to network, etc. I did manage to meet a few new artist but have not really made much effort try to be more friendly with them or go to more of their gigs. So, I vow to try to go to more art events this year and try to expand my arts connections and see what everyone else is up to. I might scale back gardening this year. Last year, even though I was getting married, it was really hard to keep up with my gardening routine. A lot of plants died or went to waste. Neighbor Jeff stepped in to help out during all the wedding craziness. Even though, a lot of the work I had done in the winter went to waste. So, this year, I need to probably scale back the operation and ensure the plants I do have survive. I also want to spend less time on the computer. I do indeed waste more time than I should on Facebook. Luckily, I am not so into the other time suck sites like Twitter or Tumblr. However, a lot of the time spent on the computer is building sites and hashing out ideas. This is usually fine as it allowed me to design our wedding website and make new sites for Dim Media and my personal blog. However, I need to take more breaks and generally use this time better. I tend to go off on development tangents when I don't have a schedule or guidelines like I have at the day job. This year, try to get that more organized in order to have more time off the computer and aid in feeling better. Despite my desire to spend less time on the computer, I want to continue blogging. I really feel like the rise of Twitter and Facebook, Blogging has really taken a back step in a bad way. I personally, can't collect my thoughts in the same fashion as well as I can on this blog. There is just something about being able to write in long form that is great. So, even though I have hardly any traffic, I want to take some of that time I saved back from Facebook and apply it to writing regularly. So there it is. Those are my reflections on 2013 and some ways to move forward in 2014. In spite of being sick and the general holiday wackiness, I managed to get my head together and relax a bit. I think this is going to be a great year. Make it so. I need to hit some more shows this year. Last year I did see Man or Astroman, Nine Inch Nails, Gogol Bordello, and American Headcharge. However, I didn't hit many small shows. I'm hoping to hit Galactic at the Cabooze at the end of the month. That'll be a good start ;) Katie and I did manage to go to a waterfall like she wanted to so badly. We hit up Willow state park. It was great. Some additional photos from 2014: