2022 Goals and Resolutions

I am a real nerd when it comes to New Year’s resolutions and after a couple of years of keeping to really basic More/Less drawings, I’m back to more rigorous planning for 2022. I think it’s because I’m starting to feel ever so slightly >hopeful<. Hopeful that these terrible pandemic years are coming to an end, hopeful that we will be able to stop living in a constant state of stress and uncertainty, hopeful that we can move forward again soon.

Good resolutions open up your year to richer and more rewarding experiences, and this is what I was striving for here.

vgriff’s 2022 Resolutions

1. Read more broadly (follow Read Harder 2022) and deeply (pay attention to the writing, take good notes, write reviews)
2. Work on writing out what I think and feel, and share it
3. Document these precious days in photographs, writing, and art
4. Take lots of classes to keep learning
5. Submit three pieces of writing for publication
6. Give more money away
7. Get outside and walk (or bike) every day
8. Bicycle the Olympic Discovery Trail from Pt Townsend to La Push
9. Say what I’m feeling to the people I love
10. Spend my time where it counts

Paper Cutting

@annabrones’ beautiful paper cut, from her instagram

Last week, my husband and I took an → in-person ← paper cutting class at the Nordic Heritage Museum. It was the first time we’ve gone on something approaching a real date since the pandemic started 19 months ago. It was taught by the lovely Anna Brones, a local artist I follow on Instagram, and who I have so much in common with (PNW nature-loving, wild swimming, bicycling, sketchbooking, fika-obsessive) that I feel like we’re already friends. It was really lovely.

The class was celebrating a paper cutting exhibit that the museum just opened, and to inspire the group we started by walking through the dark room full of giant cut white sheets of paper sandwiched between big sheets of glass. They cast beautiful shadows on the floors and walls.

Since then I’ve been falling down a gorgeous internet rabbithole of paper cutting. I hadn’t known that Chinese paper-cutting was such an ancient craft, and I love looking at the gorgeous red pieces that range from super basic to crazy elaborate.

Rogan Brown creates these amazingly intricate organic-looking paper cuts, sometimes with subtle colors that make me think of sun bleached coral reefs.

Kiriken Masayo creates unbelievable paper cuts from a single piece of paper.

Aghhhh, so much beauty in such a simple art form. Check out more artists here.

my amateur contribution to the art form