Out With The Old, In With The New....

"It's been a long December and there's reason to believe maybe this one will be better than the last...." Counting Crows/ Long December

It's over... 2010. You were the year that never should have been. Filled with uncertainty, anxiety & austerity, you were a bitch 2010. I'm not going to miss you. Nope, not one little bit.  Good riddance!


That's not completely fair. The year was a rough one for most of us, true enough... at least the first ten & a half months of it. Decent work was hard to come by, money was tight, anxiety about the situation at an all time high...


What did we learn in 2010? Speaking for myself only, I learned that while you can't always get what you want, you often can get what you need. In the past year and the last half of the one before that, I learned that lack of commissioned work opens doors to creativity on a new level, allows for opportunities for self-expression & image making that, perhaps, would be more difficult had I been completely occupied with assignment work. I learned to trust myself... to trust my instincts. 2010 was, in many ways, a most productive one in terms of making personal work. Whether driven by boredom, fear, whatever... for the first time in years I actually found myself forced to rely on personal direction when it comes to image making. 2010 also provided the opportunity to get that work in front of potential art buyers... and that seems to be working out rather nicely. 


So, for all of your wretchedness, 2010... you may have actually done me a huge favor. 


The week has been a busy one. Final editing & retouching of the previous week's resort architectural assignment finally concluded to my satisfaction, a new marketing campaign for a housing development begun, sales, packing & shipping of sold art work finalized, proposals for several potential new campaign assignments completed & submitted, pre-production & scouting for two assignments next week, gift grabbing... cooking, christmas festivities & time with friends & family all crammed into the limited space of the last seven days. Highlights of the week were the traditional Christmas feast with my Maui family,
Dave Murray, wife T & daughter T. Dave's birthday also falls just a few days before Christmas so celebrations are always two-fold with the Murray clan.

Dave in the backyard

Blowing out the birthday candles

Another annual tradition I have come to love is the Cioppino gathering at M's with friends from the honor roll. Cioppino was awesome, conversation lively and again, time to spend with my first photography teacher & irrepressible artist, Darrel Orwig.

Darrel holds court

Darrel's sketchbook from a recent mainland trip

And speaking of artists, another of my favorites and long standing member of the honor roll is neighbor-sculptor Tom Faught, busily working in his massive industrial complex of a studio for the past few weeks getting ready for the group show to open at the MACC's Shaeffer International Gallery next week on the 8th. Spent several evenings this week in the company of the wonderful artists and lunatics that gather frequently at Tom's during the cocktail hour. The holidays are for spending time with those you love and these folks I love a lot!

Tom Faught

New work in progress

Other developments during the final week of the year... a request from a photo-editor and a major Auckland, NZ newspaper to stalk and paparazzi-ize New Zealand's Prime Minister, reportedly sunning himself on our beaches this week. Request denied.


Controversial editorial & fine art photographer Jill Greenberg is coming in for a couple of days next week to photograph pulitzer prize winning poet and Maui resident W.S. Merwin for a future edition of Oprah's magazine. I wonder if she'll make him cry too? We got a call from a producer about assisting for the job but had to pass as I'm already booked for the scheduled day for the shoot.

Final sunset sky of the year

Now a new year begins, full & ripe with promise. In 2010 we lost some dear friends, made some new ones. We put aside fear & loathing and made work for our eyes only, we survived... And there's reason the believe maybe this year will be better than the last. Many thanks & love go out to all of you that helped make getting through 2010 tolerable. 


Happy New Year to you & yours from CTL!