Happy Year of the Wood Horse, everyone!

It was Chinese New Year on Friday...I keep track of Chinese New Year every year, not just because I make my mom a sculpture of whatever the Chinese zodiac animal is that year (her birthday is tomorrow...it usually falls around Chinese New Year), but also because that's when I make my resolutions.

I took this photo for a class in 2006...no one notices or cares that those are South American beads with an Asian deity, do they?

See, actual New Year's Day is really not the optimal time to make resolutions, I find.  Sometimes you're hungover, or at least really tired if you stayed up particularly late the previous night.  And January can sometimes be a depressing month, because you're feeling the post-holiday letdown.  Whereas if you wait a few more weeks, well, now you're into February, spring will be coming up soon, you're probably feeling a bit more optimistic and heading out of the winter slump...plus, you're already 6-8 weeks into the New Year, so you already have some idea of what the year's going to be like and what you can realistically accomplish!  That's how I view it, anyway.

I, of course, have several art-related resolutions...

not least of which is to update this dang blog more.  I have some personal resolutions too (read more books, talk to family members more often).  I've learned to make reachable goals for the year so that I can feel better about accomplishing them.  Resolutions aren't written in stone anyway...I dropped one of mine last year because it was making me crazy, and I tend to also set mini-resolutions throughout the year, i.e. summer resolutions, to break goals down into more manageable chunks.

However, there is one resolution that I'm well on my way with already: I had wanted to get my pet portraiture business up and running as its own separate entity, with its own website and online presence.  And now it is!  Or at least, its website is: Maxfield and Madison Pet Portraiture.  Very exciting!...to me, anyway.  I've been working on this for the past week, and there it is.  Next to set the business up with Facebook, Twitter, all those fun things...oh yeah, and start getting clients too, that's somewhat important. ;)