Hail Janus! God of gateways, doors, ending and beginnings.

Roman Coin Showing Janus

The last post looked backwards at 2008. This one is about looking forward to 2009, with a bit of reflection thrown in for good measure.

Drifting aimlessly is something of a natural condition for me and I can do it for quite disturbingly long periods of time. This can be a good thing; the ability to daydream is one of the sources of my art. However, it's not good for me to stay in that space for too long, so I've always used external deadlines and self-imposed goals to combat that tendency towards feyness.

Last year, I had great difficult setting goals - a reflection of how overwhelmed and burnt out I was. Although I clearly needed the time off, I found I struggled without the structure that goals give me. About halfway through the year, I started making a monthly list of the tasks in addition to my usual weekly lists. However, I discovered that unless things were obviously urgent, they had a tendency to fall off the bottom of my lists and never get done.

I realised that I was mostly being reactive rather than proactive and that's something I'd like to change this year. Thankfully, I've found a new tool that may help. Eliza from the Backyard blog recently plurked enthusiastically about Toodledo, an online task organiser. I tried to resist her siren call because I'm an absolute sucker for organisational systems and I can easily get sucked into endlessly re-organising my lists instead of actually doing any of the things on them!

I've tried lots of organisational tools over the years but they often fall by the wayside. I either find that they simply don't work for me or I start using them with great enthusiasm and then abandon them as being far too much trouble. It's early days yet but I think that Toodledo may be different - in less than a week, it's completely embedded itself into my life. I like the fact that it plots things on a calendar and you can easily assign folders, importance and deadlines to tasks plus it's quick and easy to alter things. It's nice and visible on my bookmark toolbar (I'm both visually orientated and forgetful - if I can't see something, it may as well not exist), opens instantly and most crucially, it's very intuitive. So thanks for that one, Eliza.

Anyway, on to my goal list...

2009 GOALS

1) Finish or frog three unfinished cardigans
I have already started working on one of these - I'm teaching myself how to crochet properly so that I can finish a cardigan that just needs a crocheted border. Two of the three cardigans have been nearly complete for at least two years now so I am determined NOT to have this unfinished knitting still lurking around at the end of this year.

2) Finish decluttering the house
Decluttering became unexpectedly important in the second half of 2008 and it still feels very vital and satisfying.

3) Visit Red in Amsterdam
Another repeat from last year: the current plan is for this to happen sometime in the spring.

4) Get my son through his GCSE exams
I'm clearing my calendar between April to June for this one!

5) Plant a vegetable garden
I've made a barter arrangement with a friend to share the produce in exchange for some help with the physical labour. So if I get too sick to garden, it'll still get done and we'll have home-grown vegetables - I'm very excited about this.

6) Get chickens
Having 'get chickens' as a New Year's Resolution makes me laugh. Regular readers may recall that chickens were mentioned last year. Well, my family have come round to my way of thinking, so Project Chicken Is Go!

7) Continue to do daily stretches
I'd like to do more regular cardiovascular exercise in 2009 but I haven't listed it as a goal because it felt too prescriptive. I'm more concerned with maintaining the successful stretching habit that I established in 2008.

8) Do 30 things from my 101 list
I've got three things in progress already.

9) Successfully grow things from seeds
I got a fantastic book for Christmas called The Thrifty Gardener. It's encouraged me to believe that I can grow things from seeds, even though my past attempts have not met with much success.

10) Start the linen series
Ah, an art thing at last. The linen series has been brewing for a while now and if all goes according to plan, it should be 2009's major art project.

It was good to re-read what I wrote last January about letting go of 'shoulds' when setting goals. Unconsciously, I replicated that attitude when deciding on my 2009 goals - all ten things on the list feel positive to me rather than restrictive or guilt-ridden.

Happy New Year, folks. I've been meaning to update for ages but the urge to hibernate was too strong, so I gave in to my inner hedgehog.

Baby Hedgehog by Riude.
Image found on Flickr and used under a Creative Commons licence.

Left to my own devices, I'd probably carry on hibernating for at least another month but I have a busy January ahead of me, so I must poke my nose out of my comfy little nest and get back into the swing of things.

Traditionally at this time of year, I always spend a few days reviewing the old year and attuning myself to the new one. First, let's look backwards.

