One Little Word

My word for 2014 is Harmony by @schulmanArt

one little word: Harmony

Have you heard about this concept yet? Instead of writing  New Year’s resolutions you choose one word that encapsulates what you want for the year. I’ve seen a few artists, writers and creative types who declare their word for the year. For example, mixed media artist Christy Tomlinson claimed “joy” and writer and artist Kelly Rae Roberts declared her word is “trust” I didn’t know where this concept started until blogger Julie Fei-Fan Balzar announced her word would be “grow” and mentioned that this concept started with Ali Edwards, “One Little Word” (you can also follow the hashtag on twitter #onelittleword or #olw2014 and @aliedwards) Her word for 2014 is “thrive”, by the way.

So I thought about what I want my word to be… some things I am working on in my life… authenticity, inspiration…. but the form would be “inspire”… as in “to inspire” others… but somehow, when I was working on an artwork yesterday a little word found me. I was creating this mixed media artwork of the European Union flag. The flag has 12 yellow stars on a azure blue background. I had a vision in my mind how I wanted the background to look… layered tone on tones with lots of interesting music notes and text. I knew I wanted each yellow star to have a different pattern, but it wasn’t until the end when I thought about adding text that the project developed meaning.

EU flag ~ each star says “Harmony” in a different language (collect this art from my etsy shop)

The flag is also often used to indicate eurozone countries, and, more loosely, to represent the continent of Europe or the countries of Europe independent of any of these institutions. There are more than 12 countries in the EU, but the number of stars always stays the same– like a clock. The stars symbolize the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the peoples of Europe. Somehow I focused on the word harmony. Since there are many languages spoken in Europe, I wanted this artwork to represent that so I researched the word Harmony in many languages.

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So I thought about it– Harmony is a great word for me to work on. To me, harmony is setting boundaries in my life. As a work from home artist, it is so hard for me to put an end to when I stop working. I do love my job, after all, but everything must be in harmony and in balance.  Harmony is how I want to eat, and exercise and make time to play with my family. Yes, they are teenagers, but they still like Mom time. and make husband time and daughter time and mother time and sister time. Harmony in my body, harmony in my relationships and of course, harmony in my art. Which doesn’t mean I will splay the word Harmony on everything… well maybe some things… but that I am in harmony with what I do. And in that way, the other words I was considering will all fall into place.. I will be more authentic, I will inspire others.

What will you choose your word to be in 2014?