Stephanie’s Year in Review 2021

Every year I normally head to Arizona to spend a few weeks with my parents, sisters, grandparents, aunt, and cousins. This is the second year in a row I did not make that trip. With Omicron still on the rise in NYC it feels eerily similar to Spring 2020, except that it isn’t. I’m fully vaccinated and boosted, I have rapid tests, and I now live in a house with a backyard (back in 2020 I was in a small apartment with no outdoor space). After a year of working from home, some travel, and having social plans (again, thanks to being vaccinated in a city with high vaccination rates), I am back to mostly staying at home and not having social plans. 

I am being more cautious because I have a lot I want to work on and because I’m six months pregnant. I probably would be fine if I got COVID because I am boosted (yes, I got boosted while being pregnant and you should too even if you are pregnant), but I don’t want to contribute to spreading Omicron, even if it may be more mild. I also am happy to have an excuse to spend my time in my home office and home studio planning, prepping, and making before my life completely changes. 

This past year was relatively unstructured. Similar to 2020, I had goals and plans, but many of them shifted due to delayed or canceled client projects, unexpected opportunities, and living in NYC during an ongoing pandemic. I taught high schoolers online for the first time for an art program. I had a solo exhibition in Mexico City. I learned what it’s like to throw up every day and still keep going, thanks to first trimester all-day sickness. 

I have spent a good chunk of my time during the past few months reading about and dealing with being pregnant. This has been both annoying and fascinating. I am floored at all that my mom, a mother of four, and every person who has given birth has gone through. I am shocked that expecting mothers do not get paid time off in the USA; not just after birth, but also during the first trimester, when many have to conceal their pregnancies and stealthily hide their vomiting. Every movie I have ever seen about people having babies lied. 

One of my biggest fears is that I will no longer be able to do what I do as an artist, business owner, and community member when I start a family. This fear was highlighted by a recent interaction with an artist peer (I had asked her for a letter of recommendation to apply to an MFA program). She questioned my decision to apply to the program at all because she “would be concerned about [me] being able to fully enjoy both experiences at the same time”. She suggested taking a gap year, as if that would solve things. This is from a woman who has been very supportive of my art career thus far. Maybe well intentioned, but extremely painful to me.

I cried after reading her email. Then I told my husband I wasn’t going to apply. After processing a bit I came back to my original decision, which of course I had already debated for most of this year, that I will apply because I want to and I will figure it out if I get in. The baby will be around six months old when the program starts, which to me seems as good as it will get. Timing for people who want to have kids is never perfect and who said I only wanted to have one child? What am I supposed to do, continually put off my goals because I also want to be a mother, possibly of more than one kid? 

I’m not stupid or irresponsible or unrealistic. I know it is possible to be a mom and do other things, like work or make art or contribute to your community or all three. My mom got her MBA with three kids while she was pregnant with the fourth. My great-grandmothers all raised many kids (closer to 10 than 1) on low incomes in harsh situations, all while dealing with racism, sexism, and probably while also learning English. All of the mothers before me contributed to their communities, worked, and raised many kids, sometimes with husbands, sometimes without. What does it even mean to fully enjoy being a mom and being in an MFA program? Who is privileged enough to 100% focus on one or the other?

I’m sharing this because I know I am not the only person who has grappled with this fear nor is this the last time my decisions and aspirations will be doubted by others. Being hurt makes me want to share my experience more, because some things are possible, with the right support and preparation. I am thankful for the support of my family and friends and for having taken steps in my career and personal development to do what I do. My experience is not unique; many people decide to have families and also do other things. In capitalism, most of us do not have a choice At the very least we have to make money to take care of ourselves. 

Which brings me to another one of my biggest fears: that even though I feel pretty successful this year, my success will forever be attributed to the fact that I am married to a man who has a lucrative legal business. I currently do not bring in nearly as much money as my husband. But my current situation has not always been the case. The year I met my husband, my salary was higher than his. I spent the majority of my adult life single and often struggling. It wasn’t until I became financially stable that I was able to slowly start working on my art and creative life (again). After that is when I decided to start my own business, which I saved up money for, and later I met my husband. 