2008 REVIEW

Oh dear, 2008 was a bit of a grim experience. My word for the year was 'Balance' but it often felt that I only achieved it by lying on the floor and holding on for dear life! Although nothing absolutely dire happened in 2008, it felt like an unrelenting slog and I was damn glad to see the back of it. My son was ill in the first half of the year and missed six months of school, which was obviously very stressful. Then I spent much of the second half of the year being ill and quite profoundly unmotivated (probably because of the stress of the first half).

Art
Art-wise, this wasn't a very productive year for me. I continued making art whenever I was well enough but I didn't have a single exhibition - the first time this has happened since I graduated in 2002. This was partly because there seemed to be fewer interesting opportunities available but it was mostly because I couldn’t face applying for anything. Whenever I thought about sending in an application, I just felt like crying. In retrospect, it's obvious that I was slightly burnt-out after the daily intensity of The Diary Project in 2007.

Although I'm a bit irritated at myself for this wossy behaviour, I accept that after 6 years of working hard on my career, it's OK that I took a year off. And it was ultimately helpful because I've barrelled into 2009 with my enthusiasm for my career renewed.

Personal
The highlight of the year was obviously my fantastic trip to Australia in February and March. I'll be paying it off for the next four years but it was so worth it! If anyone wants to offer me any art opportunities in Oz, I'm totally up for it - it's an incredible place and I can't wait to go back.

Kirsty Hall: Rainforest in the Blue Mountains, March 2008

I also achieved the following:

Knitted 27 items, including 20 baby hats for a Save The Children appeal
This is the first time I've done any charity knitting and I found it hugely satisfying.

Read 81 books
This sounds impressive but this is actually a low total for me that reflects the amount of illness I was dealing with: normally I'm around the 100 - 110 mark.

Completed 21 things on my 101 List

I planted a flower bed in my garden and grew herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, sweetpeas and other flowers in pots. I also successfully propagated cuttings for the first time.

Completed 3 of my 5 2008 goals
Due to scheduling difficulties I didn't manage to visit my friend Red in Amsterdam, which was a big disappointment. I didn't complete all of my unfinished knitted items either. Never mind.

I started stretching daily
Apart from three days when I was incapacitated with bronchitis, I've done this every day for the last 35 weeks. This is huge for me. I've always struggled with exercise, I've never been sporty and in the past I've tended to throw myself into a new exercise routine and quickly give up because it hurts or I lose interest. So 35 weeks of regular stretching is incredible. I started very slowly with a couple of repetitions of half a dozen stretches and I've gradually increased both the range and number of repetitions that I do.

House
A lot of my art energy was redirected into domesticity in 2008. Since the summer, I've been engaged in a massive amount of decluttering and organising. A friend and I have tackled 11 different areas in my home and frankly we've worked miracles.

Although not directly related to my art on the surface, I know that decluttering has put me on a much stronger footing in that area. Crucially, my studio is now a manageable working space. I finally know what materials I have and where everything is: this should make a big difference.

I also accepted that I simply can't do it all and I need to concentrate on the areas of art that really matter to me, so I gave a lot of art and craft materials away. This has freed up a lot of physical and emotional space and I feel that my art is better grounded than it's ever been.

I've always been a 'leave it to the last minute, then work like a banshee' person but I've finally come to see that running on adrenalin isn't a sustainable model for my art practice. If I'm going to sustain and nourish my art without destroying my already precarious health, I can no longer indulge that excitement-seeking aspect of myself. (I know my family are going to be rolling their eyes at this bit; they've been trying to tell me this for the last bazillion years!). I'm overdrawn at the energy bank and I can't keep counting on 'exhibition energy' to pull me through - my inability to apply for exhibitions last year proved that much. I had simply exhausted myself past the point of being able to show and that's no bloody good!

An important aspect of moving towards a more sustainable art practice is the need for more structure and organisation in my life. I don't have the time and energy to constantly turn the house upside down looking for something I've lost. Nor can I afford to buy multiple copies of things I already own.

Conclusion

After several years of concentrating intensely on my career, I had a year where I focused on friends, family, my home and my health instead. One of my hopes for 2009 is that I can find a better balance between these often competing needs. I am already feeling much more positive than I did at the start of 2008 and things are already looking up for my career (more big news on the later very shortly).

My focus in 2008 was very much turned inward, which I found difficult at the time but now see was very necessary. It was a year of 'clearing the decks', re-evaluating what I want from my life and my career and laying strong foundations for my future art practice. Bring on 2009, I'm ready!