I’ve held off applying for membership to Oil Painters of America until I felt my work was strong enough because it’s supposedly a judged membership and I didn’t want to waste the application fee by trying too early.

This morning I got the letter to say my application was accepted 🙂

And, the timing was great to give a little boost to one of my not-a-goal ideas for this year. This year’s word of the year for me is ‘Wander’. And that means it’s going to be a year of just seeing where my ideas take me.

Which is what I normally do anyway. But I’m trying to not get caught up in ‘meeting goals’. That said, I do want to do more paintings this year, and I do want to enter some of the exhibits that Oil Painters of America offers – if I can jury into them.

Tomorrow I’ll write up a sort of Hello 2026 post. Happy New Year’s Eve!