My Unfinished 100 Day Project
Good intentions
February 13th was day one of my 100 Day Project, and back then, way back in the beginning, I had every intention of completing it. I hoped to recreate the enthusiasm I had had for last year’s project. It was all consuming in my practice for a while and I loved completing it and the results were very satisfying indeed.
This year was different: Even from day one, my heart was never in the work I was producing.
Here we are 100 days later and my project is still incomplete and I’ve decided that it will stay that way.
The completed collages
In the end 25, small, mixed media collages were completed, incorporating the small scraps of painted paper that were intended to be the central element of my project. These scraps, originally red, orange and yellow, were painted black and combined with both black and white paper as well as paper that was torn from the pages of an old book. Thread was sewn into the collages, a process I’ve used before and that I wanted to explore again.
What’s most appealing to me about the finished collages is the simplicity and scale of the shapes created. Additionally I’m drawn to the tone on tone effect of the painted black collage paper scraps on the flat black sections.
While I’m happy with what I made, I lost interest in the process, and didn’t stick with it for the specified 100 days.
Four takeaways from my incomplete 100 Day Project
So after giving a lot of thought as to why this project didn’t go as planned, here’s what I learned:
Firstly my project was very loosely defined. Using a multitude of paper scraps, all roughly the same size that I was to incorporate at least one into small mixed media works. That’s it. A more well defined project might have worked better.
One of the guiding principles of the 100 Day Project is to work for a brief period of time, every day on your project. I didn’t do that.
From the very start, I fell behind and found myself playing catch up from the very early days. I didn’t work on my project daily, but rather tried to make up days missed in lengthy work sessions. This can be explained by a lack of connection to the work I was making and not having a clear intention (see point #1 above).
As the days progressed, I recognized in myself a tendency to try to “make art”. I lost sight of just making for the simple pleasure of it and having the “art” be a byproduct of the making process.
Lastly, I have been busy in the studio, completing a series of paintings. There are so many tasks vying for my attention once a series is complete, including varnishing, photographing and archiving, that much of my studio time and attention was consumed by these things rather than work on the 100 Day Project. The timing wasn’t right this time around, and as a wise person once said, “Timing is everything”.
I didn’t complete my 100 Day Project this time around. Truth be told, I lost interest in it weeks ago. While there is a tinge of disappointment having to admit that, it was a relief to let go of the project in the end.
Now there’s time and space to move on to other things.
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