How to Begin a Year
Insider #120 with a quick summary of last year, and resolutions for the new one.
Dear Insider,
This year promises to be the most exciting year of my life. I am glad to be able to share it with you.
As a SneakyArt Insider, you have -
🎟️ a backstage pass to all my projects,
🪑 a front-row seat at every workshop, and
💌 good karma for supporting my work.
In today’s post, a summary of my year-end audit, and highlights from yesterday’s Insiders Hangout. Scroll to the bottom for my resolutions for 2024.
The SneakyArt (Insider) Post is written for paid subscribers and patrons of SneakyArt. Every Sunday, I share a behind-the-scenes look at my work, and the best ideas from my journey as an artist and writer.
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A Year without Commentary
Too many people are curators now. Perhaps because curation is so easy and demands nothing of yourself. [Continue reading…]
Following your own path is as much about the things you do as the things you do not. Being an artist is as much about the direction you go, as it is about the directions you do not. Last year, I resolved to not be in the business of commentary.
A year without commentary was a commitment to spend time away from the popular ideas, popular trends, and popular opinions of other people. It was a decision to spend more time with the words of my world, the ideas of my mind, and the lines I could find from exploration, observation, and drawing.
If we are in the business of following our own paths, we must build the courage to not chase after the herd. This was my most important resolution last year.
Reader-Stories and Art Giveaways
Last year, hundreds of readers engaged with tiny people by writing tiny stories for them.
In this way, you take them from my sketchbook page and bring them into your world. In this way, you give them tiny life. [Continue reading…]
After every tiny story contest, I sent signed drawings, prints, and cards in the mail to the best entries.
The commitment to give away as much art as possible was -
🚀 a response to the hyper-monetization and financialization thrust upon creative people by NFTs and blockchains and, now, AI art.
🖼️ the understanding that art should belong to everyone, from reading Walter Benjamin’s essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
❤️ a way to reclaim my autonomy as an artist in a world that only respects how completely you can sell out. (More on this next week.)
The support of Insiders such as yourself allows me to do this. Thank you!
Going to Places and Talking to People
Recently, I spoke at Pecha Kucha Night in downtown Vancouver, about my journey to become an artist, and why I like to draw the tiny people of my world.
Last year, I also conducted my first in-person workshops in Vancouver, led a new workshop at Sketcher Fest, and did an online demo with Art Toolkit.
The SneakyArt Podcast
Speaking with guests on the SneakyArt Podcast has taught me many things. But even after 68 episodes and 100+ hours of conversation, the work of producing the show fills me with self-doubt and hesitations.
I like to do all the work around the show myself. I am a perfectionist, I say, but also I am greedy for all the credit.
Resolutions for 2024
✒️ More art and fewer words about art. Artists are already required to be their own marketing departments, publicists, and finance managers. This year I want to not become my own art critic.
⏰ Work and Not-Work. This year I want to have clearer boundaries for when I am not working, instead of feeling like I am always on.
🖼️ Selling. This year I want to sell more art. My print store needs work, and part of that is figuring out how to sell.
🚀 Big Projects. This is the year of at least two big projects. But I am bad with big projects. I will need to deal with incremental progress, long-term planning, and delayed gratification. Sigh. More soon!
❤️ You. This year I want to think more about you, the Insiders who support my life’s work. I want to think about the place I occupy in your world, and what I can do to make this a more fulfilling relationship.
👋🏼 Me. In 2023, I reckoned with the spectre of Artificial Intelligence and infinite virtual reproductions upon my work.
In 2024, the threat of AI is the call to be as intensely human as possible.
I am ready.
Yesterday’s Hangout
Yesterday we had the first Insider Hangout of 2024. I flipped through my sketchbooks and art supplies of the previous year, and Insiders were also invited to share their favourite pages and tools. We discussed art resolutions and challenges in the coming year, and what we can do to make our sketching habits fun and sustainable.
Below is a small part of our session, shared as a private video for Insider eyes only. I talk about the impact of brown vs grey sketchbooks in my work, and how page orientation dictates composition.