Botanical Lily No. 7820. Photograph by Tricia McKellar

Reverb 10 is community of bloggers reflecting on 2010 & manifesting what’s next. Daily writing prompts guide us. Dec 2nd prompt:

Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

What do I do each day that gets in the way of my blogging? Bouncing to & from this & that. Reacting. Not looking at the big picture & seeing how my blog might fit in my big dreams. Telling myself that I don’t have time for a long post and then not writing the short post.

Reverb 10 is helping me reprogram. This is a commitment to 31 posts in 31 days. Terrifying.

But possible.

Reverb 10 is community of bloggers reflecting on 2010 & manifesting what’s next. Daily writing prompts guide us. My response to the Dec 1 prompt to choose one word for 2010:

One word to sum up my 2010. Doubt. And I don’t mean that in a downer sort-of way… Deep doubt can be debilitating. Or maybe it’s a signal to get clear on life. I had a big doubts in 2010– Where was my art going? What was I doing with my art business? What was my safe path? Were my dreams possible?

Were my big dreams too scary?

Now that I’ve gotten to the heart of the matter, the rest is easier & harder. My big dreams are scary, but not too scary. I’m planning to fail a lot in 2011. And to have wild success. My word for 2011: Expansion.

Image: Water & Sky. Photograph by Tricia McKellar

From the wonderful weekend day trip to the beach. Spring please come soon…

polaroids

ocean & seagull. polaroid

Today was heaven.

I’m working a lot of weekends for the day job these days. Blech. So much work to do. Trying to be thankful for the paycheck.

And the cold & gray of February is getting to be a bit much. We’ve had just a couple of snows of a few inches each– which is kind-of a lot for us (Raleigh, NC). Most days have just been blah– cold, gray, yuck– I am so ready for sunshine and warmth!

Today I was off work and the temps were in the 60′s!!! My wonderful husband drove with me to Wrightsville Beach (just outside of Wilmington NC) for the day. It’s about a 2 hour drive– not too bad for a day trip.

I shot lots of polaroids, a few pics with the holga, and a few with the dslr with a lensbaby. I left all the expensive glass in my camera bag… it just didn’t feel like the day for it.

Hope your day was as wonderful as mine.

Botanical Lily No. 7733

A wonderful year! 2009 was a big year for my art business. My photography sales exploded and I gained confidence that my dream of being a full time artist would one day be possible. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone that helped make that happen.

I was thrilled to contribute to a wonderful cause! N.E.D. (No Evidence of Disease) is a band of six doctors rocking to fight cancer. My art was selected for the cover of their cd!

It was a big year for press and publications for me.

2009 started off with the publication of Art Quilts at Play. The wonderful and talented Jane Davila and Elin Waterston invited me to collaborate on art for their book Art Quilts at Play.

Photojojo named me in their article 20 Photographers Whose Work You Can Actually Afford.

Jen at the Indie Fixx blog invited me to contribute art to her Feed Your Soul free downloadable art project. Feed Your Soul caught the attention of Apartment Therapy and my art was featured in an Apartment Therapy Unplggd post.

Daily Candy featured my photography in a weekend guide.

My digital collage art (the Plans & Diagrams series) was featured in Somerset Digital Studio, Vol 3, August 2009.

And I’m especially thankful to the many bloggers who had kind words about my art:
Poppytalk
The Bright Side Project
The Bowerbird Stories
New Dominion Blues
Magnolia Square
Pangea Handmade
Allyson Meier
Wee Sparrow
Oh Chalet
Moxie Photo and Design
Indie Fixx
The Experts Agree

In 2009, I started a project that’s been on my mind for a couple of years. Wonder Thinking is a blog of business & marketing tips for artists, crafters, indie designers. It’s in its infancy and I’m looking forward to seeing how it grows.

On a more personal note, it was a little bit of a tough year, though there were some silver linings.

My 19-year-old daughter went to Disney in Orlando for 6 months to work a co-op. I missed her terribly, but the bright side was that Fred and I had so much time with just the two of us.

My father’s wife’s adult son was diagnosed with brain cancer. I spent two weeks in Florida with my 84-year-old father while my step-mother went to visit her son. It was the longest time I had spent with my dad since I was a teenager.

My mother had some health challenges. The good news is that she had major surgery in December and is doing very well. The prognosis is good.

All in all, 2009 was a wonderful year for me. I am thrilled with the progress I made in my art and in my art business, though I know I have so much work to do in 2010. :)

How was your 2009? What’s your Year in Review? Did you blog about it? Please leave a link to your blog post in the comments :)

I’ve been taking a break from this blog for months while I work on my photography, cope with an empty nest, sell lots of photography prints on etsy, take care of my parents, & think about what I want this blog to be… It’s a zombie blog. Stay tuned. Changes are coming soon.

Postcards: Birds & Landscapes

New postcards of birds & landscapes for fall. Available in my etsy shop.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Temps in the 70s. The entire day off with my honey. We spent the day driving around with our cameras. We first headed down to Bentonville Civil War Battlefield and then took the back roads home. Happy day.

I’m honored that Comma Press choose one of my photographs for a book cover– Long Days by Maike Wetzel.

From the Comma Press site:

Long Days

Maike Wetzel

ISBN-10: 1905583028
ISBN-13: 978 1905583027

‘Recently something funny happened. There was no summer, no autumn either.’

With this opener Maike Wetzel begins exploring that moment in life when the breakneck experience of growing up suddenly changes gear and slows down. A young woman sees a dead body for the first time; a sister watches her anorexic sibling transform into different person; a girl pieces together the facts of a custody battle she’s not been let in on. Wetzel’s stories catch people when some part of their lives has been put on pause, leaving them so adrift only acts of obsession or self-destruction provide direction.

Wetzel’s stories have great depth of focus. In the background, an over-eager teacher might be explaining the facts of life in unnecessary, lurid detail, but in the foreground students will be taking drastic measures, in secret; a gymnastics class may be limbering up for an impressive display, but in close-up, dietcrazed girls faint in alarming numbers. With pared down but insistent language, Wetzel achieves a poise and clarity and presents lives that are as arresting as they are arrested.

‘There is the special art in Maike Wetzel’s writing to demonstrate vividly how events and stories can affect people – in particular if those only passively involved.’
- Der Spiegel

‘Adds magic to the brutal banality of everyday-life.’
- Schlaglicht

About the Author

Maike Wetzel was born in 1974, attended film school in Munich and in the UK, and currently lives in Berlin and the Rhein-Main area. She is the author of two award-winning collections of short stories: Lange Tage [Long Days] (2003) and Hochzeiten [Weddings] (2000), both published by S. Fischer Verlag. She has directed several short films and documentaries and also writes screenplays. She is currently working on a novel.

About the Translator

Lyn Marven is Lecturer in German at the University of Liverpool. She did her doctorate at Oxford, and researches and translates contemporary literature. The collection of 20th century short stories, which she has edited and translated, Berlin Tales, is forthcoming with OUP (June 2009).

Cover photograph by Tricia McKellar.

Yesterday was blue ribbon day for bird activity at my usual birds-on-the-power-line haunt. I filled an entire memory card with these birds– so there’s some fun times to come as I sort through the images in my digital darkroom.