"MishMash 2022"

It's time for the 7th Annual Best of the Year Retrospective show down at Ursa Major Distillery! The venue hours are Wednesdays - Fridays from 5-8pm + Saturdays from 3-5pm. And, just like the past couple during the continuing pandemic, as a prudent health & safety precaution we'll forgo a formal opening on this First Friday (Jan. 7th), but I will be on-site since it's been a whole year that I've waited for my favorite cocktail: the Ester Caucasian (basically a White Russian with their own special homemade coffee liqueur + their Long Winter vodka + whipping cream... none of that wimpy half-and-half here).

I had a lot of fun (okay maybe a wee bit too much) creating the poster this year, and it probably could use a little explanation as to the weird imagery: besides the big ol' beaver skull + my iconic logo chop, we have the vat used to cook the mash along with a pair of oars which are used to churn it. And then there's the archaic etymological roots of the term "mishmash" which, as a "confusing mixture of different styles" I think is quite apropos of my eclectic range of random content on display. 

Once again I'll be deluging all my social media platforms with constant reminders about the show, and back by popular demand exclusive to Instagram will be the return of the daily doodles so as to show a little bit of the behind the scenes process sketches - which regular Ink & Snow readers are quite familiar with - and little teaser swatches of selected excerpts from the range of work that'll be up on the walls for the month of January. I'm also gonna offer private and/or personal guided tours of the exhibition to individuals, couples, families and small groups - mandatory masked up + vaccinated - email me (jamienuggets at gmail dot com) for more information about scheduling a director's cut experience narrated by yers truly...

Though admittedly I am operating at a near-constant level of stress and exhaustion ("malaise" is the operative word here), on the thin ice of burnout, and so I haven't been quite as aggressive in marketing the event as usual. Plus compared to all the other years this exhibition is somewhat scaled down, like no 24-hour comics or freelance work or epic tent-pole pieces like "Yukon Traffic Jam" or "Hibernate with a Good Book.". Just approximately fifty-odd Nuggets panels, a few Baked Alaska posters some editorial and a handful of the notorious edits. I had fully intended to have a bunch of new stickers, a new tshirt or two, and maybe even pre-press proofs of a couple books in the pipeline, but alas, ran outta time, and energy. Given my traditional output I feel like I've really just lost control of my focus, drive and discipline, but the personal silver lining in a show like this is some small measure of validation you get when stepping back and seeing everything up on the walls - such self-inspiration is precious and rare. Once again when I lecture my Beginning Drawing students about such psychological speed-bumps I can really relate because I know what I'm talking about. I mean, the dangers of comparing yourself to other people is enough of an emotional La Brea Tar Pit scene as it is without dealing with holding up a mirror and getting the funhouse treatment about yourself. Though I will say the explosion of color is somewhat of a therapeutic immersion unto itself - things aren't quite so black and white in my view of the world anymore.

Speaking of the previous half-dozen years, here's linkage to posts about 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 too. Update: Here's 2023! Plus the walkthrough videos from the past couple years for "Odd-ka Tonic," "Hindsight 20/20," and the classic short "Distilled Nuggets." Given this upcoming semester workload I highly doubt there will be another narrated director's cut, but we'll see...

Another factor is the non-stop walloping we've been getting as far as horrible weather this winter in the 'Banks: three back-to-back storms dumping several feet of snow interspersed with rain glazing everything with a couple inches of ice, and plummeting temps back down to -44°F and fifty-below wind chills for days on top of that. All of which I thought merited a reboot of a particular panel from over a decade ago which encapsulates our collective state of mind... or relative loss thereof (*though I do still need to add LMF[airbanks]AO). Together with seasonal depression + the holidays, which has its own accompanying sets of issues, and the continuing pandemic which Alaska has completely screwed up, oh and Betty White too, people are more than ready for a libation and a laugh. So while I completely understand why I won't see everybody there, here's hoping y'all take a break and treat yourselves to a libation and a laugh. So be well, and stay safe and warm so we all see each other again next time: CHEERS!

Pretty much sums it all up...