I completed my annual NYE paintings for the 33rd year!!!

Last year I was living in Santa Fe, where for ten years I’d gotten used to the same room, the same way: twelve paintings every New Year’s.

In my twenties and early thirties, wherever I was for New Year’s, I brought ink, brushes, paper, and a drop cloth, and did the ritual in motel rooms or friends’ kitchens after being out all night. The paintings then were drip and splatter paintings. I painted while others slept, as the sun rose on the new year. For decades, my first act of the year was these twelve enigmatic ink paintings. Now in my fifties, I sleep through the sunrise and wake up the next day and paint until the work comes alive.

For the last ten years, I’ve painted on the same size paper square; in the early days, I changed scale and medium from year to year, always ink and paper. My NYE paintings are like ink blots, like black-and-white photos with the camera turned back at my psyche. Maybe they show me my inner world: what am I dreaming about? I will them to be beings that communicate and have a presence. Pure splatter can pretend depth, but its true message is obscurity and obfuscation. This is why I lost my faith in pure abstraction.

Over the years, much has changed, and aside from the people in my life, this project has often been the most stable part of my year. Aja also writes a reflective letter to her future self every year.

This year, I painted on the same long wooden table we brought from Brooklyn to Santa Fe, and now to Sacramento. I had just recovered from being sick after returning from England with Matthew, and I felt like a walking yawn. So, I was kinder to myself, and I set no deadline. So they came into being slowly. I have never taken this long to finish: it was January 15th before they all came into being.

I number each one, 1 to 12, like a calendar, and I rotate through them, and reflect on the past month. I guess I’ve done 396 NYE paintings up to now.