Daily art -- "So, why?"

When I wrote earlier this week about my daily art projects, Helen Howes, one of my internet friends, left a provocative comment:

"I understand completely the need to make Daily projects, if there is less Art in ones life than one needs; for discipline; for a little pleasure each day; to make Personal space etc. etc. But I find that mine tend to founder, because all my life is one big thing, which is Art. The small things (daily projects, blog etc can get lost, and I get tired.. I suspect your life is pretty much like this too.. So, why?"

I had to think about this for a while.  I agree with Helen that the small things can get lost in a busy life.  I guess one reason I do daily art is to prevent it from getting lost.  It's kind of like joining a gym -- the temptation to skip a day is easier to resist when you have made a public commitment.  

In fact, one of my daily art projects turned out to be kind of like joining a gym in terms of making me get out and exercise.  I hate to exercise, and am always having to find ways to bribe and threaten myself to do it.  I discovered that my commitment to take a decent photo every day was a strong impetus to take a walk every day, because it was a whole lot easier to find a picture when I was out and about than if I stayed home (only so many times you can interestingly photograph your rug).

I suspect that many people who do daily art embrace it for just this purpose: to force/encourage/bribe themselves to make the work.  The busier the schedule, the more this may be a compelling motivation.  But as Helen points out, when making art is already the focus of your life, do you really need encouragement to make more?

Some people may use daily art as a learning tool.  If you do something every day you can't help but get better at it -- think of piano practice, or conversational Spanish.  Again, I know that taking a photo a day greatly improved my photo skills.  But I regarded that as a fringe benefit, not as a major motivation.

I realize that I look upon daily art as a work of art, not as practice and not as mere warmup exercises.  In addition to the stuff I make, the dailiness and the ground rules are an integral part of this work.  It's conceptual art: the idea is about as important as the execution.  Somehow I think that doing an embroidery every day for a year is different (and I guess in my opinion, better) than doing 365 embroideries over some indefinite period of time.

That's just the way my mind works; your mileage may vary.  If you've done daily art, why did you do it?  If you're thinking that maybe you might want to do daily art, what aspect of it is appealing to you?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Sign of the week

More thoughts on daily art -- plan ahead!

Last week I wrote a couple of posts about my daily art projects.  This year I'm doing hand-stitching every day, and a weekly themed photo collection.  Several people commented about their love for, or non-love for, similar endeavors.  Linda asked how I deal with obstacles like holidays and visitors; Drew wondered whether she might want to start a daily art project on her birthday rather than waiting for the first of the year.

For them, or anybody else contemplating a daily art project, I would say that planning is the key to a project that works or one that fizzles.  You have to choose something that will fit in with your life and your capabilities.  But the good news is that you get to set the rules.

For instance, my project in 2001 was to make a quilt square for every day.  On days when I was home, usually working in the studio, it was easy: at the end of the day I would gather up bits and pieces left from that day's work and piece them into a square.  On days when we were traveling or too busy for me to have studio time, I would look for a striking visual image from the day.

I knew that we were going to be on the road a lot, so I set my rules to accommodate that.  I didn't require myself to actually sew the square that day, just to have one square per day at the end of the year.  While we traveled I would think about my project and try to decide which image to use and how I might execute it, but sometimes it would be weeks before I actually finished the square.

a trip to Washington DC in cherry blossom time

Similarly, in 2010 I resolved to take a photo every day and post it to my blog.  But again, I knew we were planning to travel a lot, and at the time I didn't have a way to access my blog remotely.  So my rule was that if I was away, I'd wait and post the photos when I got home, as long as I actually shot the photo on the given day.

By contrast, in 2011 I changed the rules so I had to post the photo that day, but didn't have to actually shoot it that day.  This allowed me to go to my archives of old photos for good images from the past.  And it gave me the freedom to post in advance when we were going to be away.

