I found this research task a little confusing. It was hard to understand if the learning objective was about using a project to instil a habit of creating every day, or if it was about cultivating long-term or long-form projects.
Looking at the video link provided in the text about a project by OCA tutor Bryan Eccleshall, I reflected on his conviction to crack on, do the work through the work create space for things to emerge or evolve. He sees beauty in the mundane through his photography and drawings. There is something honest about that, but I am not sure it resonated with me.
While I have slowly started to learn how to make progress with projects without the need for a muse or other source of inspiration I find drawing or otherwise creating just for the sake of it extremely difficult. There is a reason why I chose illustration and not fine art - I strongly feel that (for my own work, at least) it has to have a purpose. Without some kind of objective to meet or problem to solve I find initiation extremely difficult.
I liked the 'The Clock' project by Christain Marclay a lot - this seems to fall on the side of painstaking creation, rather than a daily habit. On Kawara seems to sit in the middle of that spectrum, creating both a daily habit and in time painstakingly creating a project that would last the rest of his life. I found the other suggested sources confusing, and I found it hard to dissect their library or projects to discover which ones were applicable to this task.
So instead I went back to something I had first-hand experience with. In 2018, while I was trying to build a sketchbook practice ahead of starting my degree, I took part in a daily drawing challenge set by The House of Illustration. The challenge was, for the month of September, to mimic the daily habit John Vernon Lord undertook in 2016 to create a 1-inch square illustration.
I had done other monthly challenges before, particularly things like Inktober, but I find that I rarely have the stamina or interest to complete the full month, let alone a year. Again, this is related to my ADHD - sustaining interest for a project for that long is nigh-on impossible. The Vernon Lord project was different, however, as each image was only a small square. I could plan it, they didn't take very long and there is only so much you can do with those dimensions before you start getting into the realm of painting miniatures!
The exercise was great as the brief was the purpose and the constraint. It left a lot of space within the context of these small squares to try out different subjects, techniques and materials.
It's hard to think about how I might create my own long-term project this way. I barely got through 30 days of tiny squares! I have an acquaintance who takes a candid selfie every day (give or take) and I have seen video montages of fathers who have taken a picture of their children every day, placing them into a montage where you see them grow and age before your very eyes.
Honestly, a project like that fills me with dread. I just know that I do not have the interest to sustain a project like that. It's not a question of determination, willpower or interest. I have an abundance of those qualities. It's about interest and focus. I find that realisation quite depressing, actually. It makes me feel like a failure before I have even started. When I do try something, those feelings almost make failing a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I wonder if people realise how upsetting that is for people with brains like mine? To know that, most of the time, you will be seen as lazy, feckless or scatty? That no matter how hard you try, you never seem to quite measure up to people's expectations.
So how might I produce a similar daily project to the ones I have researched? Honestly, at the moment the answer to that question illudes me. Perhaps part of that block is a self-imposed expectation that the project needs to be some kind of drawing or painting.
The reason that the Vernon Lord challenge worked was that it had a very low activation barrier. So one kind of project I could do could instead be photography related, given that I carry around a smartphone most of the time.
That would solve the medium problem, but I am not sure it would solve the problem of the subject matter. This also needs to interest me enough to persist with the project.
The other project I would like to do (so has the kernel of the interesting part of the equation) is to create a daily comic strip. The problem I have had with activating that project has always been the (again, self-imposed) expectation for a daily strip to be funny. While I might have funny observations now and again, it feels like an immense amount of pressure to knock out an idea for a strip every day.
Doing something daily needs to be fun - I can't even keep a bullet journal because after the novelty wears off, so does my focus for using the journal (despite the fact that it's designed to help me organise my life and look after myself).
So, let's review things that help me with executive activation:
It needs to be visible - if I see it I remember it.
It needs to be accessible - if it's easy to do I am more likely to start it
It needs to be interesting - if I am stimulated I will persist
It needs to be constrained - if I have boundaries I know what 'done' looks like
So, thinking out loud, one thing that I could co-opt is a wall calendar, and hang it in an easy to access place - ideally in my office where I will see it most of the time.
A calendar can have squares - these are a constraint and defined space.
So the question is, how do I fill the space. Ideas that come to mind initially are
Draw or otherwise mark-make directly into the space, maybe with whatever I have to hand on my desk/s?
If the squares are about the right size, one interesting option could be to use a post-it.
As to what to choose as the images - one thing could be to choose an expression. This could be useful to help me with depicting expressions over time. I could also just adopt the approach I took for the Vernon Lord challenge and make it up as I go along, allowing space to try techniques, or simply doodle.
I think some kind of accountability to the world is also useful, so the downside of the calendar is that it's hard to put that out into the world, but I could see about using my phone to quickly get each day onto Instagram.
So, I am not going to rush into this, but as I write this mid-November, we are coming up to a nice cadence where new calendars will be in the shops ready for 2022. So I will contemplate this more, building up the ideas and activation energy in my head to try and start something in January. In this way it's good to take my time - if I rush into a bright shiny idea it's actually less likely to keep going. I need to make this a slow-burner.
One thing that might be achievable as a goal though is a weekly strip. That's less pressure than a daily thing and gives me space each week to put something out into the world. I am sure in 52 editions I will have learned a lot as well. I think I will plan how I can produce a small webcomic strip weekly in 2022.
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