Your Life is Your Art – A 2006 Life Review

A year end is not complete without a brief review of what I have done in the present year. Like a daily blog post, this review functions as an inventory: to record, to cherish, to ponder, to review, to make a resolution.

I quote Keri Smith’s writing on Your Life is Your Art (copied as is):

“You cannot create art without a source, but the nature of what makes a good source is sometimes illusive to the maker. Look to your daily life. The things you do every day without thinking. A walk in your neighborhood. A phone conversation. Your childhood obsessions. A new purse. The normal parts. The "boring" parts. Your favourite cup. A hole in your shoe. What's in your knapsack. What you ate for lunch. Include the ugly parts which we often discard as sources. The mess on your desk. A painful childhood memory. A nagging fear. A terrible fight. A death. Use these as elements in your opus. Write them down. Paint them out. transform them. change their meaning. It is all worthy of documenting. Your view of the world is unique. people will respond to your work when it is honest. even though you might not see the beauty there. sometimes that is better. just get it out. start by talking about what you did yesterday. actually, just start. to add my favourite saying, use what you've got! (I actually got this from the Urban Peasant (James Barber) who applied it to cooking, but it works for everything.)”

Now, enjoy!

January
- medical check-up (result was fine although had problem to breathe)
- installed broadband after years of dreaming (waited for the kick too long)
- 40th birthday in Bali (it was special because it was not special)

February
- started the first blog (RAD inspired me one morning, she stops after three posts)

March
- started the second blog, Ubudblu
- went to vodka bar almost every week (it’s a birthday month)
- attended three-day Java Jazz Festival 2006 for the first time
- did a thorough tour in Pasar Seni Ancol for the first time

April
- did Yogya art tour less than a month before the big Yogya earthquake

May
- started writing haiku / poem almost every day (it stops after seven months, shall restart in new year)
- watched movie for the first time after four years, did four weekends in a row

June
- started making collage (it stops after four months, shall restart in new year)
- enjoyed a life break
- started to participate in weekly art challenges -- three challenges in less than a month (it stops after four months, shall restart in new year)

July
- produced first 3-D artwork although stopped after five creations
- first trial on sticky-tape collage got recognition from IMT
- found talent in ‘capturing’ person’s character (captured self as first trial, then friends)
- got second recognition from IMT within two weeks (the collage shown above)

August
- blucolage got 150 hit daily from 26 countries in two weeks
- chose to explore fuller body as art object
- went to Solo after more than six years
- did first art collaboration with an international art blogger

September
- own more than ten blogs: private, art, and business (70% are well attended)
- cut hair the shortest in the last 15 years (2 cm in the back)
- visited the well-known Pasar Seni ITB for the first time and Bandung after more than six years
- started a daily art-journal (it stops after one month)
- attended the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2006 for the first time

October
- sat in Taman Surapati for the first time
- attended baptism for the first time
- spent Eid in Jakarta after years of always pulang kampung
- worked as translator (volunteer and paid) after eight years off office

November
- Mama came over after more than four years
- bought three shoes of a style (red, brown, blue)
- celebrated 300th post in Ubudblu

December
- watched movie everyday (except one day) for one week at the Jakarta International Film Festival 2006
- did major decluttering around home, 99% done
- got the shortest haircut, shorter than before
- FRA workshop got a nice Christmas present: a tree fell on the roof
- spent New Year holiday at home after years of out of town