Learn as I go

Okay, so the reverb challenge was a bit of a flop. Not a total waste, but truth be told, writing is not my "thing". It's part of all of the good stuff, there is writing involved in everything I do but writing to write, not so much. So, staying true to form and not knowing when to say no, I've taken on a new challenge. 

I can obsess with the best of them, it just has to be the right subject, I guess. The writing didn't hook me (it may have been to reminiscent of homework) but the art has. 

Fun-a-day is being organized locally, there are something like 60 people signed up for it. Similar to reverb, the challenge is to make one piece of art a day, everyday in January. To start the year off right! Logically it makes no sense, I could write a blog post in 1/2 and hour, but this little project has me hunched over my studio table for several hours every night after work. But somehow, it speaks to me. 


At first I thought of making a small object every night, adding them together so that by the end of the month I would have a small installation, much like the 12x12 I did a couple years back for the Harwood. But no, finally being hit with the creative bug that I've been waiting for, I had to make it complicated. Rather than making something new each night, I chose to document my creative process of making, technically, one thing. Okay so I'm stretching the meaning of this one-a-day idea, but I'm an artist, I'm allowed right? 

So I'm making a doll (which I haven't done since I was 10) and creating a stop motion video of the process (which I have essentially never done- I did get stop motion in the brain because of a blog I read from a reverb link, so reverb did play it's part!). Every night I take 50 pictures of my little doll. She's set up in a box on  my desk with my camera set up a few feet away. As you may have predicted (a fun creative idea leaves me blind to reality) this is turning out to be a lot of work. On top of the work itself, is the learning curve. 50 pictures equals about 9 seconds of actual video time. So an hour or twos work of little movements and improvements to the doll should seem like a lot has to transpire, but if I make too much happen in a nights work, it's lost in the blink of an eye in the actual video. Anyway, this is way too much detail. The point is I'm learning as I go, you can see it in the documentation. It's humbling. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, if I'm going to display something, I don't want to show my process or in other words, my mistakes. With this, there is no going back, once a change has been made and the picture taken I can't undo it! 

So, this is a sure way to whip myself into shape, learn something about creating stop motion, or at least creating my own little techniques. By the end of the month I'll have a four minute (give or take) documentation of my learning, my creative process, inspired and uninspired nights. 

Here I am at day nine, this is what I have so far. 

Something is wrong with the first couple seconds of this video, but you get the idea.