The New Year is fast approaching, with resolutions on a lot of minds. I’m not so big on resolutions, but am going to choose a word for the year. My friend Liz Kettle at Textile Evolution always chooses a word for each year. A word that she can focus on or work with or contemplate for the entire year. Last year she encouraged a group of us to also choose a word and of course we all dutifully did. My word for 2011 was “focus” and I really tried to work on that throughout the year and to keep it ever-present in my life. I’m not really sure I was able to accomplish everything that the word encompasses, but I did try. In reality I should probably keep that word for another year since I do still need to work on it. But I am choosing a new word for 2012.
PLAY
I also recently started following Quinn McDonald over at QuinnCreative and she also does a word of the year and has been encouraging everyone to choose a new word for the upcoming year. And in fact I have seen several people on various blogs and websites talking about chosing a word of the year. Mari Smith has a great post about it, and she is focusing on growth for the new year, as she is much more business oriented. Apparently everyone thinks it is a grand idea!
PLAY
So I guess I am jumping on the bandwagon here and declaring the need for a word of the year. My word for 2012 is “play”. Since my tag line for Blue Twig Studio is “let your inner artist out to play”, it seems like a really good choice. Plus, then I can play all year and how much fun is that going to be!
PLAY
We all spend a lot of time trying to do our chores and get things checked off our to-do list and trying to finish up with work assignments, but we forget to add in the playing part. We treat play as an afterthought, or at best something we do when everything else is done. Really? Is everything else ever done? We need play just as much as we need work (that’s the story I am sticking with).
PLAY
We fondly remember being children and being allowed to play. Yes, as children we played a lot and expressed ourselves much more creatively. Yet there was always that sense that it couldn’t or wouldn’t last. As a child I was always told to finish my chores or my homework before going outside to play (or any other fun activity that I wanted to do). Just like needing to finish all your vegetables before you get any dessert! Well, this year I vow to try to Play first and then do my chores!!!!!!! Sounds like lots of fun, don’t you think?
PLAY
What word do you think you would like to choose for 2012? What word speaks to you?
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Tags: Blue Twig Studio, Deb Prewitt, Let your inner artist out to play, Liz Kettle, Mari Smith, New Year, play, Quinn McDonald, Word of Year
This is a new concept for me – choosing a word for the year. But I love it! You are right Deb, we should play more. It’s not like we waste time while playing, it’s about letting our selves explore, grow, listen to our inner voice. That could never be wrong. There are always so many things that need to be done, but play should never be the last on the list. I’ll have to think about the word for the next year. Hmmm… ?
Play is fundamental to any sort of creativity for me. Some time ago, I was feeling a little foolish in the concept of sharing my creative outputs (I’m loath to call it work) and realised that my resistance stemmed from “feeling like a small child showing people what I have made”. After reflecting on it, I decided I needed to embrace these feelings – maybe its ok to be like a small child at play. I’m going to reflect on the concept of play and the concept of work and why we deem one frivolous and the other worthy. Thanks!
Thanks for the comment Krystyna. I too find it quite interesting how we define certain activities as being worthwhile or frivolous. I think it is very cultural-driven, thus the difficulty in making those changes for ourselves. For many of us, we want to be accepted and not thought of as silly. For others, we tend to embrace that whole idea of being the quirky artist. I believe that PLAY needs to be a part of everyone’s life, not just the artistic people. I hope to spread that word around a lot in the upcoming year.
Play is a great word, I have it with me through my life, but for this upcoming year I haven’t made up my mind about a word… yet. But soon I hope I will find one, or one will find me.
Good luck with finding your word. I find that there are many to choose from, but only a few that are perfect!
Ahhh PLAY!!! It doesn’t get any better than that!! My word is FREEDOM (freedom from my business mostly) but yours sounds way more fun! Yay! Stop reading and go PLAAAAYYYY!!!!
Freedom is a great word too. But you can always use Play along with it! Just PLAY whenever you can!