Target is March 2020

Target Family in progress, by Gayle Pritchard

2020 is coming. This is exciting to me for a variety of reasons: a new presidential election, the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment (look it up, please, if you do not know what that is!), and a new exhibition scheduled for March 2020 with my art group: me (Gayle Pritchard), Gail Crum and Jill Milenski at the fabulous Beth K. Stocker Center Gallery.

My art group tries to meet once a week. We have been doing so for years now. We sip wine, catch up with each other, plan play-days and art-related outings, and, all the while, we work on whatever it is we are working on. When one of us is exhibiting in one of the many juried exhibitions around town, we all try to attend the opening. This type of support is so important, not only for the professional reasons you can imagine, but for the emotional support and the safe creative environment it provides.

A drawing play-day at Jill's

Meeting every week provides an incentive to keep working. While it is perfectly okay if you had a hectic week full of distractions or family obligations or illness and got nothing done, we all really want to have something to work on each week, or something to show that we have finished. It's absolutely exhilarating.

Jill and I, both writers as well as artists, recently took part in a one day writing workshop sponsored by our local library system, The 36th annual Western Reserve Writing Conference. Here we found yet another iteration of the creative community in our Northeast Ohio region. We spend the day with like-minded people seeking ways to improve our craft. I am so grateful to be surrounded by creativity virtually everywhere I go. Writing and talking about the writing process is just another way of expressing that fundamental need to express.

All of which now takes me back to my target: March 2020, the next exhibition, the next body of work, the next chance to interact with my audience, and another giant block of time to work on my art with focus.