100 day project

Back in January I watched this TEDx talk by Emma Rogan about 100-day projects (such a pleasure to hear her kiwi accent) based on the teaching work of Michael Beirut. I was really taken by the simplicity of the 100-day idea and of how it relates to the work I do with students to help them get started with the importance of daily work (aka a practice).

I thought I’d have a go, and yesterday was the end of what turned out to be a rather shambolic rambling-type experience. I got bored, excited, confused, and uncertain, but I didn’t skip a day. My project was taking an Italian¹ word of the day and then somehow illustrating (at times very loosely) the word with a photograph or sketch.

Doing the 100-day project certainly involved a certain amount of discipline, but the difficult part is creating a structure (or set of constraints) that are tight enough to make it playful and to perhaps give the project a particular character. I’m not sure I did this that well.

Just for the record, the photographs are here: flickr.com/photos/skellis/sets/72157633258793450/.

And for any of you interested in software, I kept the Italian words, example sentences and the images in journal software (that exports as text files if necessary) called Day One (that syncs across OSX and and iOS).

Now to start preparation for a 100-day project that is a little closer to my work as a dancer …