I’m proud to have finished a major creative project this year. We Leapt Into the Sky is my first science fiction novel, and I decided to share it as an illustrated serial. I’ve enjoyed improving my landscape drawing skills over the past few years, and I wanted to use this project to teach myself how to create better sci-fi illustrations…

I’ve realized that as a military spouse, the journey of an artist becomes a canvas in itself, painted with the colors of change, resilience and adaptability. Moving from one duty station to another brings not only a change in surroundings but also a shift in studio space, access to materials and artistic routine.

A year ago, when I shared about Abby Maddy, I was more excited than ever to be moving in a new direction with the company. We began in January with a build-out of a studio space in our home that would allow me to work while juggling our two teenagers’ schedules. But just as I was getting the studio settled, and beginning to work on the spring launch, we received some unexpected news. On March 30, 2023, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

When we were younger we used to joke about the military divorce statistics – after nine years of marriage, we became one of them … Now my short story collection, Homefront, is about to be published by the University of Nevada Press, and it’s bringing back a lot of memories about those military years.

Wow, I can't believe it is time for my anniversary interview with the MilspoFAN blog, and so much has happened in just a year! Since my last post, I have landed an art teaching gig as a guest artist for the Anne Arundel Public Schools Art Magnet program- Apex Arts. But it was totally by accident …

Thanks for having me back on Milspofan, it's nice to say hi again. Things have been quite frenetic for us over the summer. My wife Sylvia received orders to RAF Lakenheath in England and that required us to spend a couple of months living out of our suitcases on the road. We are finally settled down in the lovely town of Newmarket, UK and things are starting to get back to normal…

My spouse is an airborne linguist, and just before the lockdowns, he was organizing language refreshers for the linguists in his squadron. But then the WHO reported these strange pneumonia cases from Wuhan. People around us started to get sick, and the Chinese linguists began worrying. Unfortunately, I already had a compromised immune system, and in March 2020, I got sick. Real sick.

It has been a while since I have been featured on Military Spouse Fine Art Network and I have been busy! My most recent showing was at the Salmagundi Club in New York City. I was accepted as an official Coast Guard Artist for their COGAP program…

I've been secretly writing a book since last December, and recently started a Blog on my website to document the progress. My first post - Embrace in Place (Coming Soon) - was just added and I’d love for you to follow and share! I am self publishing and that is in itself an adventure!

To expand on sharing my mixed family Korean-American experience, I’ve started my next children’s book series for Seoul Finds Her Talent with A Weekend with Halmony.

When I decided to start painting professionally, I scoured the internet for information on how to get my work out there and grow my business. I found tons of suggestions, but they didn’t explain the process.

My art practice continues to change and grow as I get older and develop new insights. With being a professional Dancer and teaching in the Hampton Roads area in Virginia, I am constantly around others who value the performing arts so it makes it easy to stay inspired and create. I am also finding how to integrate my art through other media as well. I am a photographer and have found my niche with dance and production photography.

“How’s that going for you”, you ask? It’s not. Now we’re in Monterey, CA. Three moves in three years. And here I thought all of this moving around was over. I also mistakenly thought that retirement meant that I could get back to, a more full-time focus on my career. Oh boy universe… or Murphy, or whoever you are… the joke is 100% on me.

On this anniversary check-in with MilspoFAN I feel I have fit years of living into the last 12 months. For the last year, my second diagnosis of breast cancer has felt like it was hijacking my artistic endeavors (I don’t recommend it). I had things I wanted to do! However, looking back, the last year has launched my artistic presence like never before.

It’s good to be invited back to write a guest post. I’ve experienced much change in my life since I was the featured artist on the Milspo FAN Blog in March of 2021. At the time of the feature, I was sewing like crazy and creating so much for my own enjoyment and for my Etsy Shop. My craft room was full of fabric, thread, and sewing project possibilities. I had also dived back into watercolor painting, and it felt good to be so focused. I loved spending time in my craft room and having time to myself. My husband and I started planning trips, plus projects we both wanted to complete that upcoming summer. Little did I know how much would change in 2022 and my creative projects would come to a temporary halt.

So much has happened since last year, and I’m very proud of how far I’ve come. One of the pieces pictured in last year’s interview won “Best in Show” at the ODU 2022 Student Juried Exhibition; the award granted me a solo show at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio in Norfolk, VA. I was also awarded a Windgate University Fellowship at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN. The Fellowship provided room, board, and tuition for a summer workshop. I chose to take a mechanical sculpture class. It seems the more technology advances, the more magical simple machines become.

Although the pandemic sent my writing into a dry spell, I’ve been productive in other ways. I continue to volunteer with MilspoFAN, which has been wonderful because I love feeling connected to other mil-spouse artists. I also continue to serve as a poetry editor with Inklette Magazine. Not generating new poems gave me ample time to revise and organize previously written poems. I compiled three manuscripts: Forces was published by Middle West Press in the fall of 2021, and the other two manuscripts are looking for homes.

Each time we move, my practice takes a backseat and my work shifts in various ways. This move was especially jarring to my practice. I have had to go through the mourning process of losing my Hawaiian inspiration and I am still working to figure out what my work will look like here. Location changes and motherhood cause my creative practice and business growth to be less linear than I would like.

2022 has been one of the busiest years of my life, as I have learned many new things and worked with publishers on four upcoming books. As a short recap of who I am: I’m Mirka Hokkanen, a Finnish-American author, illustrator, printmaker and an educator. We’ve been a military family for about 17 years. I started out working as a fine art printmaker from graduate school in 2006, but have transitioned into illustrating for children in the last few years as my main focus.