1.1.11: Going Analog* in 2011

All those 1’s in today’s date: 1 a good number for beginnings. So even though I’m still under the weather, it felt important to focus on my goals for the new year, the accomplishments of the past year, and to start the year right with a little sketching.

I grabbed some of my new best friends to pose for me: tissues, Vitamin C, Sudafed and my Neti pot with which I have a love/hate relationship. It really helps, but it’s weird (leaning over the sink you pour salty water in one nostril and it flows out the other).

I’m very grateful to have finished the year with a clear understanding of where I want to go with my art, how to get there, and a feeling that it is a reachable destination. A couple of months ago that seemed impossible but thanks to the advice and encouragement of our wonderful community of online (and in person) artists who have supported me through my questioning, frustration, and struggles I seem to have found my way.

I wrote in my journal about the year past (not shown), and more or less doodled my goals for the new year, appropriate since they’re all about being more playful and in the moment. Being in that doodling, right-brained place, I wrote “goles” and thought wait, that’s wrong, tried golse, wrong, is it golze? No! Oh yeah, GOALS! Sheesh! I used to be a champion speller.

I want to be a more analog* person in 2011, less digital*. I want to move my body, not my mouse; I want to draw and paint with intention, a sense of adventure, and playfulness; I will spend less time on the computer. I want to slow down and appreciate each moment instead of rushing because “there’s not enough time.”

I want to experience the feeling of abundance that comes from “enough-ness” which you get by wanting what you have and not wanting what you don’t have. And I will practice being gentle: to myself, the earth, and others.

*Analog vs. digital makes sense to me, but technically really doesn’t in this context:

Analog describes a continuous system like a clock in which the hands move continuously around the face. Such a clock is capable of indicating every possible time of day. In general, humans experience the world analogically. Vision is an analog experience because we perceive infinitely smooth gradations of shapes and colors.

In contrast, a digital clock is capable of representing only a finite number of times (every tenth of a second, for example).  Computers are digital because they consist of discrete units, a series of zeroes and ones, called bits that are either on or off. (from Webopedia).