I’ve made up my mind that this will be the year that I start really applying for things, to really put an effort to get my work out there.  I applied for the New York Times Portfolio Review (and as I’ve heard some people apply multiple times before they get accepted, I’m not really holding my breath on that one). I’ve entered a couple of exhibition open calls, and I have an upcoming publication that I was accepted in and should be receiving a copy of soon.  

What’s changed?  I can’t really say, maybe the feeling that these past couple of years have gone by and I’ve felt that I’ve just been stagnant?  Which hasn’t been new, but these pandemic years have felt different; in the past my stagnation has been solely my own doing.  Just too lazy to get up and get out.  A total lack of motivation.  These past years with Covid hit me different, all these plans that I had started being cancelled for safety reasons.  Which was understandable, we were trying to limit the spread of the infection, and to do that, we had to limit human interaction. I guess because I’ve never really been a planner, I’ve just reacted to ideas or thoughts that I had, and then jumped (frantically sometimes) to put them in motion. With all those plans cancelled, all the wind went out of my sails.

At the tail end of 2021, I put together a small zine of old photographs. I called it Twenty Six American Flags. Partly because I have this fascination with ripping off Ed Ruscha, I’ve done three other small zines using 26 photos… It felt good to do something, even that small. I didn’t have to slowly run around and make new photographs. I did have to make an effort to dig through my extremely disorganized archive looking for photographs, rescanning negatives or in some cases scanning negatives for the first time.

I was happy with the end result, thought it turned out very well. I also was able to attend Houston’s Zine Fest and table with it. Sold all copies I brought, which I’ve never been able to do that with any zine I’ve printed before. Maybe I should dig through my archives for future zines?