This is partially why I am applying to an MFA program at 35 instead of 22. I did not have the resources to spend serious time or money on my art practice until I was in my 30s. And only now do I feel like I have a body of work good enough to even apply. I don’t think I need to get an MFA to continue my career as an artist, but I do think it would help push my career and I think it is worthwhile to try.

I’m going into 2022 facing these two fears. The fear that I won’t be able to fully experience being a mother and doing anything else and the fear that my success will always and forever be attributed to my husband. I am dealing with these by sharing with you that I have these fears and maybe you can relate or at least be more compassionate to people who become mothers, who work for a living, and/or who do not have the luxury of choosing to focus on one thing at a time. 

These past few years have been particularly hard for working mothers and while I cannot yet relate, I hope to join forces and put my best foot forward as I become a mother myself. Motherhood does not need to be any particular way and I don’t intend to follow anyone else’s mold or expectations as a mother or wife. Here’s to a new year of facing fears and doing the best we can.

Here are my goals from last year and how I progressed towards reaching some and completely missing others. 

Be fit and healthy

My goal to lose weight was completely eliminated with the news of being pregnant. I have to eat every few hours or else I get nauseated, which is better than a few months ago when I would just throw up all the time regardless. I have been able to workout regularly about 5-6 times a week and make healthy eating choices to the best of my ability. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to sustain this but I’m trying to make a habit that sticks. 

Be fluent in Spanish

I went to Mexico City for a month this year with the goal of meeting up with other artists and practicing Spanish. Unfortunately it was during a COVID spike, so I wasn’t able to meet up with others like I had planned. I have been taking a weekly Spanish class to work on grammar and speaking, but I still feel like I am struggling in conversation. It really sucks to be Mexican and have friends who speak Spanish natively, but still be embarrassed to speak Spanish to them because I feel like I will never sound right. I’m still working on this goal. 

Double my business and art revenue from 2020

I did in fact double my revenue from 2020, but my 2021 revenue was only a little bit higher than my pre-COVID 2019 revenue. However, my costs in 2021 are much lower than both 2020 and 2019, mainly because I’ve stopped doing workshops which required a lot of materials and contract workers. Now I can focus on making more revenue and keeping costs low for next year. I also made over $10,000 this year from art — the biggest chunks coming from art teaching and an art grant form NYFA via the City Artist Corps Grant. This tells me it’s worth continuing to work on my art practice and collaborate with others. I spent the majority of the NYFA grant paying the curators, the other participating artists, and on the production costs of putting on an art exhibition. 

Grow YouTube Channel to 3,000 subscribers and email list to 2,000

I did not reach these goals. It’s laughable how far off I was, but I learned a lot from starting a YouTube channel and I am going to keep trying to grow my audience. I did almost double my YouTube Channel subscribers from 26 to 49. I only grew my email list from 1045 to 1202, but I got more targeted signups.

Make 152 works of art and be in 10 exhibitions

I’m not really sure how many artworks I made, but I made a lot! More importantly, I was in 9 exhibits, including 2 solo shows — one in NYC (Handmade Landscapes: Ocean Meets Sky at Highline Nine) and one in Mexico City (Vistas Enredadas at eeee). 

Me in my studio in Mexico City at eeeee

Art Residency in Mexico City

I finally got to do the art residency at eeee that I had intended to do in 2020, albeit while sick the entire time. I am not really sure how I got through, but I somehow still put on my show. What really helped was that I cleared my calendar so that I had no client projects during the residency and so the small amount of time I wasn’t throwing up or sick in bed each day I was able to walk through Escandón to my studio to get some work done. 

Stephanie Eche’s home office and Quique.

Set up my home art studio and my home office

We moved this year and I feel pretty good about my setup for my home art studio and my home office. I’ll probably be tweaking these both here and there but I am very happy with them. 

