The year 2025 is ending and during these long, dark nights of winter, it’s easy to become quiet and reflective. During the "holiday taint" (not my creation but I love it) many of us look back on the previous 11.75 months and we assess how the year was for us. The easiest path is to feel we have to judge the year as good or bad and use our selective memories to back up that judgment.
Like most things in life, a year is neither good nor bad. It simply is. Each day is what we make of it. Some things we can choose and others we cannot. Our perspective, though, is always in our control. Here’s how I’m choosing to see my year. (With a little help from my camera roll, because I too, forget so many details and need a little visual help remembering all the awesome things.)
This is the first photo I took in 2025. Violet and I stayed up to see midnight and apparently we kept a very young, very small Walter up as well. Maybe it would be a good idea to try to group these highlights. Let's call the next one "students"...
These two provide endless entertainment for me and everyone else in the sculpture studio. Cathryn and Elena are "hype men" when I need support, they are comedians when I need a laugh and they are obviously very talented dancers. Yes, they're dancing in the pic. I have the whole video they made during a welding break and I laugh out loud every time I see it.
They're also spectacular artists and students. This highlight is from the Student Juried Exhibit Reception and Awards. Both won highly coveted sculpture awards that night and then they both won awards in a local juried exhibit off campus. They definitely made my year better.
The last half of my year had far too little MG in it. But if you know MG, you know that she made up for it in the first half of the year. She was also a laugh riot and a great student. This pic is from her crowning achievement at her BFA reception. MG gave me a year's worth of smiles before May ended.
The last half of my year also had far too little Katherine in it. In June, she packed up and moved across the state. Before June, she also brought her fair share of smiles and laughs to me. I've also been lucky to call her a friend and she's made sure to check in and catch up pretty regularly. I'm really grateful for that. She's also not a student, so I guess I messed the category up. We did have some of the same students, so that may save it. I currently have some students Katherine taught when they were freshmen. That's pretty cool.
This photo pretty much sums up my year with students. Sometimes you want to throttle them, but overall they're amazing and fun.
Going to Mir's field hockey games this semester was also fun. I helped talk Mir into coming back to the US for another year instead of staying in Belgium. She got to be on the team again and it was cool to learn more about this weird sport and watch her hit people with a stick.
Oh and Shine! Shine likes to torture me with cats and it always makes me laugh. Sometimes I'll be working in my office and I'll hear meowing in the hallway. It's always Shine.
This category is "art". It was a big year for making art. I may have only made 2 new sculptures, but I made more than 10 new drawings and several of those were quite large. I got artwork accepted into 11 exhibits, had two solo exhibits, curated a very cool show, won 3 awards and only had 20 rejections. One of my favorite things about the year in art was taking on the challenge of making full sized human cut-out drawings.
Ok, I take that back. One of my favorite things about the year in art was being included in the "At This Moment" exhibit and book by Jerry Siegel and Mark Sloan. Jerry is a world famous photographer and he came to my home studio to take my photo. A few months later, that photo was included in the book and exhibition of his photos at the Greenville County Museum of Art. The book and exhibit featured 78 artists with ties to South Carolina. Among them were Jasper Johns, Shepard Fairey and Tom Stanley....real artistic heroes and mentors. I'm still blown away by this.
Ok wait. One of my favorite things about the year in art was being invited to create artwork live at Beeple Studios in North Charleston. This was a fundraiser for my favorite Art Center, Public Works Art Center and Beeple was there hanging out with us. That's him (Mike) watching Devann sew. Devann, Maddie and Katherine were all on my fundraising team. We had the MOST fun and the BEST team.
Here's my drawing from the event.
Here's Katherine's. It sold so fast.
Here's Maddie's collage. So fun.
And here's Devann's quilt square trolls. See? I had the best team.
Ok, seriously, one of my favorite things about the year in art was having my second solo, immersive exhibition at Public Works Art Center. I was the first person to ever be invited back for a second exhibit and I had the BEST time filling the gallery with energy and love. I got to see all my favorite people and I even met some of my new favorite people. Major highlight.
Creighton get's his own category. This is the "creighton" category. Violet and I got excited when we heard Band of Horses was coming to Greenville. Creighton got us 7th row tickets and backstage passes. The concert was amazing and after the show, we got to go hang out with Creighton and the guys. It was so cool. Definitely a year highlight.
