If you are opening my calendar to this image on the first day of January 2023, I’d like to say thank you.
Firstly, I appreciate you purchasing a paper calendar when events are so easily stored online. Perhaps there is something grounding about holding the calendar pages of a year just passed, seeing all your scribbled events; dear ones’ birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, sports matches, appointments, recycling bin day, for these are the small things which shape our lives.
The second reason I feel appreciative is the sale of these calendars helped to support me as an artist and small business. In the printing of the calendars I, in turn, supported a small business in Castlemaine. The calendars sell on my website which operates with help from a genius IT guy who keeps things ticking along (also a small business). The calendars are also available via small and beautiful bricks and mortar businesses here in Gippsland. I guess, I’m pretty small fry in the business world, but the way I work makes me happy and I couldn’t do it without people (you) buying the calendars in the first place.
The third handful of gratitude is for something that hasn’t happened yet — I imagine many of you will recycle the calendar or reuse the image pages for wall art, when you’re finished using it. The calendar is printed on recycled paper already, but the idea of a circular supply is even nicer.
I hope you enjoy the January page. The rooster artwork is a collage with lino prints, frottage, plus a little overprinting, then painted with gouache. The piece was completed as part of my Magic Orchard series. The rooster keeps an eye on farm flower beds in the late afternoon light. Calendars are still available. Click below and happy new year.
