Thinking about daily art 1

In mid-December I always spend time thinking about daily art, because I have to decide what my project will be for the coming year.  But this year I've been thinking a whole lot more, because I have just spent five weeks with my solo show about daily art on display, and since then I have been putting things away.

I spent several hours taking down the collages that had been pinned to boards on the wall,  putting them back into the file boxes and getting everything back into its proper order.

I had invited viewers to look at my four years of collage, and from the state of the cards, they took me at my word. It required much sorting and of course pausing now and then to reread the cards.

Although the task was tedious and time-consuming, it was also meditative and deeply satisfying.  In many cases, as I looked at an old collage I remembered exactly where I was that day, where I got the pictures, why I chose to combine them into that particular image.

While the show was up, one of the visitors said to me "This looks like a journal of your whole life!"  And he was right.  Looking back at the daily art, of whatever mode and medium, I can track vacations, art projects, walks, weather, orchestra and opera performances, museum visits, weddings and funerals and new babies, birthdays and anniversaries.

remembering a wedding

That's not why I do daily art, but it's a great side benefit.  Between the daily art and the home and work calendars I have religiously saved ever since we got married, I can reconstruct a lot of my life in detail.  If I require Senate confirmation for some future big government job, I will make Brett Kavanaugh look memory-impaired.