Looking Ahead to 2008

2007 is ending quietly. Aaron is napping on the couch next to me, Itchie-bon is asleep under the blanket next to him. But I'm awake, organizing my online platforms: blogs, domains, websites. There is much work to be done in 2008, and the development of my printed promotional materials begins soon.

One of the highlights of this latest, vacation-time flurry of work is that www.jessicabeagan.com is now ready, and should be pointing to a beautiful online gallery, courtesy of www.otherpeoplespixels.com. I cannot speak highly enough about this company, their products, and their service. It's been a godsend to find. Now if only the domain name will stop pointing to Blogger and start pointing to OPP, we'll be golden.

It's been long overdue that I get my online presence established. I'm now motivated to make my photography work for me. Related to my goal of exhibiting, selling, and publishing my photographs in 2008, I start a six-week continuing education course at RISD next week. It's called Professional Practices for the Visual Artist, and it focuses on the business of selling one's work. I took a terrific course my Senior year at UMM, called "Real World Writing", which introduced me to a number of the same principles but for the Writing market. I successfully published and exhibited both writing and photography almost 10 years ago, as an undergraduate, thanks to what I learned in that class. Now it's time to start doing it again with all of the much-improved material I've been creating since then.

And now for something closer to home: This post marks the 440th for ICON this year, which is 400% increase over last year, and more than one post per day on average in 2007. I plan to continue this trend, showing you new work and sharing with you my ideas and ramblings throughout the year. ICON is the outlet, the platform, that I always hoped to find, where I can share words and images and ideas as they are ready to find an audience. I love to hear your feedback, and look forward to continuing to hear from readers in the coming year.

2007 saw a number of changes take place, and it's good to look back and take stock of how far things can come in just 12 months. One big difference in the next 12 months will be TRAVEL. I was back and forth domestically so much this year that it sapped my international travel plans for 2007. 2008 will be a different story. I'm also going to be 30 in June, which feels exactly like the milestone that it is. All told, I can't say I've ever looked so forward to a new year as I do this year.

So here at home, we're wrapping up a very relaxing and low-key vacation, rested and ready for a productive and eventful 2008. Time to wake the boys up and start getting ready for the evening's festivities.

Happy New Year!