January 1, 2023 marked the 5 year anniversary of my daily painting practice. For the past month or so, I’ve been thinking about how to mark this milestone. In December I had achieved one of my first milestones: bringing in my musical painting practice to For Freedoms at the Untitled Art Fair for a segment about participatory art. It was one of the most beautiful afternoons of recent time, playing Arthur Russell and painting the date with others, something I had only dreamed about doing and then it happened. I felt possessed by my heroes, Kawara, Ono, Lewitt, DeMaria as I took another through my prompt.

I came back from Miami on a high. I thought about how I didn’t want to stop this practice, but I wanted to add a twist to it. But nothing was coming to mind.

So I just kept painting. And archiving. The thing that no one talks about, at least not in the groups I’ve been involved with, is the systems and organizational thinking needed to sustain an active practice without quickly becoming some version of Francis Bacon’s studio. (I wish there was a meme of it)

So in the past month or so while I’ve been debaconing the studio, archiving the 100s of paintings and 1000s of postcards from the past year, disposing of dry paint and saying goodbye to dead brushes, one phrase that kept popping into my head was something Carolyn See used to say in my fiction writing class in university. “Give away what you need.”

If there’s one thing I need 5 years into my practice, it’s engagement, dialogue and community. I want to help others tap into seeing that art is around them, within them and in reach, but it often feels awkward and I feel like a 1 woman show, preaching to an empty room. So I’ve just decided that I’m going to just keep sharing small bite-sized pieces to those that want some joy in their lives.

I’ll send you a painted postcard anywhere in the world. I’m making 365 unique ones throughout the year. Send me your details and I’ll mail one to you. I even made a form to make it simple…so if you’ve read this far, I hope you allow yourself to experience the joy of receiving a piece of art in the mail. Yes, an actual piece of mail that is not a bill!

Happy New Year!