Good god, what a year. Because one of my many resolutions this year is to finally quit cigarettes, my sister offered me the patch, and good lord, it keeps you awake. So, here I am, in my niece’s pink colored room in Chicago typing away about what has happened in the best, most trying year of my life.
So many changes, adventures, trips, loves, losses, anxiety, excitement, fear, courage, and happiness.
I started the year off with Jimmy Marble and Kelly Moore visiting in Chicago. At midnight, we all danced in a loft in the west loop called Wizard Island. I ended the night in a photographer’s loft saying goodnight to some of my favorite people in the world.
I had just quit my full-time job as a designer/window dresser at Anthropologie to pursue the life of a freelancer. In the past year I’ve worked with some of the coolest, hardworking, professional, inspirational and crazy people. It’s been tough to pay bills on pure art making, but I’ve been making it happen, so it feels less like a failure and more like an exciting adventure. Though the project took a back-burner, I was able to work with one of my all time heros, Michel Gondry, as the art director for an exhibit at the MoCA. I teamed up with a director, Daniel Strange on some projects and feel so lucky to have met him.
Sirocco had one of it’s many screenings of our movie, Red Moon at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Chicago. We started the year off with two music videos, Megafaun’s Carolina Days and Puro Instinct’s Silky Eyes. We had a pop up store at Reform School and Jimmy spent most of the year writing the script for our first feature length film which we will begin attacking when I arrive back to Los Angeles.
I moved three times this year and ended at a place we call Cat Mountain with the most wonderful, Stephanie Gonot.
I drove across America with my brother, and then back with my sister.
I had two art shows this year. One with my all time favorite collaborator and friend, Jimmy Marble. And the other at MDW fair. A show which I was able to tell the story of my family’s machine shop on the south side of Chicago.
This year is looking wonderful. I started it at midnight surrounded by my Chicago crew and besties. I gave about a dozen people kisses on the cheek and we all laughed and smiled.
I’m excited for a few art shows lined up with Jimmy, shooting a feature length film with Sirocco, looking for a part time job, continuing illustrating people’s homes, talking with my sister on the phone while I cook pasta and think of her, living like it’s the last day in the world and fearing nothing, being excited by everything, seeing beauty in people’s idiosyncrasies and trying my best at being the best Adi I can be.
All in all, I couldn’t have done any of these things without someone there with me, guiding me, listening to me cry on the phone, watching me freak out, suggest colors, giving my name to someone for a job, making things with me, calming me down.
Thanks to all my pals this year, it’s the best to be doing it all with you.
Here’s to making a lot of good shit, staying positive, keeping motivated, paying bills with the skills, new adventures and being together through it all.
