The Chinese zodiac 12-year cycle begins with the year of the rat, which, most recently, was 2020.

My Art and Me

I make cards, zines, notebooks, a calendar, and other things that I hope are fun, informative, and in some way useful. I am inspired by nature, art, and functional design, my curiosity about history and folklore, and an urge to share with others whatever I find fascinating, beautiful, practical, and sometimes amusing.

My aim is to make things that people can use to do ordinary tasks better and with pleasure, whether it’s jotting notes, sending a friendly message over the mail, making plans, or giving gifts.

The Useful Calendar

My recurring and always evolving annual project is a calendar that features my original watercolor illustrations, along with a smattering of information about US and world holidays, significant cultural and religious events, and tidbits of fascinating trivia and history related to the holidays and the theme. Each year I spend months updating it, researching the theme, creating the illustrations, and designing and crafting it into a mix of art and information that I call the Useful Calendar. It comes in a few formats, which you can see in the calendar section of my shop, because I had too many printed for 2025! Of course they’re all half off.

The calendar theme since 2011 has been the animal of the Chinese zodiac (in 2011 and again in 2023 it was the Year of the Rabbit—hence, all the rabbits), with the exception of 2016, the Year of the Monkey, because I didn’t want to draw a monkey! I focused on bees that year, and increased the number of illustrations from one to 12, featuring 12 wild bees native to various parts of the world, with a bit of information about each one. But the amount of space I allow for the artwork is quite small, so in order to share more of what I had learned, I made a zine about the bees called The Flower Lovers.

A few of my zines began with something I learned about while working on the calendar, such as my so-called “annual” zines, which did not come out every year. Now I’m considering issuing an eclectic quarterly zine that would touch on a similar range of topics as the annual zines have done, in smaller servings. I’ll announce that to my email list first when it’s ready.

After the current 12-year zodiac cycle concludes with the Year of the Pig in 2031, I plan to move on to other themes for the Useful Calendar.

About Me

I'm a gardener, artist, writer, and tinkerer, mostly working with paper, pens, watercolor, and gouache. I also love learning about new (to me) things and doing research. I studied history in college and have worked as a writer, copyeditor, proofreader, and fact checker.

I am 68, a mother and grandmother, living with my husband and two cats in the Hiawatha neighborhood of South Minneapolis, which is part of the Longfellow community.

—Sharon Parker, Spring 2025