Celebrating 2012– Highlights of My Year

I read Carin’s post today about her creative achievements of 2012 and it got me thinking “what would be on my list if I were to make one?”  At first I thought, well, I don’t have a whole lot to say, but then I thought back to all the little things I am proud of, that made me happy and experiences I had this year that were fantastic.

I’m not going to lie, this Christmas season I was not fully in the mood to celebrate the holidays.  I pay a lot of attention to the news and read many of the stories that come across my way.  Of course, there were the big tragedies in Newtown and the movie theater and the one in my own state at the Sikh temple…. and many more smaller tragedies that I hear about all the time.  All of the bad things in the world have really weighed on my heart and I have just not felt right celebrating when the world is so broken.  How can there be such evil in the world?  It really has thrown me for a loop.  I try to keep my blogging light and happy and positive but it just seemed like one after another this year.  Because of this, it has really made think about how I treat other people and how I need to be a positive force.  I need to keep perspective and not let the little things irritate me.  I need to focus more on the big picture rather than the day to day.  Letting things go that are really not a huge deal!  We all need to be kinder to each other because we do not know the burdens another person bears.  And I’m not just talking about a random act of kindness thing, but overall a shift in perspective for myself.

It’s important to not take the little things (and the big things) for granted.  It easy to let things slip by without really celebrating them.  It’s easy to focus on what you don’t have or what you are not, rather than the things that you do well or the things that make you happy.  I encourage you to make your OWN LIST of things that you are proud of or great memories you have from this year.  Celebrate them!  Embrace them and be proud of them.  Carin had 60 things on her list!

Here are some of my creative and personal highlights of this year:

1.  Participated in a fun online workshop from Strathmore with Traci Bautista.

2.  Showed my students artworks in the Youth Art Month Show at the Hilldale Mall and the State Capitol.

3.  Created some amazing collaborative canvases with my students (2 of which were auctioned off and 2 of which are hanging in my school.)

4.  Conducted several fun and messy afterschool art classes for kids.

5.  Went to New York in March for the National Art Education Conference and had an amazing time!
I got to hang out with some of my favorite art ed bloggers in person, and saw Peter Max and Chuck Close give speeches!

6.  In January I started working with Marit and the team on a new mixed media art magazine called Featuring.  The first issue came out in April!  I interviewed artists and wrote 3 articles for the first issue.

7.  Put out another school yearbook successfully with the middle school kids at my school.

8.  In June I volunteered at the Re-Art Swap at a local art store in Madison where you can drop off unwanted supplies and then pick up new ones.  Amazing!  I am so volunteering again next year.

13.  In September, I launched the Weekly Doodle— printable drawing prompts for kids.  I’m considering make some more e-packets for download.

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25.  Kept several art journals and filled a few of them!

27.  Made several mixed media collages for fun!

28.  Filled two scrapbooks with Project Life style scrapbooking!

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