2022 Year Recap

2022 Year in Review

 
This year has been a wild ride! I went places I wouldn’t have dreamed of before starting my art business and ended up in more places than ever this year with many nights spent under the stars. Granted, it wasn’t without its own problems of wild weather patterns and the longest winter ever here in the PNW. Let’s jump into this exceptional year in review.

I am so happy to say I did 26 art or street shows across 4 different states, crossed off visits to 6 new national parks, finally left the country, and our family even grew a bit with my brother and his wife having a little bundle of joy!
 

The year started off strong with Dan and I doing four 5-day shows back to back in February. We survived and made some great connections with people and fellow vendors. However, I don’t think we will plan to do that again next year haha (it was absolutely exhausting). It was during the second half, when we did the Portland Sportsman and Portland Home and Garden Show, that we snuck away and captured Multnomah Falls for the first time. It was a chilly 19 degrees (Fahrenheit) out and was wonderful catching the winter stars above the icy Multnomah Falls. We had plans to catch the falls among the 4 seasons but the weather had other plans this year so we shall see if we have better luck in 2023.

We had a blast at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in April and made friends with Bob and Ken from the shop across our booth, called In Good Spirit—which I will be next to their shop again for the next Tulip Festival. Super cool shop ran by the sweetest guys. We also got to photograph Tulip Town, which was so much fun after dark, and I tried a new technique this year which called focus stacking to get all the tulips from the front to the back in focus. It took a long while, but the result was great, and it was such a wonderful night out with a killer sunset.

Then, definitely the most epic part of the year, was my family and I got to go to ICELAND! This was an epic adventure, which you can read all the details in its own blog post. By far, this trip was the cherry on top for me this year. This trip was a way to celebrate my brother and his wife having a baby. She was about 6 months along when we went and you may think that being 6 months pregnant might slow you down but that couldn’t be further from the truth with her. We traveled that whole darn country in two weeks! Barring the West Fjords, we road tripped the entire country. Later in the trip, we even took the ferry out to see all the silly little puffins. It was a magical adventure, and we loved every minute. We also probably ate more fish and chips while we were in Iceland than we had in our whole lives. While over there, I fell in love with Icelandic yogurt and ate it almost every single morning. It is so creamy and just the right amount of sweet. Kind of ruined me on any American yogurt when I got back home. Personally, I adored the fact that there was almost no food with soy in it. With a soy allergy, let me tell you, I was beyond happy to feel more free to explore things like pastries, snacks, breads, and more. Here in America we often use soy flour and vegetable oil (soy oil) in our baked goods because it is sweeter, so I have to steer clear. It may have ended a little Lampoonish with us running wildly through the airport like a 90s holiday movie but all n’ all, we had a great time overseas and we all agreed that Iceland is clearly the birthplace of waterfalls.

Right when we got back, I had to rush to get ready for my first time having a booth at the Edmonds Arts Festival; a show I have previously gotten an honorable mention at for the gallery portion. I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I couldn’t have dreamt of a better show! Thank you so much to anyone who bought one of my Signature framed pieces! As they are all made and framed by me so I put a ton of love into those pieces and seeing them go to their forever home fills me with joy! I, also, found it entertaining that I was placed very close to one of my college professors. He was actually the department head of the photography degree while I was in college and was branching out to doing wood bowls which was really cool to see and chat with him.
 
We did too many shows to talk about them all here, but I couldn’t do a year in review without talking about BAM (Bellevue Arts Museum show). So if you aren’t from Washington State, having an art show in a parking garage sounds super weird and we get that. But just trust me, BAM is one of the best shows in the state and many vendors come from all over the country for it. Even though there was a heat wave this year, it was, by far, our best show.

Later in the summer, while we were at an art show in Coupeville, we couldn’t help but go to a concert of two of my favorite bands: Simple Plan and Sum 41 co-headlining a concert. With quite the drive from Coupeville to Seattle—work traffic, multiple construction projects, and more—we finally got to the concert and lined up in excitement. Trying not to think about needing to open our booth at 10 am the next day back in Coupeville, we enjoyed the concert, and I would totally do it again. No regrets! \m/ Dan and I have listened to both bands for years, so seeing them live was stellar. It was also a second chance in a way as I finally got to see Sum 41 in concert. Many years prior, I almost got to see them with a college friend in Seattle but my friend kept thinking it wouldn’t sell out and by the time we got up to the ticket counter they literally sold the last tickets to the people in front of us, so this was a long time coming. It was my first time being in the very front of the pit in such a crowded concert (normally in the back or side of the pit at smaller shows) and it was sooooo worth every bump and bruise. There were so many things that made that concert awesome and we were complete zombies at the art show the next morning. For sure, a three-coffees kinda day. Music means so much to Dan and I, and, pre-covid, we went to a crazy amount of concerts at our local small venues in Washington so it felt so good to see live music again.

Colorado was our next big stop, seeing two new-to-us national parks: Rocky Mountain National Park and Mesa Verde National Park. During the first week there we powered through some elevation sickness (seriously knocks you out), waited out a few hail storms, and ate an incredible multi-course fondue dinner. I grew up in Colorado, and, any time I go back, I absolutely love it. I made a recap of this trip as well, so you can read about all the trip here. But the highlights were definitely seeing some old friends that I hadn’t seen in many many years, playing tons of new board games, and, of course, enjoying those beautiful mile high skies. This was the farthest we have traveled for any art shows so far and both went so well that we hope to head back again in 2023.

All my dreams of Fall creations this year were crushed and have officially been bumped into 2023 with the crazy smokey October we had here in Washington (seriously, worst air quality we’ve seen in a long time). Just goes to show you that even though you have epic plans, sometimes the weather has very different things planned. This was especially true when we hit Tempe and Tucson at the end of the year—the last two shows of the 26 we did this year. We accidentally packed the rain, apparently. Mind blowingly, it was even record-breaking rainfall our first weekend there. They hadn’t had rain like that in over a century! And even though I was after some epic stars, I could only catch sunsets with the wild weather patterns we had. At least the sunsets are really quite stunning in Southern Arizona. The full recap of this trip is found here and, despite the weather, it was a great way to end our season. We, luckily, also got home before the real winter weather hit and the West Coast got hit by a freezing rain storm. Much like many things in the past few years, the weather has been unprecedented in varying ways this year.
 

This is Wren wishing every one a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, this is also one of the few times I do baby portraits.

Phew! That was the bulk of the year, travel, family, adventure, and of course dreaming of the stars. It is all possible because of all of you out there buying prints, cards, and more and supporting my art by sharing it and enjoying it. There are many exciting things in store for next year so I hope to see you all on the road!