New Years Resolutions: Less Plastic, More Patience

*FrostBark* $200 acrylic on 16x20in oval canvas

Part I

This year the holiday season was a little bit different at our house. That sounds much too ominous… all good things, I swear. We found ourselves caring more about the environment, not to say that we didn’t before, but I always found it difficult to believe that one person can make a difference. After all, I’m “only quite a little fellow, in a wide world.” Ten points to Gryffindor if you get the quote!

I’m sorry, I’m all over the place. The truth is, I’m not used to writing to people, or a blank page, or really expressing myself publicly. I actually don’t really like it at all. But I’m trying to be more actively involved with my audience, and blogging is one of the ways that I thought folks could get to know me. Cringe.

So, let me start again…

Around the October timeframe I suddenly found myself eagerly saving vegetable scraps. I filled up several cups worth and one weekend decided to try my hand at cooking up my own vegetable broth. I’m constantly using vegetable broth in a bunch of different dishes, and I wanted to find a way to pay less at stores. I also wanted to be less wasteful of all the scraps that I don’t use. So, I threw them all into pots of boiling water, added a bunch of seasonings (dealer’s choice), and watched the magic happen. After only about an hour, I had several bottles worth of delicious, homemade, vegetable broth. I kept a couple in my fridge to use that week, and the rest I froze. And you know what? I’ve been buying less broth at stores, my soups have never been tastier, and I’m much happier for it.

It was such a little thing, but it suddenly changed my mindset. I stopped thinking that I needed to fix the world and started to think I could at least fix my world.

Then, for Yuletide, my husband surprised me by gifting me with brand new reusable, heavy-duty, shopping totes. Now hear me out, I know this sounds like a silly gift, but I was actually quite pleased. More to the point, I was excited to use them the first chance we got!

I’m not exactly sure when the change happened (maybe around Thanksgiving?), but one day we found ourselves coming home from the store after a grocery trip (not a large one I might add), only to discover that the store had thrust about 20 plastic grocery bags on us. It was overkill. Everything could have neatly fit into three bags. In fact, a lot of the bags only had one item in them. Thinking it was a fluke, we kept the bags intending on recycling at the nearest bag drop-off. But the next grocery trip it happened again.

Let me be clear, I’ve always been aware that plastic bags are unnecessary and destructive to the environment. We’ve always made an effort to recycle them, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that I noticed the problem had become really, really bad. What changed? I know that the specific store in question had recently revamped their recycling program as of 2020-2021 by updating recycling bins, and supposedly working to remove more plastic, but the number of bags they’re pushing on customers would seem counterproductive. I decided from then on that I would do my best not to bring home another plastic bag.

I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t good about this before. I always had totes and bags at home, but rarely remembered to bring them to the store. Yet every time we visited a state that was better about recycling, we would admire the fact that most people brought their own reusable tote bags. When I saw my husband’s gifts to me, I chuckled. Right then we decided to commit properly. No more plastic bags.

And I can honestly say that we haven’t brought back a single plastic bag from the grocery store since. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t any currently in the house. I have some bags in my art room which I use to keep my shredding fillers in (a recycling hack I’ve begun for shipping purposes), and we still use zip lock bags to store some items in the freezer (currently looking into reusable vacuum sealer bags for food storage), but we’re doing better. There will be slip-ups, but that’s ok, because we really are trying. And that knowledge has helped to lessen my ecoanxiety a bit.

Part II

That all leads me to my next resolution, more patience.

I always thought of myself as a fairly patient person, and maybe at one time I was, but I’ve definitely been slipping. Last year there were times I caught myself trying to speed up my art process, not by using short cuts, just trying to hurry my work along. Something that art is not fond of, and I should’ve known better. The best I can think is that Instagram and social media played a factor, but that’s really not an excuse.

Ever since the algorithm changed to favor videos over photos, I’ve discovered a marked decrease in my following to include likes and general interactions from the audience. This is not good for someone who relies heavily on social media to showcase her artwork (and will continue doing so until she can afford her own gallery/studio space). News Flash: it’s me, I’m that someone, in case it wasn’t blatantly obvious.

For a while I thought that maybe if I just posted more frequently I would regain some semblance of a following, but alas posting more frequently meant trying to keep up with all the paintings/pieces that I was working on while also planning for the next. At first this sounded like a great challenge. I’d keep busy while maintaining my platform, I’d get to paint/draw a ton, I’d post much more often, and everything would just be peachy all around. It was not peachy, more like a mushy tomato that has been oversqueezed.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that I was plenty busy without the added stress of posting on a regular basis. Instead of pushing out more work, I ended up falling behind a bit. Trying to keep up with the demand of social media was exhausting, I found myself burned out and needing a bit more time off than usual. I was trying to produce so quickly that I wasn’t enjoying the whole process anymore. I decided I didn’t need to plan out every single painting beforehand. I didn’t go as large as I would’ve wanted to for some paintings/drawings because I knew it would take longer to complete them. I also put some of my own projects on hold because I was more focused on maintaining public interest. It was terrible. But I can happily say that all that is behind me now.

I started on this resolution a little earlier as well, also right around the Thanksgiving timeframe. I put a hold on commissions for a bit and decided to focus strictly on my own projects, interest be damned! Since then I’ve been able to develop a new style of pen drawing which I’m rather excited to show off sometime soon… no hurry though. I’ve also been slowly working on my Maine-inspired collection of large acrylic paintings. I think they’re going to be wonderful.

I’m taking the time to genuinely be part of, and present for, every single process along the way from the little planned sketches, measurements, outlines, priming, and each and every layer of paint (and there are a lot, especially the way I watercolor). I’m being patient with my painting again, understanding that art is a learning journey and that it can’t be rushed. The quality comes from the time and effort put into every single brushstroke, every little hatch mark, dot, criss-cross, and line. Thus, my resolution for being patient, with my painting, but more importantly with myself.

Want to start a conversation? Let me know what your resolutions for 2023 are! Wishing everyone a better year than last year, and of course, thank you all for reading along.

Happy Painting!