Things I did not get to:

• Make a natural dye garden

• Complete 1 public art project

• Write 12 essays

Other things I accomplished: 

Produced, edited, hosted 10 episodes of First Coat — video, podcast, and blog posts about art in public space

I’ve continued to come out with new episodes of First Coat, even if I am struggling to figure out a sustainable cadence. I also want to branch out a bit more in what I cover, but I love doing interviews with other artists so that will always remain. 

Entrance image of this stays here at Eche Verde

Hosted & produced an art exhibit in my home — this stays here at Eche Verde

One of my longer term goals is to have an annual art show in my home and other non-traditional spaces via Eche Verde, a project I started with my husband back when we lived in the Lower East Side. Thanks to some friends who also wanted to do a house show, this came together this past year beautifully. We had a great turnout for the opening and gallery hours and I even got a grant to pay for the whole production and pay everyone involved in making it happen. Seeing our home turned into an art gallery was extremely cool and I will share how we did it in future a post. It was a great way to meet neighbors and create something unique in our neighborhood during a strange year.

Curated and project-managed over 10 art installations & creative projects featuring women and POC artists and NYC youth

I continued to work with some of my favorite clients this year to curate, produce, and place murals, sculptures, and even artist live/work housing. I also was an artist teacher for another Center for Urban Pedagogy project and created Can You See My Screen? Via an online art program with students from KAPPA International High School. I got a small taste of what it was like to be a teacher during COVID and really we should all be bending over backwards to thank and support them.

Paula Wilson slideshow in Padma Rejendran’s Textile Translation Class

Self-Guided MFA Progress

I’ve continued my quest to grow as a multi-disciplinary artist by taking art classes and communing with other artists. This past year I took:

• Research and Critique with Alex Callender via NYC Crit Club

• Group Critique with Catherine Haggarty via NYC Crit Club

• Textile Translations with Padma Rajendran via NYC Crit Club

• Graphic Design with Shawn Hasto via SVA

• Visiting Critic Program with Yevgeniya Baras via NYC Crit Club

• Intro to Judaism Class with Rabbi Frank via 92Y

• Garment Weaving with Isa Rodrigues via Textile Center for the Arts

• Drawing with Fran O’Neill via New York Studio School

DSA Organizing Committee for South Brooklyn

This past year and 2020 I helped start up the DSA Latinos Socialistas working group and to my surprise I was elected (there were as many openings as candidates) to the organizing committee for the South Brooklyn branch of DSA. I am very excited to be working among other comrades here in NYC for socialism. Fun fact, I live in a district with three socialists in office: Alexa Avilés, District 38 city council member, Marcela Mitaynes, District 51 assemblymember, and Jabari Brisport, 25th District NY state senator. 

Got a kitten

We got kitten to entertain our cat Quique. She is the best. 

Here’s What I Learned: 

I need to put it all together

I have been maintaining two different blogs and more Instagram accounts than you would like to know, as well as two different but similar careers: being an art consultant and being an artist. I realized I need to consolidate my efforts, something I have been wary of doing because it seems taboo for artists to reveal how they make money and also I don’t want to discredit myself as a businessperson by revealing that I am also an artist. I have decided to just forget what other people may think and put it all together. While I’ll still keep separate Instagram accounts for my art and Distill Creative (and our cats), I will have one blog where I share updates in the studio, tips on being an artist in public space, tips on commissioning artist as a business, and my own life updates. While I’ve combined all my mailing lists, I’ll send more targeted content to each audience, instead of struggling to write for a wide variety of interests. I’ll also keep my Stephanie Eche art portfolio website separate, but I’ll sell my work via Distill Creative’s online shop and Artfare. 

A few things I did to make this happen: 

• I moved my art blog posts to my Distill Creative blog. Here’s how to move blog posts from one Squarespace site to another.

• I added a sidebar to my Squarespace blog using a plugin. Honestly this isn’t working the best yet (my hamburger menu on mobile view when viewing the blog is broken now), but I’ll figure it out. If you know how to fix this, please email me!

