012310 - Day 13 of 365

OK, now this is kind of interesting.

Being the weekend, and having been in a class all day (and returning tomorrow) I couldn't help but thinking, Should, renegotiate my rules? Or more accurately, should I define my rules for this project? I can't help but wonder will 365 days straight be too much? Will I risk burning out because of it being such a commitment. What will I do when I travel?

Then, considering what this project is about-- I'll have plenty of flexibility to define, revise, and refine as I go. I don't have to do the same thing (paint) every day,.. as long as it's contributing to myself 'exploring creativity' every day. Although I intend to keep painting the dominant theme, I know it can be so many other things,.. photography, one of my graphic recipes, some doodles,.. etc. etc. This will give me some flexibility and freedom and still keep me 'IN' the project.

So I decided to do something different.. less set up/tear down intensive,.. and less time intensive. I decided to be spontaneous, be committed to 'quick'. Then I decided to work on a different surface... something less clean, less perfect, and intimidating than a bland sheet of paper. Well, one thing led to another... after rooting around my apartment and flipping through magazines,.. I looked over at the books on my shelves... grabbed one I had found on the street and carried home one day-- then simply opened it up and ripped out a random page. I liked the idea of working over texture created by the text on the page. I then grabbed a highlighter... hit the words/phrases that jumped out at me... "You were wrong" and "danger is not new". Then grabbed some charcoal and sketched a few crude birds (perhaps stemmed by the 'danger' word and a poor dead bird I had found behind my flat files while doing a big clean of my apartment last weekend. Yes,.. IN my apartment. The poor thing must have come in an open window-- then flown into the glass trying to escape). As I went to put the project day number on the bottom of the page-- I notice it was page 136-- easily changed to be 'day 13'. I proceeded to roll some acrylic paints on to add texture and obscure the words and images.. then, as I was finishing up, I noticed the title at the header of the page.. which read, "Freedom".

All a bit ironic (the words on the page, day 13, the dead bird,.. the title 'Freedom')-- but all discovered from being open,.. changing my patterns,.. and being willing to deal with (time) constraints. Which showed me once again-- that creativity and innovation LOVE constraint.

Thanks for coming back-

dave