Discovering Inspiration for The 100 Day Project
Small painted paper scraps, part of a school project.
You never know what you are going to find during a good studio cleanup.
At least once a year, a sense of order needs to be brough back to my workspace. It can get very disorderly once I am in the creative flow.
This time I was ready to get rid of much more than in the past and did manage a good clear out this time. During this reorganization and purge, I came across a little treasure trove of materials that I hadn’t given any thought to for a long time.
It was a collection of small pieces of paper that was used in another project that had been languishing on a shelf for years.
Imagine a fishbowl, just the right size for one little goldfish, filled almost to the top with scraps of torn paper all about 1” square. Each square is painted either yellow, orange or red on one side.
Imagine that there are several hundred of these little goldfish coloured squares.
About 15 years ago they were part of an art school project.
It wasn’t my best work or even that interesting to me but for some reason I was compelled to hold on to this collection of painted scraps for all of this time.
It might be that once I’ve labeled something “artwork” then discarding it becomes difficult and somehow wrong.
Perhaps something about them resonated with me even back then.
I’ve written before about my affinity for little scraps of paper, and this is not a recent fascination. Maybe past me knew that there would come a time when future me would use them for another project…well that day has come. They will be the central element in my next 100 Day Project.
So why do the 100 Day Project?
The 100 Day Project is just about to begin for this year and I’m all in.
The 100 Day Sketchbook project of last year was such a pleasure to do that it was an easy “yes” to design a project for myself and to commit to doing it again this year. It's a way for me to concentrate on a single project for an extended period with no expectation that anything worth showing will come of the process.
It’s a liberating thought.
The learning that will inevitably come by doing this project will teach me more about what resonates with me as an artist, my voice if you like.
One of my intentions for the year is to make more work, and by participating in the 100 Day Project I will be making a lot of art. And who knows where this line of enquiry will lead…maybe to a whole new body of work.
My 100 Day Project
So here is my project:
Make mixed media works each day, for 100 days, with the only stipulation being that one or more of these scraps of paper be part of each day’s efforts. The paper scraps can be manipulated in any way and other materials can be used in the project so long as I use these papers every day.
So with this framework in place I’m ready for my 100 Day Project. I’ll be posting my progress on Instagram so come on over and find me there or if you want even more insights into my practice why not sign up to my newsletter.
Are you thinking about doing your own 100 Day Project? You can find more information and resources at the100dayproject.org.
Edit: You’ll find the results of my 100 Day Project in this blog post.
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