Obligatory New Years Post, 13 Days Late

Happy New Year!
You're over it already? Sorry.

I went home to Philadelphia for Christmas but got snowed in and spent 4 extra days there. With no creative outlets for a week, I lost my mojo. I made it through a hellish ride back to NY that lasted an extra 3 hours (I get very, very motion sick on bus rides and spent two days recovering), exchanged some awesome presents, seriously brainstormed, thought about my New Years Post, dove into finishing some things I started before I left and then caught the flu- the likes of which I had not suffered since I was a kid.
The past week I was achy, weak, had a constant headache, slept the days away and watched A LOT of movies (most of which I can't even remember). By the end of it, I could have sworn it was going to be warm out, Springtime, verdant and lovely- no dice.
It's ok though, there is a lot to be done before Spring and while I've never been a "resolution" person, I'm going to share them anyway, or at least the general ideas (my actual list is compiled of incoherent word strings).
I think these are pretty good fundamentals so hopefully I'll stick to them.

THE LIST

GET "WITH IT"- Prepare for holidays in a timely manner. Participate in the "craft culture". Promote friends, promote myself. I spent several rushed December days trying to make things for the holiday when the ball should have been rolling in November. The mere idea of even participating in a show didn't strike me until early December.
I'm not remorseful though, this year took a lot of soul-searching and research.  Time to implicate it now.

WEBSTUFF- Oh, I've been wanting to have a new website for a long while now but it was never the right time and I didn't have enough content. I made one a very long time ago for a digital art class [http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cas361/ if you're curious but it is officially defunct] but I can't access it anymore and now I've actually got some work to show. It's very different from any site I would design now and was rushed due to class requirements so it's time to make something nice. 
And yes, I also want to stylize this blog because it's probably the most boring looking "art blog" you've ever seen.


GET CONCEPTUAL- I have a lot of concepts in my sketchbooks- A LOT and while I don't consider myself a genius, I barely touch upon ideas that could be very interesting (at least for me to make).
Being commercially viable and popular has (in the past) felt like a completely different monster from the things I'll actually produce, these deeper meaning ideas are also much more time consuming to execute but I'm realizing more and more I'll never get over my "weirdness" about making dolls, or shyness about considering it "art" without chalking it up and devoting some time to depth.

EXPLORE MORE MEDIUMS- Paper clay, paper, more drawing, more painting, getting back into metal, design fabric; as well as making prints, postcards and other media. I'm not going to cut out sewing but there is definite room for expansion and enhancement. Implicating more mediums will also help illustrate all those ideas I was talking about before.

All of these things are kind of related and build upon each other. They are all based upon developing craft but also interacting with others and I hope to do both. We'll see.


For now, here are the latest additions to my Etsy Shop:





Black Thumb Terrarium- Succulent No. 1


Black Thumb Terrarium- One Tree No. 1


Black Thumb Terrarium- Succulent No. 2




 
Black Thumb Terrarium- 1 Tree No. 3

And I also added a giraffe I made a while ago but am listing for the first time:


href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/crystalsuh/5352256818/" title="baby giraffe by crystal A suh, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5208/5352256818_e7d635cc16.jpg" width="400" height="399" alt="baby giraffe" />

6 Inch Baby Giraffe