In November 2014 I took an e-course called ArtBiz with Alena Hennessy. One part of this course was mapping out your short-, middle- and long-term goals for your art career. There were all those goals like website, business cards, social media, exhibitions, licensing etc. and at the bottom of the piece of paper I wrote this, like for some day:
I did what I could do for my short-term goals, like having business cards, and then put my business plan somewhere in a drawer and forgot about it. A good year down the creative road I have accomplished most of my goals and enjoying it. AYOP stands for A Year of Painting and I blogged about being published in this beautiful book last week.
In October last year I got a facebook message from another AYOP artist telling me that she had seen my business cards on page 59 of the latest Uppercase issue. What?
There they were, right in the middle.
I had attended the Global Art Gathering in Brighton in June (blogged here) and not only had this been an awesome adventure in itself where I met cool artists, designers and friends – it became my first Uppercase magazine entry, quite unintentional, but there you go.
That is an important aspect of goals, I learned – be as specific as you can get. I went on the Uppercase website, where you can always send submissions, idea pitches and portfolio reviews. Every couple of months the editor Janine Vangool has also open calls for other projects, as I saw on that day – for the Uppercase Creative Calendar 2016. You could submit either three little pieces of artwork or write three creative prompts, mantras or a word. I submitted some artwork and got this acceptance e-mail:
And today Uppercase issue 28 safely arrived from Canada here in Northern Germany.
The calendar is a wonderful mix of illustrations and prompts with so much international talent included and in Janine’s words: “This is not a day planner, but rather a place to encourage creative thinking and dreaming.”
You can find my little pattern in my month of birth – June.
Number 23 was the initial sketch for my Bacteria Night Party pattern. It is time to party now and then think and dream of new ideas. And you know what? There is a new open call on the Uppercase website – for bookmarks.