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2017 in Retrospective!

In reviewing the year that has passed, I'm so appreciative of the many accomplishments I'm looking back on that are outside the arts-related ones on the list that follows.  

 I began my work life this past year as my jurisdiction's Acting Office of Emergency Services (OES) Director, managed our office through two local Presidentially-declared disasters including one for a flood that impacted 14,000 residents in our community, on-boarded a new OES Director and other staff, and completed our jurisdiction's annex to a multi-jurisdiction Hazard Mitigation Plan among other responsibilities. The effort to sustain my art-making practice in the face of my work life was a challenge, but it has also been necessary for relaxation and re-integration as time has allowed. That said, January through March was a blur...with storms, more storms, a flood, an Emergency Operations Center activation over 19 days, long hours, little sleep, three phones to manage, and more work than available time to complete it (with absolutely no art-making time). But it was the time of the best work I've done in my professional career and the most important!

So for me, 2017 has been a tremendous amalgam of accomplishment.  But it is my art life that has made the overall year well-rounded, helped me recover from the significant energy depletion of its first quarter, and restored a level of work-life balance through some lovely opportunities and events.

 My arts-related accomplishments for 2017:
  • Completed 11 Life Book 2017 projects
  • Made 27 Blog Posts 
  • Created a photo filing system and naming conventions for RAW, JPG, PNG, and other image types
  • Attended the Boomeria Organ Extravaganza (an organ concert) in a small bohemian Santa Cruz Mountains chapel among the redwoods
  • Participated in a Stuart Cubberly's weekend 'Painting Experience' workshop with a friend in Los Angeles (for some intuitive painting time)
  • Enjoyed Laurie Shapiro's Open Studio at the San Jose Quilt Museum
  • Enjoyed a Klimt-Rodin exhibit in San Francisco with Creative Club compadres
  • Attended two great musical productions in London:  An American in Paris, and 42nd Street
  • Visited the Warner Brothers Studio outside London to see 'The Making of Harry Potter' sets
  • Attended a wonderful Jake Shimabukuro ukulele concert in Santa Cruz
  • Visited the Eyvind Earle exhibit at the Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco 
  • Visited the 'Beauty' exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Art
  • Created a video short of my collage painting process (of a completed project)
  • Sold a painting
  • Read "What It Is' (creativity, writing and art book) -- and loved it!
  • Participated in the 2017 Woman Unleashed Online Retreat (Winter) and completed four projects/sessions
  • Kept an Awesome Jar and have reviewed the 21 entries (reminders of the positive)
  • Attended Alma Deutscher's wonderful production of 'Cinderella' by Opera San Jose 
  • Signed up for Kara Bullock's online Let's Face It painting class in 2018!

Wow...what a year it has been!

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