A month or so ago I followed a few links on a couple of the blogs that I read (or have read) this year and came up with a couple of dozen more that have been added to my RSS reader. One of these is It’s Nice That which is a site dedicated to promoting work from across the creative industry, and has lead me to some fantastic stuff, including a few other additions to my RSS reader as well.
The site is content heavy, which is to say it sometimes takes up more time reading the entries than I want to distract myself with, but I always feel that if I skip anything I could be missing something great. All of December they’ve been doing a series of interviews/retrospectives with some of their difference collaborators throughout the year, asking them all to answer the same series of questions and provide an image which represents 2009 for them. I like the format, and while my answers will probably not be quite so interesting as the real ones, I thought I’d answer the questions here anyway.
The image I chose from 2009 was from the beginning of the year when I was in Australia. Mike, Soph and I went up to her Dad’s new vineyard to help pick grapes, seeing the parched country side I realised that this was now my image of Australia.
Mark out of 9 for 2009?
I’m going with a 7, it’s been a good year, but I’d say there’s room for improvement.
Best new discovery?
Knitting. Between my work and the two masters I’m doing I don’t have a lot of time for anything else, but knitting fills in the hour or so between eating dinner and going to sleep during the week, and makes me feel less guilty for watching crap TV. It’s relaxing and also makes for an endless supply of gift ideas.
Best idea?
Moving back to Gràcia. I lasted a whole 6 months in Cerdanyola, and while the short walk to and from uni was fantastic, now that I’m back living in the city I can’t believe I ever left.
What were you doing this time last year?
Showing Greta and Nat around Barcelona before attending a truly dangerous unlimited cava (the Catalan sparkling white, not the Indonesian mud syrup) party at a hostel where everyone seemed to be from Melbourne Uni.
What broke? How did you fix it?
My laptop hard drive broke again, but this year I had backups and only lost a few hours of work, as opposed to the year before when I didn’t have a backup.
What piece of work really stood out for you?
This is harder, since I’m not really a creative myself (and lots of the new work I’ve seen is from It’s Nice That anyway). However I’m going for the designs from Lia&cia, I saw them at a market for independent designers a few months back. I especially love the dog watching TV.
Favourite Book/Album/Film?
Favourite album has to be Sin Técnica by Oniric (aka Maria Rodés), I saw her play in April and fell in love (with the music too). Her Fearful Symmetry was just about everything I wanted from Audrey Niffenegger’s second novel, beautiful and strangely terrifying, I also finally read Cloud Atlas which is certainly not from this year, but great. Nothing film wise really stood out for me this year, although I saw both Where The Wild Things Are and Avatar this week, both were incredibly well crafted films in their own way.
Did you get Swine Flu?
No. I’ve been stoically convincing myself I’m too busy to be sick, it’s mostly works.
What are you going to miss about 2009 and what are you looking forward to in 2010?
I’m not sure there’s much I’ll miss about 2009 that I can’t continue to do next year. I’m really looking forward to moving and learning a new language starting from the deep end again, even if I’m not 100% certain it will be Berlin (where I tell everyone I’m going). I’ll be certain when I’ve got a visa and have the plane tickets.