My friend Toby Billowitz in Brooklyn, NY is doing a project he simply calls My 365. He says, "I started out following the daily assignments from the creativity journal and waiting to see if a theme would emerge. Since then, I have freely swapped assignment days and in some cases gone off-book entirely, and a theme that has recurred is self-portraiture. I started out a bit ashamed that I didn't leap on a cool theme from the beginning, but I like what I'm doing better now."...
Why did you decide to do this project? I was a big fan of the skull project. I had started open-ended daily projects in the past that didn't survive very far. The earliest ones were writing assignments, maintaining daily pages for The Artist's Way, and later writing a sonnet every day, which lasted about two weeks. There's a sense of accomplishment however long the project lasts (10 sonnets in twelve days!) but I'm optimistic because of the structure of the journal, my project's alignment with the calendar year and the momentum of the web as a sharing tool. I've always been torn between my creative side and my analytical side, and can't always satisfy both at the same time. The creative has been lacking recently, and this has been a nice way to give that part of my brain some more exercise.
How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? With only the first month under my belt, I have already played with a few new skills: writing and recording a song, editing music and video, and I've gotten pretty efficient at editing photos and blogging. I have more confidence in my writing than in my visual art skills, but have become more comfortable thinking in different media. I have had to get creative to adjust the scope of each day's project to my available time, and have been developing my ability to recognize the difference in the time necessary for, say, sculpting cooked rice vs. organizing a flash mob.
See all of Toby's projects on his site HERE.
Why did you decide to do this project? I was a big fan of the skull project. I had started open-ended daily projects in the past that didn't survive very far. The earliest ones were writing assignments, maintaining daily pages for The Artist's Way, and later writing a sonnet every day, which lasted about two weeks. There's a sense of accomplishment however long the project lasts (10 sonnets in twelve days!) but I'm optimistic because of the structure of the journal, my project's alignment with the calendar year and the momentum of the web as a sharing tool. I've always been torn between my creative side and my analytical side, and can't always satisfy both at the same time. The creative has been lacking recently, and this has been a nice way to give that part of my brain some more exercise.
How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? With only the first month under my belt, I have already played with a few new skills: writing and recording a song, editing music and video, and I've gotten pretty efficient at editing photos and blogging. I have more confidence in my writing than in my visual art skills, but have become more comfortable thinking in different media. I have had to get creative to adjust the scope of each day's project to my available time, and have been developing my ability to recognize the difference in the time necessary for, say, sculpting cooked rice vs. organizing a flash mob.
See all of Toby's projects on his site HERE.
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