I need to be more consistent but also realistic with content production

I spent the past few days goal setting and planning videos I want to make for the next quarter. In the past I have been overly ambitious with how much I can create and what schedule I can maintain. I hope to be better at this for the future.

Working in series/sprints works for me

Thanks to having opportunities for exhibiting, I was forced to focus on one body of art work in order to meet exhibition deadlines. This year I’m going to try and plan quarterly and only do three main projects a quarter. I’m testing out this Self Journal to help me stay focused. I also considered the Full Focus planner. Here are my posts on how I generally plan my week/month/year and my planner reviews.

• for art projects — I need to have a deadline and place to exhibit! 

• for business & personal projects — I need to have a deadline and accountability! 
  

Prioritizing health and wellness is hard, but worth it 

My body has taken control this year with being pregnant and it has made me be more flexible and more serious about my health and wellness. I have always tried to exercise and eat healthy, but it’s a whole different ballgame now that I am growing a human inside me. I often can’t eat certain things, throw up on the street, and have to just walk some days, but I’m managing and being healthy is helping me get through it.

Goals for 2022

Enjoy my ‘maternity leave’ and be a confident, calm, and creative mom, artist, and businesswoman.

I found out that if I had started paying paid leave and disability insurance (for just myself) two years ago then I could have opted in to using paid family leave since NY state is one of the few places that actually mandates parental leave. Unfortunately, I am two years too late so I’ll have to just accept that I probably won’t be bringing in any money during the time I decide to take off after having a baby. However, now I now for next time and if you are self-employed, in NY state, and plan to have kids (however you want), look into getting paid leave and parental leave insurance now before it’s too late. 

Apply to grad school (again).

I got rejected from Hunter’s MFA Studio Art program when I applied last year, but I am going to apply again this year. 

Have a solo exhibition in NYC.

I want to at the very least exhibit the new cyanotype collage fiber sculptures I am making somewhere in my city. 

Create consistent content on my blog, YouTube channel, and podcast. Get 1,000 visitors a month to my blog (currently I get about 500/mo), 1,000 YouTube subscribers (have 50 currently), 10,000 podcast downloads (have 4,300 downloads currently).

As I mentioned earlier, I did not meet my goals for content, but I do have a larger audience than when I started and I do think the audiences for video and podcasts are going to continue to grow, along with good old blogging. It’s more important to me to spend time making this type of content than worrying about Instagram, which is fleeting and doesn’t lead to customers for me. 

Create and launch an online course for artists and earn $50K from sales. 

Originally I was working on a course for businesses to commission artwork, but I’ve realized it’s better to focus on artists who want to work in public space. I get calls every week from artists asking me questions about how to do art in public space or get commissions, so this is what I’m going to work on. I can’t charge as much as I would charge businesses so I’ll need a lot more sign ups to reach my goal, but this also helps me help artists grow in their careers, which is really important to me and is one way we can get more women and people of color more art commissions in public space.

Get 500 women and/or people of color on the Distill Directory

In an effort to support and promote women and people of color artists, I am building a directory and will have featured artists to help share their work. If you are an artist, you can submit your work to the Distill Directory here. 

Learn how to sell and license my artwork and be more confident in my drawing and illustration.

There’s a lot I want to learn about selling my artwork and a lot I need to work on to be a more confident drawer and illustrator. I’ll probably take some classes to help with this, but I also have some books I’ve already started working through so just finishing those will help a lot. 

Set up home for growing family. 

There’s a lot of little things we need to do in our home to get ready for a baby. We’ll do it as we can! 

Create a Mexican, Jewish, and socialist household with my family.

Shabbat dinners, DSA meetings, and enchilada making, these are very basic things but very important things that I’m excited to have regularly happening when I become a mom. I grew up in a warm home with lots of traditions and culture and I’m excited to create that with my family. 

Learn and practice keyboard.

This is a reach goal. I used to play the violin, piano, and drums at different points in time but I didn’t keep any of them up and I miss making music. 

How did your 2021 go? What are your goals for 2022? 

Read my 2020 Year in Review and my 2018 Year in Review.