This year my hand-stitching project has proven to be extremely flexible.  Even if I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks, the fabric and embroidery floss fit into a small ziplock bag and I can work on it anywhere.  I can sew and talk (or listen) at the same time, so if I'm visiting somebody or somebody is visiting me, I can do the day's stitching while carrying on a conversation.  I enjoy days when I have meetings, because I can stitch/multitask instead of carving out time in which I'm only stitching.  I also gave myself some flexibility by writing the rules such that I have a day of grace period -- if I don't finish today's stitching today, I can do it tomorrow.

this will hold me for one week -- or if I'm tight on space, I can take lots less embroidery floss

Last year I had a project in which every week I would make at least one bundle or package of things I found around the house, in the studio or on the street.  If I was on the road, I had to find and assemble bundles from things I acquired en route.  Obviously the bundles from travel weeks were smaller than those made at home, because I knew I had to shlep them back with me, but that was part of the challenge.

bundle from a trip -- luggage tags and other travel detritus, tied up with luggage tag elastics

I've learned not to bite off more than I can chew.  If your rules are flexible, it's much easier to keep up with the project.  For instance, I made at least one bundle per week.  In busy weeks, there was only one; at more leisurely times I might make six, seven or eight bundles in the week.  That was fun, but I didn't feel guilty if I only had time for one.

I recommend that if you give yourself a grace period in your rules, you don't make it too long.  If you allow yourself to put off the daily art for days or even weeks, you're losing a lot of the essence of the endeavor.  Also if you get too far behind you will find it harder and harder to catch up; the project will become a chore rather than an adventure.

I also recommend a dry run before you embark on a year's worth of daily art.  Thinking about a project and actually doing it are two different things.  Unless you know how long it takes you to stitch a certain sized piece or make a certain sized collage or draw a picture, you won't know whether it's feasible to do that day in and day out.  Be realistic, and it's better to underpromise -- you can always do a little more some days, and feel good about it.

Photo suite 39 -- brick messages

Embroidery update 2 -- faces

Hard to believe that we're almost three-quarters of the way through 2012, but a daily art project has a way of reminding you how time passes.  A couple of years ago my daily art project required labels that said "Day 264," which really kept the issue front-of-mind.  But this year I see how long the sewed-together panels are getting.

I've picked up a few new themes since the last time I reported to you.  Recently I've been trying to do faces.  Since I don't draw, this is a challenge.

This guy is drawn in my own style -- I frequently doodle whole pages of faces in the crowd and they all look pretty much like this.

Copied this one from somebody's drawing -- can't reconstruct who it was or where I saw it.

Copied the next two from Picasso.

Here's a faux Picasso.  (He does it much better than I do.)

Daily art thoughts

I love daily art and in fact I started this blog as a vehicle for my daily art project in 2010.  Since then I'm on my third year of daily photographs (well, this year it's weekly, but same concept...) in which posting to the blog is the essential step in the rules.  I've also done various daily and weekly art projects in which the essential step is just to make the things, not to post them, so blog readers may see an occasional update, but not the entire array.

I decided I should be more organized in documenting and displaying my daily art.  While you can click on "daily art" and read all of my posts on this blog, they're kind of disorganized and you might have to look through posts on several different projects to follow just one.  So I'm getting my house in order.

I've started a new blog, Kathy's Daily Art, solely to show my daily art projects, current and past.  The three years of photos are there in full (I hope I can remember to cross-post new photos to both blogs).  And I plan to take complete photos of my other projects as soon as possible.

Unfortunately my seven years of daily postcards are unavailable.  For six years, I sent a postcard to my mother every day, and after she died I got them all back, but still haven't been able to summon up the grit to go through them, let alone organize and photograph them.  And the year after she died, when I sent daily postcards to all her closest relatives, I didn't keep good track of them.  It would probably be too much to expect that all eleven recipients faithfully kept all their cards and could let me document them.

But I'll be posting pictures of my daily art quilt (2001), my weekly bundles and packages (2011), and my daily hand-stitching (2012).  And I'll keep posting the photos to this blog, as well as updates on my non-photo projects.

Somehow this feels especially right.  I love daily art because of its structure and discipline, and I realize that it's even better when you can record and present everything you have done.  So please check out my new blog at your leisure.

And a reminder -- it's getting toward the end of the year!  That means it's not too soon to start thinking about whether you might like to do a daily or weekly art project yourself in 2013.  Some years I have come up with my daily art idea on the morning of January 1; others I have thought about it in advance and maybe even done a few dry runs in advance.  One year it took all of one day of dry run to realize that my idea was unworkable, but I'm glad that happened in December instead of on New Year's Day.  If you're intrigued by daily art, maybe you'd like to try a month of it and see whether you like it.  October and November would be really good times for that experiment, if I might be so bold as to make a suggestion.