My 365 Projects

Here's a summary of my Make Something 365 projects.

Project 4: Flower
On May 30, 2012 I began making a flower a day. I love flowers. There's more energy behind this idea than the spirit boat one. And it offers a lot more ways to focus because it's a physical object. Sometimes narrow is good for wide.

Then life happened (I gave up my house, gave away stuff, moved, etc.) and I decided to give up the daily project. I'm sure I'll pick up another one, because that's what I do.

Project 3: Spirit Boat
I attempted to make a spirit boat a day, based on the Viking concept of spiritual containers aka ships made to house the dead and speed them on their afterlife journey. This project began May 14, 2012. I didn't even get to 10 boats before I started dropping out. This project ended May 30, 2012.

P.S. - Here's a symbol called "Spirit Ship (Ship of the Slain)" with a short explanation.

Project 2: Sky

"untitled" by Elaine Greywalker

On March 21, 2011 I started "A Sky a Day." I decided on skies because they are easily attainable in Bryce and can be lovely abstracts. So far, about half of them have been made in Bryce with a smaller percentage being photos. Bryce has some lovely skies and I have resorted to posting a stock sky just to get the thing done.

I've worked in Bryce since 1995. The first work I produced was untitled, a view of floating stones and a mountain (see at right). I went to a lot of trouble to make the texture for the mountain. It actually glitters close up. This piece has been my most popular work to date. Three of the five original prints have been acquired.

This project ended April 14, 2012 with approximately 30 skies left to go. However, it was a full year project even though I missed a day here and there.

Project 1: Archive

Project 1 began in January 2011 and stopped in February.

My notebooks and sketch pads.

I pulled together years of creating "Morning Pages" as described by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way. I can't tell you with certainty when I started writing morning pages. I do have evidence that by 1996 I was doing them regularly.

At some point in the process, I added in drawings or made art instead of writing or I simply did whatever else I felt like doing during those precious morning minutes of freed consciousness. Some days I ended up with a poem or a decent work of art. On most days I ended up with drivel - which is how it works.

For this 365 project I created postings by taking publishable words and art or a photo made on the same month and day as the date of the post. Doing this every day was way too transformative and disrupting, in a good and yet scary way. I am thinking about trying this weekly for a more gentle transformation.