How was 2025?

Here are some thoughts I wrote down in January 2025, after I completed The Annual Art Business Reset, a short online course with Josie Lewis.

“My words for the year are Wonder, Imagination, Movement and Patience. They define my wish to create more whimsical art, experiment with colour and movement with glass and to slow down and let the process take the time it needs.”

So how did I go? I think I’d give myself an 8/10.

art goal mood board for 2025

Movement with colour in cast glass can be tricky. It moves alright, but the colours often blend so you don’t see the movement that has happened. This year, I used glass with high contrast in colour and opacity (frequently complex cane offcuts) to drizzle through pots or use hot glass to move coloured pieces in the kiln. I also tried pressing some coloured sheets with handmade moulds from Origami. This technique has been very pleasing and does move the glass in ways it usually would not!

Patience - well, it is a necessary attribute for a glass caster, but I do get keen to start now, before I have everything together. Or to check on something before it is set. Usually, to the detriment of what I am working on. I have got better at reminding myself to wait, plan or go and do something else.

It’s not that I lack imagination or wonder - I need to remind myself to use them alongside my practical problem-solving work. It’s a different sort of thinking and requires a shift in gears. My submission for the Otherworld magazine tested my ability to keep pushing when my ideas didn’t inspire me. I almost gave up until something pivoted. Then the drawing process flowed for the next 80% until it was time for minute adjustments, which I persevered with before putting it away for a week, before a final check, and submitting.

Art challenges do help keep those wonder muscles flexible - you have to work quickly, and that often means leaving the internal critic behind. I have found that my daily sketches help with that second-guessing - just do it, you don’t have time to protest.

My Crowstones Calendar project also required flexing those imagination and Patience muscles - improving on the original 7 drawings, casting some aside, sitting and thinking ... If I were a crow on an adventure, what would I do next? How can I make this scene more magical?

A comparison of 2 version of the December Image for the Crow Stones Calendar

Now for 2026!