100 pearls: luminous and mediocre

celebrating an accomplishment

Welcome to your mid-week snack break. 

Today I’m celebrating a daily practice milestone and so have earned the right for a quick humblebrag: I’ve just completed a 100-day art challenge. Every day for 100 days I’ve made a tiny piece of art which I’ve shared on my Instagram account.¹

This is the fourth consecutive year I’ve taken part in the project. 

Last year, my 100-day project was ushered in with a 30-day-quarantine-art challenge and escorted out by my personal 99-days-until-the-election art challenge. All total in 2020, on Instagram alone, I created and posted 258 digital drawings². That doesn’t take into account any of the other art I made. (I was due to have a solo show in early spring, which was quarantine cancelled).

When I began this year’s 100-day project, I set out to capture my observations of quirky everyday occurrences or “preserving the juicy little bits of every day.” That’s sort of a cop out for “whatever I feel like drawing.” I’d say I’ve kiiiinda stuck with that? In previous years, my theme has been drawings about food. One year I focused on drawing meaningful objects in my life. 

I’m grateful to have, once again, taken part in this challenge. I’m grateful for its structure and encouragement. I’m grateful for the work that I produced—some luminous, some mediocre. I’m grateful for the process. 

There’s a difference between work made whenever random inspiration strikes, and work resulting from daily effort of hunting down and scavenging for even the tiniest scrap of inspiration. The former is lovely: light and airy and beautiful. A bucolic image of artist as dreamer. The latter is closer to the truth. Artist in a post-apocalyptic Thunderdome of their own mind, not just searching for glimpses of inspiration, but tracking them down, capturing and devouring them —consuming every iota of idea. While still gnawing at the bones of the recent hunt, metaphorical blood dribbling down the chin, the artist hungrily scans the horizon for more prey. Every. Damn. Day.   

So, yeah, I’m grateful to be done with this 100-day challenge. 

Sometimes I feel like a content machine. 

Sometimes I feel like I need a break. 

But: daily practice.  

I’ll be taking a few days off from my daily art practice. I’m going to re-assess what I’m doing, what I’m investing in it, what I’m getting out of it and what I’m hoping to get out of it. One hundred days ago, when I embarked on the 2021 challenge, this newsletter was maybe an unconscious tickle in the back of my throat, but most certainly not on the tip of my pen. 

These 100 days represent .5% of my entire life, but I feel like so very much happened: I’ve had two vaccinations, lost people to COVID, rejoiced over new humans coming into existence, I’ve argued, I’ve loved, I’ve spent 3 weeks in a 600 square foot cottage caregiving my COVID positive parents and then moved them into assisted living, I’ve started this big scary new project, I’ve made big plans, I’ve said goodbye to some projects, I’ve cried, I’ve created, but every day I’ve made art and shared it with the world. 

That’s something worth bragging about; but also, I’m hoping to provide you with a little inspiration for your own daily creative practice (minus the scary sounding hundred days and massive time commitment). We’ll talk more about that soon—today is about honoring an achievement.

Thank you for celebrating with me. 

See you on Sunday.

1. I didn’t invent this particular challenge, but I gladly jump on board and align myself with the dates every year.  To find out more go to the100dayproject.org

2. Let’s say each of those Instagram pieces took an average of 2 hours (some took less, some much more. Many were multi-panel animations. Not counting the time it takes to compose the wording of a post, that’s 516 hours or 3 months of 40 hour work weeks.