The List

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~Ellen Goodman

Like this little guy here, I am standing alone at the cusp of 2007, holding thoughts, not a tree, ready to venture forward into the year and the winter. This white ceramic snowman will be the last vestige of Christmas in my house even if it officially lasts until January 6th. I will take down the decorations and the lights and the tree and the festival of light will stop. Its always a little sad when that happens. The lights do brighten the dark winter nights. But now each day will edge out a little longer until the light returns again.

The season of Christmas is often said to be twelve days long, and ends for most people on "Old Christmas Day," January 6th. This date is liturgically the Feast of the Epiphany and signals the beginning of the third part of the church's Christmas season (Advent, Christmas proper and Epiphany). The comparatively recent name "Old Christmas" stems from the 1752 reorganization of the calendar when twelve days were dropped from the calendar; the following year, purists said that the "real" Christmas Day was not on December 25th, but January 6th, 365 days after the previous Christmas. The knowledge of the Old Style has led some Newfoundlanders to name "Old Old Christmas Day" (January 18th) as the "real" end of the season. Indeed mummering can sometimes be seen on the Southern Shore of the Avalon peninsula until the end of January.

I haven't checked, but I think I contributed in both drawing and writing most days once I got going on this rollercoaster of a blog in 2006. I consider the first year a learning experience where I found my style and created a little nest for myself in the blogosphere.

Now its time to take stock and renovate a little perhaps. There are several areas that I want to expand into for 2007. It may be brave or foolhardy of me to put them in writing at this point, however, doing so does make me accountable and pushes me to achieve at least some of them.

1. Offer more drawing classes for different levels
2. Start a art club locally
3. Complete a series of drawings or paintings
4. Enter at least 4 art competitions
5. Develop a web site
6. Market and sell my prints
7. Rediscover oil painting and do at least one small oil painting a month (I'll never make it into the Painting A Day category)
8. Go to a different art exhibition each month
9. Attend a class in a new medium
10. Develop my market for animal portraiture locally

That little list should keep me going for quite awhile I think. Now that I have written it, there is some sense of relief. Its as if what is secretly spinning around in my head has come out of the darkness. I can see it. I can achieve it. If I don't I won't beat myself up over it. I have the flexibility of adding things to my list if opportunity becomes available or reducing the load if it becomes too strenuous.