Happy holidays, friends, I hope you’re doing well (and if you choose to continue reading, please brace yourself to the incredibly self-indulgent rant below).

Each year, whenever December comes around, time seems to pause, as though to give me the space to look back on everything that’s happened in the past twelve months. However, because of the state of the world, there’s this strangely quiet eeriness that has hovered over us since 2019, as though the year never ended since, and that everything was frozen in time.

Because in a sense, it did. No matter how relatively normal life is in Hong Kong (because “normal” is contributing and sustaining our bustling, non-stop Tetris game of capitalism), Covid halted rapidly-growing movements and triggered endless ever-changing “safety measures” and travel restrictions that no one had the space to breathe and process what had happened. How can one heal from this collective trauma when we are still in the middle of it?

Yet despite this feeling of being held hostage by Covid, 2021 was an extremely eventful year for me both personally and career-wise. And it’s a year that I hope to be a huge turning point when I look back on this year in the future.

In 2021:

I was commissioned early in the year by AAA development team to create a digital drawing of an Amabie for Chinese / Lunar New Year, as a symbolic well-wisher of health in the midst of the pandemic.

Which led to my gallery debut at Alisan Fine Arts where I showed a total of nine paintings and sold them! It still blows my mind that I had shown works at an established, forty-plus-year-old commercial gallery.
While working on the paintings for Alisan, I brought my tarot deck into fruition in the form of 500 copies, and have literally spent the past year packing orders and sending them all over the world – and it’s such an honour to hear the feedback and love for the deck from so many people.
During this time, I had an email interview with Ysabelle whose poignant and thoughtful questions were a delight to write back to, and helped me put my own practice back in perspective. You can read it here on Cicada Mag.
Between May and July, with some of my favourite people at the office, we launched our first initiative in the AAA library, as a way to activate our collections, highlighting specifically selected zines that can be paired with other books in the collections; Nam2 Haa5 Zine.
Also during this time, my partner and I entered a long-distance relationship and somehow managed to survive 5 months. It sucks but I appreciate him and treasure our time together so much more. The weekend three to four-hour-long video calls carry me through the week.
I knitted, for the first time, a fully wearable scarf (no matter how scrappy and full of holes it is) for my partner.
I also finished, for the first time ever, an Inktober challenge where I wrote a mini-story every day and illustrated them for 31 days straight.
By October, I painted a diptych for AAA’s fundraiser, which was sold for the unbelievable price of $250,000 HKD, more than 16 times my low estimate, and with over one hundred bids. I still get a mini heart attack each time I think about this (especially after learning that we do have artworks that don’t get sold during auctions, and that donated artworks used to get rejected from even being included in the auction).
By December (which turned out to be an extremely social month), again with the team from Nam2 Haa5 Zine, and continuing with our mission to activate and highlight our collections, we launched the first chapter of our second Library intervention, display, and exhibition: Just In Case. Highlighting three publications at a time, the display/exhibition invites the three artist-authors to decorate three boxes with ephemera, notes, and memorabilia, showcasing the work that goes behind their independent publishing.
Also in December, I tabled with friends for the first time at Taikwun’s Booked (an annual art book fair). It’s also the first time in four years I tabled again (I swore off tabling in 2018 when I realised how tiring the experience was, after tabling three years at my university art fair).

So I’m really fucking proud of myself.

Though of course, these would happen if I hadn’t had Lady Luck on my side and had these incredible opportunities thrown my way. But also, it would have been a tough year to try to do all this if I hadn’t had the support and love from my family, friends, and you.

So thank you for being here.

But that’s just the end of 2021, and I’m really, really looking forward to 2022. Even though things have been tough the last couple of years with the pandemic and everything else (though to be honest, Hong Kong got lucky with this), I learnt that it’s no harm to set a few ‘resolutions’ to keep yourself focused. A lifeline to distract you from the shit happening in the rest of the world.

While these are not resolutions, I really hope that I could work on these projects and goals (or at least start them). So to welcome in the new year (which is coming in less than a week — what?) I made a little tiger daruma since it’s the year of the tiger and darumas are also a Japanese doll that’s known to be an aid for completing your goals for the year. Though the daruma in practice varies from region to region.

For 2022:

✽ Eat healthier and lose weight✽

This is an actual concern for me in the coming year, or maybe it’s when you hit the age of 25/26 that you finally realise you’re no longer a teenager and you actually will die if you continue on with shitty habits.

✽ Complete the Lenormand deck ✽

Because I started it in December but I really want to complete this very fun stylistic exercise.

✽ Learn to be less competitive with myself and imaginary enemies ✽

Because it’s toxic and so taxing on my mental health to obsess over the other peoples’ successes and my own weaknesses and/or lack thereof (thanks Karen for the Christmas eve conversation on this.)

✽ Exercise at least twice times a week ✽

Let’s just start slow.

✽Stress less✽

I’m the type to stress out a lot even over the smallest things, so I really want to focus on my mental and physical health for the next year, especially when things get more and more busy for me.

✽ Be kind ✽
As always.

Of course, I can’t phase out the year without a card pull for the year. And my card for 2022 is:

Temperance is the card for patience, alignment, and blessings.

The sister card to Death, Temperaance also speaks of a final journey, but rather than being obstacle-filled, the path ahead does not seem dangerous. Instead it presents a need for endurance and asks for time. This is not an invitation to charge forward, but one in which you must learn to take stops and rest before taking your steps.

Again, thank you for the love and support this past year, and for joining me in this tiny little corner of the internet. Hope you have a warm holiday and I’ll see you again next year.

Lots of love,
Charlotte