In Retrospect

 

2020 has felt like several different years, and better writers will galvanize your spirit with the horrors we faced and the irreplacable people we lost along the way. While we bid farewell to the nightmare year, I am reminded of a line from Twin Peaks where Pete the foreman says, "she's dead, wrapped in plastic." Many of us are thankful that this year is dead and gone and would love it summarized as such, but as tidy as that image is, we all know it can't be that simple. The referenced scene is from the very first episode of Twin Peaks, and between murder mysteries, dopplegangers, and communal trauma, even things described in very finite ways have ramafications beyond anyone's imagining. It would be hollow of me to discuss any of my progress or experience in the vaccum where I don't recognize all of the people our systems have failed.

341,000+ U.S. victims of Covid-19

164+ black people murdered by police

350+ trans and gender nonconforming killed across the country

Unknown numbers of individuals dying in ICE detention camps

We don't create in a void, and in my humble existence I can safely say that my art would have been very different if 2020 hadn't been so awful. I wouldn't have had the time to nurture my art career if my catering industry job hadn't collapsed due to office closures. There are paintings I wouldn't have made if I hadn't needed something to do with my hands while tuning into police scanners during the George Floyd protests. There are people I haven't seen or hugged or kissed since last year, who only know me as my pandemic self, an asshole determined to paint 300 minis in one year come hell or high water. It'd be far too tidy to say 2020 "(is) dead, (and) wrapped in plastic," since we'll be feeling the ramafications of this period for decades to come, and confronting the societal injustices that festered in those prior. Hopefully this is a turning point. Often I hear the phrase, "if this year didn't radicalize you, I don't know what will." I hope your hearts are radical. That's all I'm qualified to say on the matter.

 Moving on to the usual content of the blog, I'm reflecting on my art practice this year. In the last week of 2020 I hit 300 models painted; an unrivaled personal best. Honestly in this year I doubled the number of painted models in my collection, even after dumping half of my collection back into the bits bin. 

So what went right? What went wrong?

After ramming through all of these minis, I feel like I've developed some really confident painting skills, and learned a lot about color palettes and texture. I could show examples, but I wont. Same for where I've noticed my own shortcomings with contrast and lighting. Pointing fingers isn't really in my wheelhouse, so instead I'll just say that next year I'll try to pay better attention to those features when painting up minis this year. This is a lifelong hobby, so I'm content just recalibrating now that I've established such a base of information.

Wait, I said next year, but next year is this year now! Gosh, I guess its time to come up with some arbitrary goals or resolutions to make!

I've given this quite a bit of thought actually, since this year's projects were hit or miss with me, and at the very tail end I found it hard buckling down to slay that 300 model goal. At parts of the exercise, I got a little show-offy with the volume and combined that with emptying the lead pile of pieces that no longer excited me. Since I now do this for business as well as passion, it's been important to balance the discipline and the interest in order to wrap projects both professional and personal. However, I think there could be more intentionality in my work, so I may begin being more selective with the projects I embark on for myself.

While I was writing this post, the facebook group for the painting challenge that kicked off this year of keeping count, well it updated. It reset and renamed itself for 2021. I might keep track as diligently as I did this past year, but I don't know if I see that as a challenge in the same way I did the first time. Aside from the elements I referenced above (lighting and contrast,) I haven't picked a thing I'm determined to work on this year and considering the volume of miniatures I have now, I'll have to be concerned about storage options too.

All that aside, I think I'd like to make 2021 a sculpting challenge with a goal of 52 minis by the years end. I really would like to improve my skills in that area and also branch out into the sculptor/caster realm like Ramshackle Games, Wilhelm Miniatures and other contemporaries of mine. For me to keep saying "this is my dream," about every branching aspect of this creative life might lead a reader to think "wow, this nerd slept a lot as a kid," but really I just found all my interests before realizing that different people made different components of all the things I loved. Good thing nobody's saying I need to pick just one thing to draw passion from!

To summarize; some goals

• Develop a better understanding of light and contrast
• When painting for myself, paint things not just to get them out of the way.
• Sculpt 1 mini a week/52 this year
• Be a better human being to everyone and also myself

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Good luck my dudes. We've got another trip around the sun to make the most of.

Stay safe, do good, be happy.

TTFN