2019 reflection and my art in 2020

Hey all!
I hope you're doing well and starting to get to Christmas mood. Christmas as a holiday doesn't mean that much me but I do appreciate the calm and warmth of the season. Being able to slow down for a little bit, enjoy the company of people important to you as well as good food is what makes the holiday special for me. I hope you all get to relax a little and spend time with things that are important to you.

This journal is a bit of reflection of the ending year as well as shaping goals for the 2020 and the upcoming decade. It's also a reflection on my art career. There is also a big announcement regarding commissions. You can skip ahead a few paragraphs if you feel like it.

Graduation

With the end of the decade I'm also ending one part of my life. I may have been mentioning my studies and master's thesis in passing a few times. I don't know how many of you actually know but I have actually been studying architecture at a university for the past eight years. I never felt like talking about it that much because it always felt like a separate thing from my art and on here I only wanted to focus on my art. I have been working at an architectural office for the past three years or so. Approximately a month ago I finally handed in my thesis, finalizing my master's studies. I officially graduated from university two weeks ago and I now have a degree in architecture. I'm currently working as as architect in another architectural office. What's left is just the obligatory stand on ceremony, then it's over. Finally.

It feels a little surreal because it's not really what I expected and it's not what I imagined I would end up doing. I have always been artistic but I didn't really have any vision for what I wanted to do when I grow up, so to speak. Architecture kinda just happened because I got accepted in university on my first try. School was fine for me and I did well on my assignments so I didn't really feel the need to question whether it was the right thing for me. Turns out that school and work life are very different. In school the work was creative and there was much more free time that I could spend on things I enjoyed like art and video games.

Entering the working life shifted the balance and I have been struggling to keep doing art on the side. Working as an architect is very demanding, very intense and very technical. While I enjoy creative problem solving I realized that a good deal of the job is actually something I don't enjoy at all and find very boring. I'm an artistically creative person and the job isn't creatively fulfilling for me. In order to keep my creative needs satisfied I have been pushing myself too hard and ended up burning myself out big time (as a result of many factors, including a disorganized workplace). 

Even before the burnout I had been struggling with my artist-architect identity and recently I have decided that I would much rather just be an artist. Architecture is an interesting subject and all but it's not what I want to spend the majority of my time on. I want to build my life on something that is meaningful to me and something that brings me joy. Art is what shapes my identity and life, my profession just brings bread to the table. I thought that if I could run my art career on the side I could just take the leap some day and become the artist I want to be. I think I have been doing it all wrong. I have been doing my own art, going to conventions, making commissions and taking a few art classes. I think that the lack of focus has made me use the little time and energy I have left after work very inefficiently, leaving me both frustrated and exhausted. So, in order to fix that and to make a real shift in my life I need to adjust my focus in 2020.

Commissions

I have decided to drop commissions completely. I won't take any more new commissions in 2020. Maybe not even in 2021. Or 2022. The only exceptions are dire financial situations and previous agreements. If I have already discussed about a commission with you and agreed to do it we can figure it out but be aware that I will do it when my life permits. This is not an easy decision but I think it's an essential one. I have really, really enjoyed working on commissions for you guys. You always have the coolest ideas and I always have fun working on them. However, I realized that I have kept taking commissions because I feel like I'm somehow obligated to or that I almost owe offering that kind of service for people on the internet. I also realized that if I keep working full time AND taking commissions on the side I'll just end up spending all my time working on someone else's project and not having any time for myself. I have been neglecting myself and what I want and I need to be kinder to myself and allow myself to enjoy things for once. Additionally I feel like people deserve better than what I can offer in terms of quality and schedule. My ability to do commissions at the moment is less than ideal and it's wearing me out so this needs to be done.

2020 goals

Dropping commissions makes me feel like I'm giving up on a part of my dream of having an art career that I can make a living on. However, I don't need to make a living with my art right now. I don't need to work two jobs simultaneously. I think by doing so I have scattered my focus and haven't made the progress that I want to make in terms of making a career out of art. What I need to do now is to readjust my focus and do what I want to do, not what others want me to do. I want to focus on finding out what it is that I want to do with my art. I want to focus on learning and setting myself goals that will take me to where I want to be, in terms of art and life. I need to take the time to perfect my craft so that one day I can take the leap. But I'm not ready yet. This is a long term goal. Maybe a 5-year goal, or even a 10-year goal. But it would be nice to be able to see myself as a full time artist in the next decade.

I have already enrolled in a couple of classes that will hopefully give me a little bit of a boost. I'm going to try to find a balance between studying and artistic me-time and hopefully that will help me shape my art into what I want it to be. I have so many projects I want to work on, one being my Nuzlocke comic. I have been thinking about it constantly for the past year. I never said I was going to drop it and I still intend to continue it and eventually finish it. Working on the comic has always been something I do for me and lately I feel like such things have been very scarce. I think clearing my schedule of unnecessary things and focusing on something that's only for me may be just what I need in order to recover.

In short, I want to make 2020 a year of me-time. I'm going to do things not because I feel obliged to but because I want to. I think that's as good as my New Year's resolution gets.

Thank you for your continuous support! It's always a great joy to me to see so many people enjoy my art. Stay awesome!