Every year October comes around and another month-long art challenge arrives to fill my days with art making. Starting back in 2018, I decided to follow Sha’an d’Anthes (@furrylittlepeach) prompt list instead of the popular Inktober challenge list. I wanted freedom to use whatever medium, whatever format, whatever style that interested me rather than relegate myself to ink mediums. Sha’an’s challenge was aptly titled Peachtober, and my journey began.
Both 2018 and 2019 saw the beginning of Peachtober start off successfully, but I was not able to make it past day 8 and 5 respectively.
But when 2020 rolled around, I was ready. We were all isolating in our homes as much as possible to avoid the spread of Covid-19, and working from home added plenty of time back in my day to making art during lunch or after I clocked out (and sometimes during too shh). This was the first year I successfully completed all 31 days of Peachtober and I couldn’t be prouder of the outcome. You can read about it here.
The next year also saw success with 31 sketchbook drawings based on the Peachtober prompt list. I felt that this year was where I really hit my stride and incorporated a lot of amazing sketchbook habits into my daily routine. Although some of those habits have faded, others have persisted. I now carry around a small sketchbook everywhere I go just in case inspiration strikes or I want to pass the time. This project resulted in a zine that I published to my shop and shared with my community.
With two successful years under my belt, I expected myself to continue the completion of the Peachtober challenge for 2022. However, this year was a little bit different. First and foremost, I moved to another country! I started a Master of Fine Art program at the Glasgow School of Art and moved from the United States all the way to Scotland. I had to pack up my art supplies, place items in storage, and travel across the world with my cat and boyfriend. I’m not going to lie, the first month was horrible. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I uprooted my life in Denver for a chance at something new and regretted it almost immediately. Luckily, I’ve had the chance to settle in, become more comfortable with the new territory, and start to build my community back up to where it needs to be. With that being said, I also relied on the stability that this art challenge added to my day-to-day life. Waking up in the morning I had a goal to complete. This kept me moving forward without dwelling on the overwhelming emotions I felt.
This year also led to using a new medium, vastly different from the previous two years: tapestry crochet. I have dabble a bit in tapestry crochet, but I was certainly new to the technique. The challenge of learning something new along with the pressure of making work daily helped keep me focused and productive. It also helps that I was not working full-time, and my only responsibilities related to the masters program coursework, which is mainly practice-focused. I was already in the studio everyday, and it was an easy thing to tack on an hour or two of Peachtober work.
Each day led to new challenges and different subjects to work on, but I am happy to share that I completed 31 days of mini crochet tapestries during October! And with the power of the whip stitch, 31 (+4) mini tapestries become one large tapestry crochet piece!
I also challenged myself to add a short video along with each post. These were shared as Instagram Reels and consisted of insights into the process, thoughts on the materials, jokes, quick snapshots of myself working, and more. This added another level of intimacy and interaction into what has been solely a static challenge in the past.
Once again, I can’t begin to share the amount of gratitude I have for the little artistic community we’ve built on Instagram. Social media often has its downsides, but I have found so many moments of connection and positivity through challenges like this and general online shenanigans. I make work for me, but it brings me joy to see that my silly little projects bring a little sunshine to other folks as well.
This project was a great way for me to try something new, make work that I loved, and share that experience with a wider audience. Feel free to view the full challenge on my Instagram.
Cheers!