Back Again!

Cheers to the highly anticipated return of Savannah Pritchard - Woodward on the art scene...and now as a paid artist to boot!

What have I been up to since my last blog post? Funny you ask.

I graduated early in 2018 with my Bachelor of Business Administration. Sorry high school me with dreams of becoming a high school journalism teacher! I married my best friend, Justin, and we started our family. Our son, Cole, is now in his terrible twos, IYKYK, am I right? I trekked through marketing and communications, healthcare, local government, event planning and have landed in higher education advancement/development career-wise. Funny, right? Be on the lookout for a hopeful transition to bigger and better things soon. 

I moved to Odessa, TX. Yes, Odessa, TX. The desert. Oil town. West Texas. AKA the middle of nowhere. AND I LOVE IT. I have found a community in Odessa that is so welcoming and brimming with potential, with resources readily available. This was something I never realized was missing in the 25 years I spent born and raised in Texarkana. Still major love for my hometown, but change has done me good. 

In Odessa, I have discovered a love like no other for nonprofits and community engagement. I have joined the Junior League of Odessa, serve on the Board of Directors for the Young Professionals of Odessa, and am regularly involved with community events and organizations. All this while now pursuing my MBA and mom-ing like crazy. 

But let's revisit that I am a paid artist now! Let's be real: I was headed quick, fast and in a hurry towards burnout coming out of high school. I made it all the way there by my first semester of college. It felt SO GOOD to put the camera down. I had brain fog like you wouldn't believe and no creative juices were flowing anytime soon. When I moved to Odessa I had begun back in marketing and communications, and now I had to start creating graphics and managing social platforms, but I still did not have a desire to pick up the camera. Slowly but surely I edged back on the creative scene, and was fortunately gifted a traffic box art project through Odessa Arts. 

Here's the final product:

These two narrow, vertical designs are for the sides A and B of the traffic box. These were not the final color patterns submitted after assessing how the sun would fade the image over time. West Texas sun is no joke. The final colors can be seen below. 

Most of what West Texas is known for is football and oil, but it is so much more than that now. The public art scene is popping and there are so many talented local artists. This project was in part with a new event hosted in Downtown Odessa called Mural Fest. Phase 2 of the traffic box art was completed by all local artists, me included. So now, every traffic box in the downtown footprint is a piece of public art. It's nice to have something that's not related to a pumpjack or oil rig, although most everyone's artwork tied into the thematic West Texas theme somehow. Note my cactus. 

These are the fun images below. We were assigned a broad theme of "music-related," and I could not help myself with the 90's/00's playlist. I mean who doesn't honestly love a good throwback? Hindsight my color theme probably could have leaned more masculine, and I did receive some flack about that on the good ole Internet, but oh well! 

This whole design was created by scratch in InDesign. Wow, it has been a while since I've poked around in that. Although it was relatively easy, once I was able to construct the basic mixtape shape, I just copied and pasted and changed colors and song tags.

After having submitted my work, I was asked by several of my local friends if I sold my artwork or took commissions. I kindly declined, and thanked everyone for the kind words. 

Peep the personalization adding Justin and Cole in my design! I was very worried that that would get nixed in the final submission and corrections pass, but luckily it was able to stay alongside my #SavannahWoodwardArt touch on the side panels. 

FINAL PRODUCT

Ta-da! 

Pretty proud if I do say so myself. It was so invigorating to receive such positive feedback on my artwork after going through such a hiatus, especially considering my Odessan community does not recognize me for my artistic ability like someone from my high school experience would. The sense of pride seeing this piece come to life is unmatched. 

My traffic box sits in Downtown Odessa at the corner of 7th and Texas Avenue. It is located in the corner of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce parking lot. 

Here's to kicking off this new creative era and reigniting passions!

*clinks wine glass as I am posting this*