This category is called "hope despite the times". This was the title of the exhibit I got to curate in Public Works Art Center. I got to showcase the artwork of some of my favorite artists. It was so cool to come up with my dream list of artists and invite them. Every single one said yes and it was an amazing exhibit.
I'm calling this category "music" and while I did go to some cool concerts and listen to a crazy amount of hours of music while drawing, my favorite music of the year was the music Violet made with me. This was our 5th year of doing Whenever We Can Tunes and I'm still shocked and honored that she still wants to make fun videos with me. Definitely on the highlight reel for the year.
This is the "outside" category. Increasingly, humans are spending more and more time indoors. When I feel myself falling victim to this, I like to go outside and breath the real air. I got to bush hog mom's garden twice this year. My dad's old John Deere is still starting up, so we're still using it. I feel like a little kid when I drive it.
I added porch sitting to my weekly routine this year and I'm better off for it. Not only do you get the air, you also get the sounds, the temperature and the relaxation of the view. Everything about it lowers my stress levels and blood pressure. I'm currently working on perfecting the right furniture situation for the front porch.
Of course there's a "running" category. If memory serves, I ran in almost every weather condition we get here. Some snow, some rain, some lightning, some heat, some cold and some high winds. I was lucky to not have any injuries or pains that prevented me from running every day. Last summer, Violet was injured, so I didn't end up running quite as many extra miles at practice, but I did get to work on some speed with the boys team and I made it to the tree in a speed run. Y'all don't know what that means but if I was on the team, I would have gotten a sticker for the accomplishment. I love running. I wish you did too.
The "teaching" category. This one is different from "students" because it's all about my perspective as a teacher. Sometimes teaching can be frustrating and a teacher can feel like they're just wasting time and words, but this year was really good for teaching. In the spring semester, I had a fun, great group of students in my classes and I got to shepherd the BFA students as they prepared for their solo exhibits. MG made sure I felt appreciated and I got to celebrate a good group of seniors at graduation. In the fall, I had a really awesome collection of students and I was able to be patient enough to wait on some really great results. Some of what happened was honestly just luck, but it was all good. I can't say too much about some of these successes because they're still ongoing and talking about them would ruin it. Just know that good things are happening. The one I can share, and have already if you scroll down, is the cool thing I did with Elena and her sculpture.
It was a risk, but it turned out to be such a fun success. It's great for students to see you challenge yourself as a teacher and it's even better for them to see that you actually care. Again, I'll give luck the credit for the idea and for how it turned out. I was just happy to be around. Teaching was pretty cool this year.
There was so much solo travel this year, I had to make a "travel" category. We did have a couple of fun family vacations to the beach this year, but this category is mostly about me traveling out of town on art trips. These are solo trips and since I'm not a social guy, they can be pretty solitary. I don't mind that part. I enjoy time alone and it gives me opportunity to do silly, fun things without embarrassing anyone. That pic is from one of my morning runs in the mirror outside the elevators. Running allows me to explore the different towns and cities.
Any time I get to see Kathe and Tom Stanley is a highlight. This summer I went to Chapel Hill a couple of times and since they live nearby in Durham, they showed up to support me. I love them so much.
One of those trips was to install Phoebe in Hillsboro. It was so hot and humid and I was soaked with sweat even though the entire install lasted only about 10 minutes.
There were hotels and runs in several different places. There were side-quests and fun adventures. I even got to go to South Of The Border for the first time in my life. Loved it. Probably have to go back in a couple of months for another trip. I may not love trying to sleep in a strange place, but these trips mean that I'm installing artwork and sharing it with people and that's pretty awesome. I'm hoping for many more trips next year.
So were there days when I felt like a caged animal stuck in a terrible meeting? Of course. Were there days when I walked in the door at home thinking I could use a drink? Definitely. Were there days I cussed at Jenna for being a stubborn-ass? Oh yeah. But each day brought it's own beauty and if I was patient enough, I'd see it before bedtime. There was a lot of stress, a lot of worry, a lot of really dark days. But there was light and love and beauty for all of us who looked for it.
I hope that you and I both will be patient enough to find the light, love and beauty in each day of 2026.
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